JOY

Don't Hesitate
by Mary Oliver

“If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate.
Give in to it.

There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left.

Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case.

Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.”

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Dramas, you name it, we’ve got a drama for it. We seem to be in a firehose stream of drama.

And yet, as Mary Oliver says, “we have possibility left.” We are here, we are breathing, we can still laugh, and love, and offer acts of kindness, and we can create joy.

It’s okay to be in joy and to share it, even amidst the near incessant sales of doom.

We can express our moments of joy as an antidote, a medicine not only for ourselves but for the living things on this planet.

This capacity to feel joy is an affirmation of our vitality, of the living, pulsing force of life within us.

Each beat of our hearts is pure amrita, pure nectar; so to honor it with a celebration of the impermanence of all of it and give expression the fullness of life can be a gift to all those around us. To share joy in these times is an act of kindness.

Here, when the smoke clears we are taking a break to reach for the blue skies, dig our toes in the sand, dance in the waves of it all, and witness each other melt the heaviness we’ve been holding. ⁣

So grateful to release into the grace of it all with you. ⁣

J O Y⁣… Don’t hesitate.

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