Tuesday, January 1, 2013

beginnings

Happy New Year to my dear friends in this little room!

This feels like Thoreau's cabin in the woods by Walden Pond: one simple door, a window on each side, a shelter out back for firewood. The truth is, this year I want to do more than sit on that doorstep and look out all morning. I have some serious work to do, because I don't much like the shape of my life. The essentials are good, and strong. But I need discipline. I feel it deeply.

I am going to start with simplifying. I bet you're thinking, But haven't you already started that, in this quieter writing space? Perhaps, yes! Maybe this was the first step, and important in the past year.

Now, I want to live. Simply live. Live simply. I want to do what needs doing when it needs doing, and in the small, steady doing be who I want to be. Simple living does not mean being inactive, and I have not attended to the stuff of my life as well as I'd wish.

So off with that weight! First thing: finish folding the laundry on the couch. And guess what. Our couch is the color of a washed stone!

Again, Happy New Year! May we live it as fully as we can. Much love.


27 comments:

  1. Happy Beginnings, Ruth, and I admire your commitment. To "simply live" is to partake fully of the gift of life, but, as you wisely recognize, it is nearly impossible to "simply live" unless we "live simply." Good luck on all of the changes you seek. For what it's worth, I think this special New Year's Day is not the most important beginning of the year. Every moment is a new beginning—every hour, every day, every word, every decision, every encounter. The Buddhist have it right when they remind us to approach every minute with "beginner's mind."

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    1. George, thank you for your encouragement toward my goals. And thank you especially for your extremely knowing declarations about every moment, hour, day, encounter, etc., being fresh beginnings. It is easy to get discouraged when I feel mired in defeat. But it is always possible to start afresh.

      I rarely set up New Year's resolutions, and though this post coincides with the New Year, I don't know if it has to do with that so much as with the book I am reading: Michael Singer's The Untethered Soul, which I recommended to you from just a few quotes I had read. I began to ask myself, Who am I? What do I want? And this is the start of a flowing answer.

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  2. Yes, here's to seeking out what is truely great in the coming moments. I didn't say days because it's the moments that matter in making our lives more simple.

    I feel you are well on your way my dear friend..
    for we hear it in the sky..

    xo Liz

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    1. Liz, thank you for emphasizing moments, not days (or years, we could also say). And thank you for your encouragement, and the beautiful way you said it. I do feel hopeful. I've always felt that the most important thing is where we are facing. The small failings along the way (or big ones too) are part of moving us toward the goal. Happy New Year to you, Liz.

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  3. Sending heart-felt wishes for a wonderful year.

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    1. Thank you, my friend. And I wish you a very inspired year ahead.

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  4. Your post reminds me of a tee-shirt my husband has been wearing for years – on it is says “Live simply, so that other may live.” I think it is a noble thought in our materialistic world. We are going to have to sell our 1997 Pontiac so that we may get a better 4-door car for traveling to Tennessee – but no SUV for us – we will look for an electric Prius.
    I hope you attain everything you wish for in 2013 and be happy with your life – years pass too quickly – we need to enjoy them to the fullest.

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  5. correction - I think it is "so that others may live" I always forget the "s"

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  6. I seem to be in a similar place, Ruth... My "take" on it for myself is that it is becoming imperative to live as the Heart (the Beingness that we are) wants to live. Which means truly discovering what THAT is - not as in what is "my" purpose, but what is the Natural Rhythm of living that wants to be lived here, in this life, this body, etc. And as you say LIVE it. I have a mystic's heart. I can't help it. And so I am drawn to discovering who we truly are underneath the surface, and living from that place... I am frustrated with the shape of my surface life, with its distractions and interruptions (my perception :) and so am feeling the need to get the practical aspects of living in order - more manageable, which is probably what you're saying by "simplifying", so that I *can* follow the Rhythm of the Heart of Being - which for me seems to be in a more contemplative way. It may be a delusion to think I can get the practical out of the way :). Even as I write this it doesn't sound right... And as you say, all this has nothing to do with it being the New Year, as we are forever in the Eternal Now, but has more to do with following the Natural Rhythm of Being that wants to Live Fully. Glad to know there are others feeling it too!

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  7. I wish you well in your new beginnings. I think when we're truly honest with ourselves, simplification is what's best. We all have different versions of that, but what's important is that we strive to get there. I'm encouraged by your commmitment, and inspired by your thinking here at Washed Stones. Happy New Year!

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  8. it is incredible what great work and perserverance simplifying requires. the world and its... what? - distractions seems to grow up through the self like a fecund forest overnight and each day we must find our way through the growth to something more essentail.

    i hear you, sweet ruth. i hear you and see you in the field, on the mountain, in the desert and down by the river.

    what might we find inside the scourge of the wind, beneath the blister of the midday sun? i hold your hand there and we walk together, two women who have never met in body but surely have in spirit))))

    (((let's begin)))

    xo
    erin

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  9. Hope you have a wonderful and fulfilling year Ruth! I will be trying to live more simply and simply live this year too:)

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  10. Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes! I've been yearning for that same type of simplification (so difficult) as well. You will succeed, and you're right: the first act of simplifying our lives is to attend (and attend to) them.

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  11. Thanks for the reminder, I told Margaret I would do a load of wash.

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  12. Yes. let's move while we can and do it tll we love it and couldn't imagine not doing it. Happiest of New Years to you dear Ruth.

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  13. Does starting to color again count??? :D I feel like a new-brand person. Getting back to what makes me soulful. We're on a similar path, sister.

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  14. "Simplify, simplify." Of course, Thoreau could have simplified by saying it just once, but so what? The message comes through. Wishing you a year of satisfying success at more being and less doing, with just enough discipline to make it work. Happy new year!

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  15. Virginia Wolfe said, "Writing is resurrection". Wendell Berry says, in his "Mad Farmer Liberation Front", "Practice resurrection".

    That's quite a pair of quotations for a new year, more powerful together than taken apart. It feels to me as though you're experiencing both - as am I.

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  16. Happy New Year to you too Ruth,

    Thanks for sharing this blog with us all.

    Wendy

    (ps. having had trouble linking my blog through comments, I'm trying again - would anyone mind clicking through just to see if it works? Thanks!) Wendy

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    1. Hi, Wendy. Yes, I was able to get to your site Temporary Reality. It's lovely.

      I hope you are off to a wonderful start of a new year!

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    2. Thank you! I saw that I'd had a visitor or two :) Whew, I feel like I'm finally dressed for the party!

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  17. Dear Friends, I have been remiss and have not responded to your welcoming, celebratory and like-minded responses. You touch me, and I feel you, and it is a wonderful thing to connect with you. I am just struck nearly silent, please forgive me.

    Silence will do though, when words won't.

    And I am finding photos easier to express myself, at small (linked in the margin).

    Much love.

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  18. Dear Ruth,
    Wishing you and yours a New Year filled with much happiness, joy, good health and peace!
    My warm regards.

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  19. Well - I'm really late to be here wishing you a happy new year...but then and to that - I wish you a year of simplicity..and all that you want to 'do'!!!

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  20. amen to discipline - working on that myself, dear ruth.

    wishing you bundles of happiness, peace, health and that good old discipline in the new year~


    with love,

    amanda

    p.s. i've been away for a couple weeks and working on my novel. as it happens, when you concentrate on one project in your life, others slip away into the background, like blogging. it's hard to spin multiple plates, so some must occasionally fall.

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  21. Splendid. And when you need to be grounded, visit your grandson and sink your face into his warm neck :) Happiness can not be any simpler than that. My youngest is five and I KNOW this simple joy will slip away soon enough...

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All responses are welcome.