“Once the soul awakens, the search begins and you can never go back. From then on, you are inflamed with a special longing that will never again let you linger in the lowlands of complacency and partial fulfillment. The eternal makes you urgent. You are loath to let compromise or the threat of danger hold you back from striving toward the summit of fulfillment.”
―John O’Donohue
What is your soul in search of?
The loveliest paths to walk can be those that are neither in the full hot sun nor in the dark shade of dense cover, but rather in the shimmering sunlight that filters through many leaves. A flash of white hot insight can be amazing, but mostly we come to understand the world in in bits and snatches, filtered through our daily experiences of the world.
What path leads you to bits of daily insight?
It seems like kind of a cruel holiday—having a day designated to play tricks on people. But life is forever playing tricks on us, both cruel and kind, and it’s maybe it’s not such a bad thing to have a day to remind ourselves that our job is to keep our equilibrium and sense of humor in the face of life’s sudden turns.
What helps you stay balanced when life gets tricky?
The Easter bunny travels around bringing colored eggs for children to find—one of the more truly bizarre assertions of a holiday. But Easter is about the improbable, the strange, the unbelievable notion that not only does life spring from death, but that life is present even in the midst of death, that death may be inevitable and permanent, but still does not have dominion.
What improbable conviction do you hold dear?
Living in the violence of Spring
Living in a time
where shells are cracking
and shapes alter
Who can afford to risk
forgetting the danger
forgetting the moment
the crocus bulb breaks ground
Never knowing whether
snow or sun or ice
awaits in warm or jagged welcome
There are no choices here
No careful path or
reasoned way
No holding in reserve for
some more settled,
more propitious time
But only the unconsidered
faith of the crocus
whose saffron petals echo
or demand the sun
―Lynn Ungar
What in you is demanding to see the sun?
