Maria Popova on John Gardner

A person is not a potted plant of predetermined personality but a garden abloom with the consequences of chance and choice that have made them who they are, resting upon an immense seed vault of dormant potentialities. At any given moment, any seed can sprout — whether by conscious cultivation or the tectonic tilling of some great upheaval or the composting of old habits and patterns of behavior that fertilize a new way of being. Nothing saves us from the tragedy of ossifying more surely than a devotion to regularly turning over the soil of personhood so that new expressions of the soul can come abloom.

Maria Popova on John Gardner’s work
The Key to Self-Renewal

John Gardner:

Gardener goes on:

And:

Virginia Woolf

“A self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living,”

Maria Popova adds:
Changing — your mind, your life — is also painfully difficult because it is a form of renunciation, a special case of those necessary losses that sculpt our lives; it requires giving something up — a way of seeing, a way of being — in order for something new to come abloom along the vector of the “endless unfolding” that is a life fully lived, something that leaves your new emerging self more fully met.

Albert Einstein's Choice was Spinoza's God

photo by Tricia Schwaba

Baruch  Spinoza— Einstein thought he had “God” right.

Stop praying.

What I want you to do is go out into the world and enjoy your life. I want you to sing, have fun and enjoy everything I’ve made for you.

Stop going into those dark, cold temples that you built yourself and saying they are my house. My house is in the mountains, in the woods, rivers, lakes, beaches. That’s where I live and there I express my love for you.

Stop blaming me for your miserable life; I never told you there was anything wrong with you or that you were a sinner, or that your sexuality was a bad thing. Sex is a gift I have given you and with which you can express your love, your ecstasy, your joy. So don’t blame me for everything they made you believe.

Stop reading alleged sacred scriptures that have nothing to do with me. If you can’t read me in a sunrise, in a landscape, in the look of your friends, in your son’s eyes … you will find me in no book!

Stop asking me “will you tell me how to do my job?” Stop being so scared of me. I do not judge you or criticize you, nor get angry, or bothered. I am pure love.

Stop asking for forgiveness, there’s nothing to forgive. If I made you… I filled you with passions, limitations, pleasures, feelings, needs, inconsistencies… free will. How can I blame you if you respond to something I put in you? How can I punish you for being the way you are, if I’m the one who made you? Do you think I could create a place to burn all my children who behave badly for the rest of eternity? What kind of god would do that?

Respect your peers and don’t do what you don’t want for yourself. All I ask is that you pay attention in your life, that alertness is your guide.

My beloved, this life is not a test, not a step on the way, not a rehearsal, nor a prelude to paradise. This life is the only thing here and now and it is all you need.

I have set you absolutely free, no prizes or punishments, no sins or virtues, no one carries a marker, no one keeps a record.

You are absolutely free to create in your life. Heaven or hell.

I can’t tell you if there’s anything after this life but I can give you a tip. Live as if there is not. As if this is your only chance to enjoy, to love, to exist.

So, if there’s nothing after, then you will have enjoyed the opportunity I gave you. And if there is, rest assured that I won’t ask if you behaved right or wrong, I’ll ask. Did you like it? Did you have fun? What did you enjoy the most? What did you learn?…

Stop believing in me; believing is assuming, guessing, imagining. I don’t want you to believe in me. I want you to believe in you. I want you to feel me in you when you kiss your beloved, when you tuck in your little girl, when you caress your dog, when you bathe in the sea.

Stop praising me. What kind of egomaniac God do you think I am?

I’m bored being praised. I’m tired of being thanked. Feeling grateful? Prove it by taking care of yourself, your health, your relationships, the world. Express your joy! That’s the way to praise me.

Stop complicating things and repeating as a parakeet what you’ve been taught about me.

What do you need more miracles for? So many explanations?

The only thing for sure is that you are here, that you are alive, that this world is full of wonders.

– Spinoza

Feel It Don't Resist It

Feel it don’t resist it 

Travel through it unafraid

For it will call you, it will tempt you

You’ll find its strength, it doesn’t fade.

Feel it don’t resist it

Stand and gaze the face of fear

Just remember when it calls you

You are stronger, with it near. 

Feel it don’t resist it

Embrace it like its fashion

It’s here to teach, it’s here to probe

Inspire you, ignite your passion.

Feel it don’t resist it

Though the urge will come to flee

Feel it all, resist it not

For its blessing is peace & harmony.

Tricia Schwaba 2024

The Mountains Are Calling

They are the miraculous result of century upon century of
shifting tectonic plates
from heated eruptions
The mountains call me
I listen
I will go to them, climb them, seek shelter from them, honor them
I will absorb their wisdom as I have so gratefully drawn upon
the wisdom of the pines—
my lifelong protectors
Perhaps it is my older and wiser state that calls me to their majesty
Perhaps I am called
to the foundation of creation
as I come nearer the time
I will be released
unencumbered
into the harmonious flow of the heavens
I wait with an open heart

Tricia Schwaba 2024