The DAILY SPARK Blog

WHEN….

When it’s over, I want to say all my life I was a bride married to amazement.  I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real.  I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

FROM:  The poem:  WHEN DEATH COMES by Mary Oliver.

Mary Oliver (1935- 2019)was an American poet who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Her work is inspired by nature, rather than the human world, stemming from her lifelong passion for solitary walks in the wild.

REFLECTION:

  • How “amazed” are you living?
  • Have you taken the world into your arms?
  • Are you doing more than just visiting this world?
  • How can you be… what can you do to ensure you have made something particular and real with your life?

SHEDDING

“The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die.  As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.”

Quote by Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, cultural critic, composer, poet, writer, and philologist whose work has exerted a profound influence on modern intellectual history. He began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. He became the youngest person ever to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University fo Basel in 1869 at the age of 24. Nietzsche resigned in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life; he completed much of his core writing in the following decade. In 1889, at age 44, he suffered a collapse and afterward a complete loss of his mental faculties. He lived his remaining years in the care of his mother until her death in 1897 and then with his sister Elizabeth Forster-Nietzsche.  Nietzsche died in 1900. Source: Wikipedia

REFLECTION:

  • How much capacity do you have to change your ideas/opinion?
  • Do you have a skin that you have outgrown?
  • What needs to be shed?
  • Are you willing to test ideas, explore your imagination, observe how different perspectives may help you see things differently?
  • Can you shed a wedded personal position?

GOODNESS

A beloved bear belted in for a wagon ride down to the river. The 4 year old little girl shares her breakfast with Bear too!

Goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished.

Quote by Nelson Mandela

REFLECTION:

  • You have the light of goodness in you now. 
  • Is your light burning at low intensity?
  • What goodness can you do to stoke the fire to have it burn brighter?