Joy 82/82: Life

(This was scheduled for yesterday but something went awry.)

"There is only one journey. 
Going inside yourself. "
 -- Rainer Maria Rilke

Today is my birthday and I am grateful for this journey through life.  Perhaps no one captures the joy of being alive any better than D.H. Lawrence:

For man, the vast marvel is to be alive.

For man, as for flower and beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly alive. Whatever the unborn and dead may know, they cannot know the beauty, the marvel of being alive in the flesh.  The dead may look after the afterwards.  But the magnificent here and now of life in the flesh is ours and ours alone and ours only for a time.

We ought to dance with rapture that we should be alive and in the flesh, and part of the living incarnate cosmos. I am part of the sun as my eye is part of me.  That I am part of Earth, my feet know perfectly, and my blood is part of the sea.  My soul knows that I am part of the human race, my soul is an organic part of the great human soul, as my spirit is part of my nation.  In my very own self, I am part of my family.

There is nothing of me that is alone and absolute except my mind, and we shall find that the mind has no existence by itself, it is only the glitter of the sun on the surface of the waters.

82 days ago I made a commitment to write about one joy of my life every day until my birthday.  I probably averaged 300 words per post for a total of about 24,000 words.  D.H. Lawrence says more, and more powerfully, in his 211 words.  But, I kept my commitment and it forced me to be more aware and to think more deeply about how much I've been blessed in this life.

Thank you for being part of my journey.