Sierra Nevada Mountains: Photo by Noelle
It’s curious how we go about eking out a life. Not the financial part, but the creative life. The part of us expressed, even privately, that makes it all seem interesting. Aspects of us that transcend rush hour commutes, deadlines and scrubbing the kitchen floor. We plant bits of ourselves in between jobs, school plays, and the church pot luck. Oasises of fertile land amidst the rocky terrain of daily existence. Music, photography, haiku crafting, a curious penchant for coin collecting or beading seem small when looked at in the scope of our whole life. Yet, those small pieces are what feed everything about us. Our engagement with them gives us the sense we’ve climbed off the conveyor belt and left widget-land, if but for awhile. A few moments with a favored album or doodling with your child are as water to arid land. A creative nitrate for the mind that enlivens the dullest spirit and grows a beautiful life.
Meditation Travelogue 
Noelle, you put it so well. Those little Oasises you speak of are absolutely life-giving. What would we do without them? I know I would find it very difficult without them. They feed me in the way nothing else does.
I used to think, Don, that those little moments were, in fact, the little parts of my life. Now, it’s so clear that they are the most meaningful part of any day. Music or some creative endeavor give me more energy than a thirty minute run. I meditate and I never get as lost in a sit, as I do collaging or playing with photographs for a few hours. So lovely to be figuring this all out at this point in my life. Many blessings for stopping in, my friend.
Funny how it takes a while before we begin to really start “figuring it out.” 🙂
At least we are figuring out. Figuring it out and thriving. Death comes for many long before the body stopped breathing.
And the more often these moments happen, the richer the life lived.
So true, Liz. So true.
i think one has to fiercely protect those “kintsugi” moments.
Its too easy to be seduced by thinking/worrying, TV/FB, rescuing/business or whatever is easy to numb out on.
I don’t know if you have been following my blog long enough, Rosalie, to have seen my piece on Kintsukuroi last year. Here is the link, if you didn’t get to see it. https://noellevignola.wordpress.com/2013/08/28/dead-and-gone/?preview=true&preview_id=190&preview_nonce=4a9fc4604f&post_format=standard
Love that you mentioned that beautiful word.
Yes thankyou. And another, similarly resonant is “ikigai” – that which makes life worth living.
Just read up on ikigai. Love that. Will have to play with that some. Such beautiful words and the kanji symbols are lovely. Thank you for giving me this. I feel a post in there somewhere.