Ancient Wisdom for Modern Times/ Happy New Year from Your Oakville REALTOR!
January 1st, 2008 Categories: Books I Read, Food for Soul and Spirit
I awoke this New Year’s Day to a mantle of white on the trees behind our home and the comforting silence of snow falling. A gentle start to a New Year.
Nature has inspired me to pass on excerpts from Anam Cara, A Book of Celtic Wisdom by John O’Donohue, which I read over the holidays. O’Donohue, an Irish poet, scholar and philosopher writes with an arrestingly original, cadenced quality, while culling enduring truths from ancient Celtic tradition.
He reminds us of things that we should watch for, and may have let go of, in our modern way of living.
I appreciate O’Donohue not just for what he says, but for how he says it. Even beyond his refreshing use of words is the lyrical quality of his spoken voice, which I had the good fortune of hearing on a radio program a few years ago.
On Being Yourself:
“The shape of each soul is different. There is a secret destiny for each person. When you endeavor to repeat what others have done or force yourself into a preset mold, you betray your individuality… We will find ourselves more frequently at that place of childlike discovery…that place of ease, light, and celebration. The false burdens fall away. We come into rhythm with ourselves. Our clay shape gradually learns to walk beautifully on this magnificent earth.”
On Competition:
“The world of quantity is always haunted by competition. If I have less, you have more. But in the world of soul, the more you have, the more everyone has. The rhythm of soul is the surpise of endless enrichment.”
Having has Become the Sinister Enemy of Being:
“The motor and agenda of greed is always the same. Joy is possession but sadly possession is ever restless. It has an inner insatiable hunger. Greed is poignant because it is always haunted and emptied by future possibility. It can never engage presence. This greed is now poisoning the earth and impoverishing its people. Having has become the sinister enemy of being.”
On Modern Language:
“The fast-food metaphor provides a deep clue to the poverty of sensibility in modern culture. This is also mirrored in our use of language. Many of the words we use are of the fast-food spiritual variety. These words are too thin to echo experience; they are too weak to bring the inner mystery of thngs to real expression. In our rapid and externalized world, language has become ghostlike, abbrieviated to code and label.”
On Friendship:
“A friend is a loved one who awakens your life in order to free the wild possibilities within you.”
On Memory:
“Memory: Where our vanished days secretly gather”
On Becoming a Poet:
“When you speak from that deep, inner voice, you are really speaking from the unique tabernacle of your own presence. There s a voice within you that no one, not even you, has ever heard. Give yourself the opportunity of silence and begin to develop your listening in order to hear, deep within yourself, the music of your own spirit.”
I believe that many of the things we value most in our high speed and high tech world are beginning to wear thin. There is a hunger for the spiritual, the slower, more gentle and reflective way of living that our forefathers held onto. Must we let go of the latter as we pursue the former?
Blessings and inspiration to you for a profoundly meaningful and beautiful 2008 from your Oakville REALTOR. Call Hilary 905–257–3633, or sign up here to receive regular information about Oakville and Real Estate.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 1st, 2008 at 7:40 pm and is filed under Books I Read, Food for Soul and Spirit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
False burdens. I love how that sums up a lot of what each and everyone go through daily.
Deep thoughts from up north, looks like a lovely snowy start to 2008. Oakville buyers and sellers should be happy to have Hilary.Cheers! Terry McDonald
Hi Hilary,
Had a chance to check out your blog site and found it hard to believe thatit was only a week ago that we had all that snow. Today I am looking at green grass!!!!
A very happy and blessed New Year to you and your family.
Love,
Esther and Peter
Those are some great words to share. We all need to hear them and really take them to heart. Being in real estate is very competitive, and so many agents will never understand what was said about competition. We can all have more, if we all help each other get more. Great words to start 2008.
I’m sorry not to have dropped by your blog more often. I’ve got your blog in my bloglist now and can keep up with what’s going on with Canada real estate. Thanks again for sharing these inspiring messages.
Beautiful sentiments Hilary and all so true. I think I’ll print this off and try to affirm these thoughts often. Best wishes to you for all things good in 2008 both professionally and personally.
Nascar: “false burdens” are those things we North Americans put on ourselves, thanks for stopping by!
Esther and Peter: We need to get together soon, have a great year and keep on stopping by!
Karl: All the best in Pensacola this year, think of us freezing up here!
Marg: Look forward to visiting you in Collingwood and keep on doing a great job up there, you are an inspiration to me! I love the humour and smarts that you have, shows in your writing.