Ingrid Goff-Maidoff
From the category archives:
I’ve been waiting patiently for the arrival of these boxes so I could wrap them and fill them with 52 inspiring quotations, carefully selected to help bring us back to our centers. I call these BLISS BOXES, and I’m so happy to share them. Click here for product detail page.
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These beautifully wrapped bundles of joy contain 100 Fortunes: proverbs and pith sayings from throughout time and around the world. Each is a blessing and a bit of wisdom for living a deep, wide, rich and contented life. Perfect for conversation starters or personal reflection, these fortunes will bring you wisdom to draw from throughout your many days.
A great gift for only $12. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION
One Hundred Fortunes Deluxe
One Hundred Fortunes Deluxe- $24.
Peace and Love Gift Box
These specially wrapped boxes contain a tea light candle and 52 inspirations which I’ve carefully chosen for centering meditation. Each card speaks to the beautiful and eternal truths of being, and the depth, width, and splendor of life. A lovely gift of heart-centered wisdom for yourself or a friend.
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Ask me for a certain amount of dollars if you will.
But do not ask me for my afternoons.
~Henry David Thoreau
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istock photo, leadinglights
THERE IS A FIELD OF JOY YOU MAY REST IN
There is a field of consciousness deep within you that contains the Universe; a field of love and beauty, truth, harmony and light. Opening to this consciousness brings a luminous feeling of bliss. Dwelling in this field feels like coming home… Seeing it in others, you realize all are One… You may dance in this field, wander in this field, and find guidance in this field. You may rest in this field whenever your mortal mind is weary. Take yourself there and rest. It is the breath within your breath, the space between your thoughts. It is your deep inner stillness, your indwelling peace and joy.
From THE JOY BOOK
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I took a few days off last week for a personal retreat. I went to a bed and breakfast on the Cape with a few books, journals and poems, a cooler full of snacks, and the wish to be emptied and filled.
Because it is the quiet season, I had my choice of rooms. It was the bathtub that won me. And so I chose this room.
I spent three nights here in solitude, and asked myself, “why do you retreat?”. I wondered if it was to get away from my cares, and I realized that I love my cares. I love my family and my home- even all of the distractions that they provide me. But I needed a few days to let some contemplations settle in, without the temptation of jumping up to do laundry or sweep the floor before they had really taken root within me.
I went for a few walks, but mostly hunkered down in the room. I wasn’t lonely. Not because I am such fascinating company, but because I do love the world, and find that it is fascinating.
I worked on poems, and I journaled and read…and somehow mostly settled into the realization that I love the Eternal Realm, the spiritual and poetical realm- not in opposition to my earthly experience, but in addition to it. This was a lovely personal epiphany which brought me a lot of excitement and ease, and a great sense of well being.
Last week I remembered that it is in the human heart that heaven and earth meet and mingle and are glorious company to each other. I realize this may sound obvious. But it was something I was in danger of forgetting.
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“Earthly things must be known to be loved;
Divine things must be loved to be known.”
~Blaise Pascal
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Life, oh Wondrous Life,
Come fill me up with gladness.
I feast on your generosity;
I bask in your loving light.
Luminous Holy Essence,
Come fill me up with gladness.
Dark Flowering Infinite Universe,
Let me sing your eternal praise.
~Ingrid Goff-Maidoff
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To wander on Wednesdays;
To sit quietly
by the shoreline of stillness;
To drop my mind down
below the surface chatter -
The radio waves of thought
and their compulsive agitations:
The insult channel; the gossip channel;
the channel of panic and confusion.
To drop down into the
deep quiet from which
all wisdom comes.
To rest in awareness
of all that is here.
I do not long for more projects
or lists,
No more doing
or ideas for doing.
I only want this.
This.
The holy embrace of the day.
~Ingrid
(Special thanks to my dear friend Lori, who helped me take out my schedule and block out this time. Tell me friends, how do you make time and space for stillness, contentment, for belonging and for love?)
~
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The very purpose of our lives
is happiness and joyfulness.
That is very clear.
