Monday, May 28, 2012

:)

Every spring my 80+ year old neighbor puts this chair in the middle of her "forget me not " meadow. The lawn is not mowed until the flowers have faded. I am so happy she does this.

“There is a story of a woman running away from tigers. She runs and runs and the tigers are getting closer and closer. When she comes to the edge of a cliff, she sees some vines there, so she climbs down and holds on to the vines. Looking down, she sees that there are tigers below her as well. She then notices that a mouse is gnawing away at the vine to which she is clinging. She also sees a beautiful little bunch of strawberries close to her, growing out of a clump of grass. She looks up, and she looks down, she looks at the mouse. Then she just takes a strawberry, puts it in her mouth, and enjoys it thoroughly. Tigers above, tigers below. This is actually the predicament that we are always in, in terms of our birth and death. Each moment is just what it is. It might be the only moment of our life; it might be the only strawberry we’ll ever eat. We could get depressed about it, or we could finally appreciate it and delight in the preciousness of every single moment of our life.”
― Pema Chödrön

9 comments:

Karen thisoldhouse2.com said...

Any post that is stated with a smile has got to be a good one... and this, indeed it's so...

Noelle the dreamer said...

I liked the reminder we each have a choice to make. How very true!

It is however the paragraph about the eighty year old, the Forget Me Not and the chair which I felt drawn to the most. Will you tell us the real story behind that if you know it?

Enjoying your posts and discovering a little of your corner of the world!

Sandy aka Doris the Great said...

I love both stories!

Donna Laprade said...

So does she go out there alot and sit and enjoy it?

Cathy Olliffe-Webster said...

We have a small meadow of forget-me-nots on our front lawn and my husband always mows around them until they are done. Now I have an urge to go place a lawn chair right in the middle of them... sigh.. some people are so very smart.

Your tiger post is perfect, by the way. Perfect for how I'm thinking these days. Perfect for thinking about while sitting in an old-fashioned lawn chair in a field of forget-me-nots.

Cathy Olliffe-Webster said...

We have a small meadow of forget-me-nots on our front lawn and my husband always mows around them until they are done. Now I have an urge to go place a lawn chair right in the middle of them... sigh.. some people are so very smart.

Your tiger post is perfect, by the way. Perfect for how I'm thinking these days. Perfect for thinking about while sitting in an old-fashioned lawn chair in a field of forget-me-nots.

Cathy Olliffe-Webster said...

Shelagh, I want to steal your Pema quote for my blog... I hope you don't mind! It's so lovely.

Mekkan said...

Hello! I love the story of a woman and tigers. Though I don't know much about the western culture, but this story has something common with our Asian world. Thanks for sharing this.

FoundProdigalDaughter said...

I hope you don't mind but I had to share the quote on FB...I linked it back to your blog. It was just exactly the quote I needed to hear (read) today.