Create Your Day

AA wrote: Yes! We can heal the world and make it a better place. Hugs from us 

Create Your Day

I wake at dawn

I am the light

With my rising

I create my day

                     Magister Daire

It is a bit later than dawn when I get up, but still very early in the morning. I love to start the day with a few delectable moments when the only ones  awake are the morning, the birds and me. I go out on my balcony, saying thank you to the mountains and the fresh air, feeling how the morning light fills me with vitality, and looking forward to create another day in my life.

To live is a big responsibility. We all create our lives, even though many factors are given: our parents, our birthplace, our qualities, talents, and limitations... The question is, how do we handle these factors? And what do we do about the difficult or less fortunate ones? We can change our bad habits, and we can, for example, move away from a depressing house or city.

Every little thing we choose to do (or not to do), influences our day, just as every little kind or unkind word we utter does. You might feel it is a heavy responsibility, but it is also an immense possibility: to create a unique and beautiful life where you spread kindness around and where you, in a small but never insignificant way, can make the world a better place.

Hugging for Happiness

AA wrote: Sending you a big virtual hug!

BB wrote: Ich schicke Dir hiermit ein besonders dickes und festes Drückerli!

Hugging for Happiness

There are many reasons why we want to be touched. The simplest and most profound is that touch heals us. The way a drop of water spreads when touched, the pains of living that we carry spread when we are held and comforted. 

Mark Nepo: The Book of Awakening

There are studies showing the profound effect of a gentle touch from another living being, but who needs scientific proof..? We all know how good it feels to be touched or held by somebody who cares for us: immediately we relax, and deep down inside we feel that we are not alone. 

I am one of those people who just loves hugging; sometimes I even get the chance to do a hugging meditation, which is pure bliss. Basically, I never get enough of hugs and the visceral feeling they give me of sharing life’s burdens. 

Living in a country where hugging is not on the daily order (as it is in Sweden, where you hug when you meet a friend), I cannot always fill my Hugging Quota, but today I will find somebody to hug. Have you hugged somebody tightly today...?

Sharing a Meal

AA wrote: Lucky me! Who has shared your wonderful meals... Have a beautiful start of this new summer week!

Sharing a Meal

I'm just someone who likes cooking and for whom sharing food is a form of expression. 

Maya Angelou

Like Maya, I love cooking. For me, it is a creative act:  I’ve invented a couple of dishes throughout my cooking career, but I also adore exploring the Internet for inspiration: just by entering my ingredients I get loads of tempting recipes!

I cook for myself twice a day (my morning Bircher-müesli or porridge don’t count), and I never get tired of it. However, it is a lot more inspiring to cook for more than one person, so as often as possible I invite family or friends over for lunch or dinner. Sharing a healthy and beautiful meal, prepared with care, is a wonderful way to express love towards the people in your world. After all, enjoying food - preferably together -  is one of the big pleasures in life! 

Do you enjoy cooking as much as I do - or do you prefer being cooked for? ;-)

Sadness Works Its Ways

AA wrote: Sabina, This is one of your most beautifully insightful pieces. 

My suspicion is that you, like me, are more a person of sunshine than cloud. But I have learned to savor the mists - and you have expressed this very well. Have a wonderful day, friend.

BB wrote: Som du vet läser jag dina ’krönikor’ med glädje, även om jag inte kommenterar alla. Tack!

Sadness Works its Ways

Perhaps somewhere, someplace deep inside your being, you have undergone important changes while you were sad.

Rainer Maria Rilke

We all have our blue periods. Sometimes we know why, and sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we can move out of them with some effort, but most often we can’t. 

When I’m in the middle of a sad period, the only thing I know is that I need to accept feeling low and not getting worked up about it. The sadness has a right to stay the time necessary for it to pass. 

Under the grey veil, life goes on. I spend as much time as possible hiking or writing, but otherwise I stick to "business as usual”. In the meantime, things are happening inside me. I do not really notice it, but once I come out at the other side of the tunnel, important changes have taken place while the sadness covered my soul. I suddenly see things clearly, that where hidden before. I discover some deeper truth about myself, or about life.  

Allow your sad times to work their way through you  -  and know, that they will change you if you let them. Change you for the better. 

Make Your Ego Porous

AA wrote: Very nicely written dear Sabina ... Thank you!
BB wrote: Bra skrivet!
CC wrote: This is beautiful, Sabina. I am enjoying your gifts. - Keep going!

Make Your Ego Porous

Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything.
                                                 Rainer Maria Rilke

It is easy to be too concentrated on your own wishes and needs – believing that the whole world circles around you. On the other side of the scale, you can also care too little about yourself – believing that the whole world circles around somebody else/others. The challenge is to find balance.

While I feel it is essential not to forget what makes myself happy - and doing my best to get that into my life - I find it equally essential, as Rilke says, to make my ego porous: I am not the center of the universe (luckily!), but just a tiny part of it. Still, in this tininess I can make a difference. By living my full potential of happiness and by being open, patient and loving towards others I create positive ripples on the ocean of life. 

Besides spending time in nature I find my greatest inspiration in solitude: there, I strengthen my integrity, my resolve to care deeply for others, and learn to gracefully accept whatever life serves me.