The Heart’s Yearning

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray. In the silence, there is a sacred mystery, a path that shows the way not with words but with the heart’s yearning. ”

RUMI

Perhaps it is the yearning of the heart that draws us to notice the ordinary beauty all around us. To not only notice but to allow it to expand our perception of life in the moment. Through opening our hearts and minds to see beyond what can be the narrow confines of our present mainstream cultural narrative, dependence on technology, and our ingrained patterns of survival. Therein rests our hearts yearning.

There have been so many times in my own life, and I am certain in yours as well, that I was struck by the simple, extraordinary natural beauty before and around me, transported beyond physical being and placed in a spaciousness so vast that I forgot for some moments to be in fear or protection.

It is in those moments that you realize an interconnection so exquisitely woven together that you become part of the tapestry. No longer separate but vibrating with color, texture and elements with senses wide open.

Standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon. Tears flowing in the vast silence. Struck speechless like a child in complete wonder and awe.

Or being with the big trees in Northern California. Seemingly ageless and eternal. Wise and powerful with ancient stories wrapped up in the cells of their being and mine – our ancestral stories.

Giant Sequoia, Yosemite, CA/Photography by National Geographic

Easing into the warm ocean waters on the Bali, Indonesia coast with nearby village people celebrating the beauty of a single embodied life that had recently left them, watching the woven branches and flowers float away on the currents.

Communing with elder healers in the mountains above Mexico City within a sacred cave that held dreams and visions without words. The walls of the cave silent and smooth with the passage of time.

Walking a narrow original Hawaiian trail on the Napali coast in Kauai down to a secluded beach where there were prawns in the stream, waterfall for a shower, brilliant sunsets and a million stars in the sky at night.

Napali Coast trail, Kauai, HI/Photography by Gaye Abbott

Swimming with wild dolphins off the Big Island of Hawaii where their exuberant play and loving, healing energy opened every single cell of my being.

Witnessing the vibrant colors of the Aurora Borealis dancing across the sky on a cold Fairbanks, Alaskan night. Struck by the brilliance and magic of natures light show.

Fairbanks Alaska, Photography by Andrea Goodreau, 11/21/2023

This all within the ordinary beauty of my own life experiences. A part of the whole of the unfolding sacred mystery that is life.

You have been given a ticket to an embodied lifetime. Where is the unique ordinary beauty of your own heart’s yearning leading you?

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Thanksgiving Address expresses the ordinary beauty of all that we are blessed with in everyday life. Take a few moments to watch the video below and re-examine your own relationship to nature, as well as a reminder that you already have everything you need during the coming holidays of giving and receiving.

To read the Thanksgiving Address, see the Naraya Cultural Preservation Council’s beautifully illustrated pages.

“You can’t listen to the Thanksgiving Address without feeling wealthy. And, while expressing gratitude seems innocent enough, it is a revolutionary idea. In a consumer society, contentment is a radical proposition. Recognizing abundance rather than scarcity undermines an economy that thrives by creating unmet desires…The Thanksgiving Address reminds you that you already have everything you need… That’s good medicine for land and people alike.”

Robin Wall Kimmerer, from Braiding Sweetgrass

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“ORDINARY BEAUTY” will be a series of short weekly blog posts through the end of this year on finding and witnessing ordinary beauty through the experience and wisdom of elderhood. Stay tuned!

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Gaye Abbott, Wildly Free Elder, 11/22/23