As the day follows night,
every winter is followed by spring.
Flowers bloom again, nectar filled,
to sip for new energy,
peace and well-being.
~Ingrid
from The Honey Sutras
Archive for the ‘Tending Joy’ Category
First Crocus!
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A Sacred Pause
Your daily life
is your temple and your religion.
When you enter into it, take with you your all.
~Kahlil Gibran
A little bit about “Tending Joy”…
I hung out a sign which read, “Tending Joy”…
Perhaps this has happened to you: when my daughters were very young, I found myself in a game of tug-of-war between all that I loved and longed to do. If I was with the children, I found myself feeling as if I was neglecting my business… while working, I wondered constantly about the children. Cleaning the house, I felt I should be working, and while in the studio I seemed to be allowing the dust to gather and clump at home. I felt as if I stood to fail someone or something no matter where I was.
I could have hung out a sign with the Chinese proverb, “There is chaos under the heavens: the situation is excellent,” and this would have been true. Instead, I hung out a sign over my book arts, gifts and poetry business, which simply said, “Tending Joy.” I wanted this to be the umbrella under which every piece of my life existed- rather than the push-me, pull-you juggling act that it felt it had become. I wanted to lean into the essence of joy at the heart of childhood, marriage, business, home, my life, spirit, and the world.
By hanging out a sign that said, “Tending Joy,” I was hoping to invoke a kind of grace that would hold all things. Joy, for me, was a code-word for the eternal, spiritual dimension of our lives- all of the invisible yet apparent energies like love, compassion, generosity, gratitude- and all the unnamable mysteries like God. I put them all into the container of joy- as both a presence, a practice, and a felt experience. I wanted to give my life in devotion to this- to tune my heart, mind and attention to cultivating and exploring this joy.
We tend our gardens. We tend the fires of the hearth… we tend to each other. To tend means to give attention to or to lean toward… I liked that. Soon people began to come to my booth at the artisan’s fairs, read the sign, “Tending Joy” and say, “wow- great brand.” I didn’t know that I had created a brand. In fact, this made me a little nervous. I am not a guru or a life-coach, or a master of joy. I am a poet. I also have an enthusiasm and a curiosity for the realm of joy.
This is what I’ve learned so far: Joy is a kind of grace: a loving relationship with living- with your soul, the world, the world-soul. This is a relationship which can be cultivated and grown- an intimacy with the ins and outs of your life; it’s a conversation, a call and response, a deep and energetic feeling of love and belonging. I’ve also discovered that many of us have a resistance to joy- although this is actually a resistance to our judgments about joy. In a world of turmoil, we feel we don’t deserve it. And, deeper still, we worry that joy is one more charismatic attribute we need to put on like a costume, or exude like a sexy magnetism- one more game we have to play, or one more table we have to dance on. No wonder we find the idea of joy or joyful living daunting or exhausting, selfish or silly. But that is not the kind of joy I have given my life in service and devotion to.
The joy I’ve been exploring is so much bigger, wider, and subtler than our more superficial assumptions- quieter even, and more nourishing and sustaining. This joy is a fundamental possession that resides in the heart and longs to be uncovered rather than put on. It is the spaciousness of our unanswered questions, rather than anything we could ever achieve or acquire. It is the joy we experience when we shed our assumptions, our self-images, our prejudices and our pride- it is the joy that is the essence of our being. This joy is felt when we live in, for, and from love. If we have wandered from it, as most of us do many times a day, then joy is felt when we return to our loving center.
I know there is the joy of cooking, the joy of crafting, the joy of creating a beautiful lifestyle…but what I’ve found is that there is also an even greater joy- the joy which surrounds, infuses, and contains all of these things. I created the Tending Joy Blog as a beautiful place to visit and converse, and to enjoy the unfolding invitation to discover, each for ourselves, the many ways we may live in love by cultivating intimacy with our lives, our essence, with each other and the world. Thank you so much for joining me here!
In love and friendship, Ingrid Goff-Maidoff
…Joy is a multifaceted jewel~ a rich landscape to explore. Joy is oneness. Joy is love. Joy is sensual, and sacred. Joy is all around us, and at the center of our being. Joy is a wise and felt awareness of love and belonging which infuses our whole life~ feeding our passion, creativity, and participation in the world.
Softening Toward Sorrow
Ten Thousand Joys,
Ten Thousand Sorrows
Oh, happy living:
plant the seeds for flowers
and not for weeds;
tune the heart and mind toward joy-
and allow your sorrows
to visit when they come,
for this will make you whole.
