today’s continuation of the fullest ever birth celebration is one flowing moment in the field of the beloved seeing love everywhere… in friends’ expressions, in strangers’ conversations, in flies buzzing around the picnic, in long lines where patience reigns, in screaming children crying out in frustration, in jubilant children of all ages restored by the sound  and the feel of water and wind… every moment of presence, a birth of love… all our light wave relations coming home to shore breathing in the rhythm of the river of joy below the river always being love…

~

“In the process of discovering bodhichitta, the journey goes down, not up. It’s as if the mountain pointed toward the center of the earth instead of reaching into the sky. Instead of transcending the suffering of all creatures, we move toward the turbulence and doubt. We jump into it. We slide into it. We tiptoe into it. We move toward it however we can. We explore the reality and unpredictably of insecurity and pain, and we try not to push it away. If it takes years, if it takes lifetimes, we let it be as it is. At our own pace, without speed or aggression, we move down and down and down. With us move millions of others, our companions in awakening from fear. At the bottom we discover water, the healing water of bodhichitta. Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die.”

—Pema Chödrön from When Things Fall Apart