Acceptance

The cyclical nature of the seasons of the spirit is counter to our dominant cultural narrative of self-improvement, with its ethos of linear progression toward states of ever-increasing flourishing. It is counter, too, to the world’s major spiritual traditions, with their ideas of salvation and enlightenment, argued Maria Popova. 

During dark days of worsening refugee crises and increasing populism, can we still imagine reaching a state of "xenophilia"...overcoming our "homophily", i.e. the love of that which is like us, and reaching the love of that which is different?

Indeed, if we're ever going to care enough about conflict, genocide, poverty, hunger etc. enough to act on them properly, then we need to try much harder to avoid conflict with people we might not yet fully understand.

My heart is like a singing bird, whose nest is in a watered shoot.

My heart is like an apple-tree, whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit.

My heart is like a rainbow shell that paddles in a halcyon sea.

My heart is gladder than all these.

Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down.

Hang it with vair and purple dyes.

Carve it in doves and pomegranates.

Alan Watts proposed that "the most real state is the state of nothing," Our current reality, argued ideapod, is just a small piece in the reality of what it means to exist, to be nothing. While many consider this current state of existence, of life, as the crux of reality, perhaps our real state occurs before and after our lives in the abyss of "nothingness".

See also:

• The Age of Nothing

Please click read more for Halcyon's acceptance archive.