Ikigai Thought for Today: Thin Ice and Things to Come

A daily habit

Audio narration by David Marlow

Down by the Pond, original photo by David Marlow ©2024

We are finally experiencing winter as the new year begins.

A brief snow and a burst of cold air gave the pond the look of a postcard and lyrics of a poem.
I love good poetry and cartoons because, in abstraction, they say something in a short space, which is so compelling that it charges your creativity and imagination.

For over two years, I've been starting my day by reading a poem or scripture meditation.

Reading a poem is a lyrical meditation without having to meditate.

As I paused by the pond on my run, this poem came to mind—a thin skin of ice and cattails along the shore—captured in the picture above.

Start with this one if you’d like to do a poem a day or only today. This one by coincidence, has a strong Ikigai theme.

Trust

A thin skin of ice on the pond
comes and goes, an eye opening and closing.
Soon it will tire and stay closed.
The cattails rattle along the shore,
the red twig dogwood has nothing to say.
Sedges have bowed their heads
for the long prayer service.
There is no fear here.
Little creatures, and some great ones, have gone in.
The oaks hold their secrets tightly.
The last geese row, patient, across the pond of sky.
They know where they’re going.
The squirrels trust their hoards,
the nuthatches, the finches know
where to find things,
the chickadees know their songs.

I believe we can learn to trust
what is to come,
and what will come after that.

Poem by Steve Garnaas-Holmes Unfolding Light

If you are looking for a good source of poetry, here is a link to The Favorite Poem Project. You’ll find some marvelous poems there.

Quest well