Happiness

~The Dalai Lama~

"The purpose of life is to be happy. . . In order to change conditions outside ourselves, whether they concern the environment or relations with others, we must first change within ourselves. Inner peace is the key. In that state of mind you can face difficulties with calm and reason, while keeping your inner happiness."

Searching, constantly searching for that inner peace, to find inner happiness.

There are days when I feel it, that happiness, this afternoon, I spent some time talking to a person, a wonderful, soul-lightening miracle of a person, someone I love very much. In that time period, I watched the sun go down, I watched fingers of colored light shining through the skeletal winter trees. I admired their beauty, the play of light, shadow and color. I was happy.

Mercurial moods, I hate them, I have them, seemingly on an ever constant basis of late. I know the why, the whys. It is fine to be forever searching within to find answers, to search for peace, serenity, soulfullness (yes that is spelled that way on purpose).

But there are times, when it is time for meditation, time to charge my spirit, time to take that energy and focus it outward, life cannot be changed, improved, if I do not also focus outward. I have changed inwardly, I can feel it, I can see it in my behaviors, but to continue growing, continue the changing, the focus must shift to my outer world. I am not dealing with it, I am still partially in hiding. Hiding from the harsh realities of complete and utter TRUTH.

I do not feel any longer that time is on my side, time is ever moving, never resting, my time for rest, my time for hiding has come to an end. I can wither away, dry up into dust, or I can move out into the night, take my chances in the storms to come, get drenched in the downpour. Hmm, good analogy for me, the one risk I have never feared is storms, give me a severe thunder storm warning, a tornado warning, and I am outside in a flash, reveling in the charge in the atmosphere, delighting in the ever changing sky, the whipping winds. Face to the sky, needing to be filled with that basic elemental rawness of energy, the building of power, danger, anticipation, excitement.

The changes in my life will be a monumental, colossal, changes of such magnitude that nature's worst fury will feel like a soft warm summer rain, but somehow, no matter how tumultuous those changes will be, I know, with no doubt, I will also in the end, find be peace.........be happy