~Dalai Lama
On Tuesday, June 2nd, I will be a guest at Jan Lundy’s blog, Awake Is Good. I will be there all day to explore joy- to have a conversation with you. Please stop by. At the end of the day, Jan will give away a copy of my Joy Book, as well as a bunch of my other inspirational offerings. I will open our conversation Tuesday with this article.
I love words. I love to get down into them, coaxing them from a tight bud into an open flower, revealing multiple petals fragrant with meaning. And I love to make connections between wisdom traditions, listening for what others have said throughout time and around the world. This has become a kind of path for me, and it is the way in which I have been exploring Joy for many years. While I don’t know everything there is to know about Joy, I have sought the world’s wisdom, sat with it fondly, and welcomed Joy to take up residence in my thoughts and in my heart. For me, Joy will always be a kind of personal opening, or a journey - an intimate exploration into life and a sense of love and belonging.
In my exploration of Joy, I found that we all have various ideas about what it means. Some of us have even developed an aversion for the word, so I was eager to move beyond a bud-like understanding and open it up to a fuller flower. I also discovered that many dictionaries offer a rather superficial definition: the anticipation of something one wants or desires. Yet I had a strong inkling that Joy was not merely the result of something as fleeting as wants and desires, accomplishment or acquisition, (and not even simply the exuberant rush of good feelings) but more to do with a sustained intimacy with the eternal, spiritual dimension of our lives -a dimension which is sometimes forgotten or ignored in the fret and hurry of our culture today.
In fact, the more I explored Joy, unfolded and opened joy, the more it dawned on me, and I had to ask: what if Joy was this spiritual dimension as well as our relationship to it? What if joy was our essence: joy, love, innocence, harmony and wisdom? What if joyfulness came from this spiritual understanding? And what if we have forgotten this and are instead living with a mistaken and impoverished identity?
I soon began collecting a mass of quotes to support my theory. Here are just a few of my favorites:
Joy is the realization
of the truth of our oneness,
The oneness of our soul with the world,
and of the world-soul
with supreme Love.
~Rabindranath Tagore
From Joy I came.
For Joy I live.
And in Sacred Joy
I shall melt again.
~Yogananda
You are seeking joy and peace
in far off places,
but the spring of joy is in your heart.
The haven of peace is in yourself.
~Sai Baba
I have spoken these things to you
That my joy may remain in you,
And that your joy may remain full.
~John 15:11
As essential and ubiquitous as air,
the presence of Joy is boundless, eternal,
without beginning, without end, spacious, ever-new,
ever-flowing, growth, the expanding universe,
infinite energy, bliss emptiness,
the fragrance of a marigold,
the free fluttering of wings…
(ok- I wrote that one.)
This exploration alone landed me in a profound state of Joy. I found that Joy emanates and is in fact suffused with a much deeper meaning than the one in my dictionary. Eventually I, with humility and boldness, penned a new definition for Joy.
1: An abiding and profound sense
of love and belonging.
2: A deep passionate awareness
of the very act and art of living.
3: A sacred happiness. 4: An intimate trust.
5: A vibration. 6: An inner smile.
7:A Divine Current flowing through us
and into the world.
My next question was: How do we return to the presence and practice of joy? What I am learning is this: To arrive at this Joy, we each find our own personal ways to tune into it, tend to it, and infuse our lives with it. When we live from a place of intimacy with life, we live with an awareness of love and belonging; we feel held, energized, and at home in the world. There are as many ways to cultivate this intimacy as there are people - some of us practice meditation, yoga, walking in nature; some attend churches, temples and synagogues; some write, some cook, some play the kazoo, some run, others hold each other. I say it isn’t either this or that- it’s all of it, all of it. Lighting a candle, enjoying the fragrance of a flower, contemplative reading, creating art, listening to birdsong or music, singing - even just breathing deeply - there are tens of thousands of ways to land ourselves in Joy.
What are some of yours?
Take this
fanciful Joy.
Let it bloom
Inside you
like an orchid.
Let it open you
like a window.
Let it lift you up
to ride the wind.
Oh, Beautiful Soul,
pitch your tent
in this field of joy
and adventure out
from there…
~Ingrid
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