Living Happiness

As I sit down to write this morning, my mind feels like a nervous butterfly excited to see all of the flowers, not knowing which one to alight on first.

So much has been happening on our little side of the island: overfull online courses, overlong visa applications, and overloud vuvuzelas punctuating the sentences of our days. When we get a moment, G and I haul out for a coffee, a nibble by the sea, sometimes a relaxing hour or two on the beach. We talk to each other, we spend time with neighbors, we try to soak up what we can of this, possibly our last, summer in Greece for a while.

Outside our garden is growing into a small forest. Just the tomato vines alone resemble small trees, and the fresh tomatoes that are finally ripening, drip juicily down our chins when we pluck them and bite into their warm fleshiness. The cucumber bushes migrate over the ground on small feet and continue to produce more cucumbers than we could possibly eat, and the pepper plants put forth enough little offerings that we are constantly bagging up these goodies and presenting them to those we know. Life is fecund. Life is abundant.

Gazing through my French doors onto the back veranda and the flower garden beyond, my eyes fall on pools of green dappled light, a gift from the fig trees.

Over the past weeks and days, I have had more than my fair share of ideas to share with you. Posts that excite me and I feel would excite you, too. They will come. In their time.

But not this morning.

This morning is about you and me sitting and being.

Look out your window this morning.

Tell me what you see.

I would love to know.

With joy,

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*Living Happiness will be on a new summer schedule, posting only twice per week until the fall. Enjoy your summer!

It seemed to be a necessary ritual that he should prepare himself for sleep by meditating under the solemnity of the night sky… a mysterious transaction between the infinity of the soul and the infinity of the universe. ~Victor Hugo

I live with a man who is a creature of habit. Each day he arises and pours himself a glass of water. He sits at the kitchen table, slowly sipping and waking up. Then it’s time for breakfast. Breakfast is a treat: eggs with sun-dried tomatoes, spinach, and feta. This is followed by a mug of tea.

And so the day goes.

I know I have my rituals, too. I wake up each morning and turn on the computer in the spare room (it takes ten minutes to boot). I walk down the hallway and into our front rooms and open the house: swing back shutters, secure windows, let the light in. As I’m doing this, the little brown kitty I’ve been feeding stands up and stretches and waits for me on the back welcome mat. I turn on the kettle and then pour some cat food in a little tin. I walk her out to the edge of the yard to where her dish is waiting … along with the two other cats who’ve figured out morning time is feeding time. I leave them to it and come inside and steep my tea – sometimes English breakfast, sometimes rose peach – then I sit and sip and slowly wake up too.

I am a big fan of rituals. I think of them as the pegs I can hang my thoughts and ideas on, the markers for my beliefs. Sometimes they represent something greater than me – a remembering of something, even a mirroring of what I would like to be. Other times they are simply comfort, a familiar thing I can wrap around me when the world seems cold.

In my own way, I feel they connect me to eternity.

It can be easy, though, for our rituals to take the place of our gods, for our moments of eternity to be reduced to finite markers of what we have or want to achieve. When this happens, rituals are no longer the infinity of the soul interacting with the infinity of the universe.

How do you honor ritual in your life?

How do you allow your soul to regularly interact with infinity?

Your comments today are welcome.

Namaste and peace,

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Photo Credit bigbluemeanie