Begin each day anew

Sister Wendy Beckett of Norfolk, England, Art Historian, well known for her PBS and BBC television art series and books couldn’t have said it better. It is my daily mantra that I keep taped in front of my PC monitor:

Human Failure

“ We cannot control our life. If we are set upon doing so, we have abdicated from peace, which must balance what is desired with what is possible. As Hokusai shows so memorably, the great wave is in waiting for any boat. It is unpredictable, as uncontrollable now as it was at the dawn of time. Will the slender boats survive, or will they be overwhelmed? The risk is a human constant; it has to be accepted—and laid aside. What we can do, we do. Beyond that, we endure, our endurance framed by a sense of what matters and what does not. The worst is not that we may be overwhelmed by disaster, but to fail to live by principle. Yet we are fallible, and so the real worst, the antithesis of peace, is to refuse to recognize failure and humbly begin again.”

Look at the painting: The Great Wave of Kanagawa, by Katsushika Hokusai, 1831 and meditate on this. Then begin each day anew.

Might not be a bad idea to practice Paripurna Navasana. The Boat Pose. Our will, our center, our core, call it what you will, is our guiding light. Keep it strong so that you are better able to live by principle and be able to distinguish what matters and what does not.

Peace.
The Kitchen Yogi.