The joyous life
isn’t a day in which
all sorrows disappear-
but one in which the
weight of your war
begins to soften
and melt away.
~Ingrid Goff-Maidoff
I hope this poem doesn’t come across as too light in the face of the kind of sorrows many of us face every day. The poem, and the words below, occurred to me after speaking in an interview on joy. I felt afterward that I needed to give more space to the simple fact that, most of the time, life is not a bowl of roses, money or cherries… and that to expect, hope, or want it to be otherwise adds more suffering to one’s lifetime.
I’m not joyful all the time, (not radiantly cheerful and exuberant all the time), though joy is there, quietly present, in my life. I have worries and stresses just like everyone else. Today I felt a familiar pain that seems to be held deep in my right shoulder. “You again,” I found myself saying,”hello, you familiar ache.” I am learning as I get older to accept the existence of this ache as part and parcel of the human experience. If anyone ever promises you a formula for a pain or stress-free life, they are offering a life of delusion.
In all my years exploring joy, it was a freeing, liberating, and happy day when I learned that Buddhists teach that rather than try to control life, we instead learn to embrace the ten thousand joys and the ten thousand sorrows. A whole life, as it turns out, contains a balance of both, and learning to live with this truth eases a pressure some of us may place on ourselves or others through wishing otherwise. It is fine to appreciate and even hope for the joys of living. It is lovely to create a beautiful and loving life. It is also necessary to learn to accept, and perhaps even to trust the sorrows.
When we allow ourselves to feel our sorrows, they have a way of widening and deepening our experience of living. Through their instruction, we become more whole. This isn’t to suggest we go looking for sorrows- they will come of their own accord.
What I’m still learning is this: it is beneficial to tune the heart and mind toward joy- to plant the seeds for flowers and not for weeds, but we must do our best not to create extra suffering for ourselves and others through the striving, struggle, or disappointment which arise from the thought that life should have no sorrow.
The enlightened life isn’t a life in which all sorrows disappear- but one in which the weight of our resistance, our mental agitation, and our stubborn insistence that life be just the way we want it begin to soften and melt away. Rather than resist a concern, an ache, or a stress- rather than struggle against it, or repress it and wish it wasn’t there, we learn to lighten and to soften toward it. We aren’t passive toward it, nor are we a victim of it- we are willing to meet it. “You again,” we open, “have you come for conversation?”
Tending Joy, Journal Excerpts May 25th 2012
This morning I put the kettle on to boil and then headed out to the asparagus patch to harvest some of its skyward reaching shoots. Jonah and I have been spending a lot of time digging in the dirt this spring. He’s been teaching sustainability. I call it “restoring Eden.”
In the garden, much like everywhere, we don’t know what we are doing. We refer to books for advice and promptly forget their guidance. Standing amid the fertile weeds, we must forgive in advance our failings. It feels like the only way to proceed is to call this not toil but surrender; not labor but opportunity. Anything is possible here. Surely something will grow.
On my way to the asparagus, I pop a single red strawberry into my mouth. I used to save these sweet offerings for the children, feeling double delight in their pleasure. Now that they are grown, I’m learning, once again, how to please myself. I’m surprised that this is a work in unraveling and not simply second nature.
The strawberries are ripening one a day so far, each a sacramental offering to hold on the tongue in communion. Yes, if we relied on this crop we would starve. And yes, if we weren’t thankful for every humble thing, we would also starve.
What do I know of joy ~
except it is a word that I have savored?
A word so much like God,
full of promise and tender relating.
What do I know of Joy,
except it is a gift that I have opened
to find the forgiveness, wonder and welcome
that breathe life into my life?
Next week I will speak to a class on the presence and practice of joy. Today I feel I can’t do this. I have so little to say. For the Greeks, the word Joy is Char, from the word Charis, which means grace. What do I know, then, of grace, except the lovely way it slips in and holds us when we rest in our own unknowing. So I might say,
Get wise:
Give up wisdom.
Give up thinking that
you should always know
what to do; what to say;
what is skillful
or even best.
Humble yourself
until you can enjoy
your own curious and frail
human being.
Feel how freeing
this actually is.
Sure, celebrate your triumphs,
but also, see if you can love
the tender place of unknowing.
Accept how vulnerable you are-
how possible it is
to be wrong, confused,
imperfect and adored.
~
Why do I love, as much as anything, a bowl of apples, a wooden spoon?
~