i can always pick one up and find something very interesting. lately i've been bringing home one book each trip. today i picked up "Full Catasrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness" by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. The first page I opened was 161:
"Wholeness and connectedness are what are most fundamental in our nature as living beings. No matter how many scars we carry about from what we have gone through and suffered in the past, our intrinsic wholenss is still here: what else contains the scars? None of us has to be a helpless victim of what was done to us or what was not done for us in the past, nor do we have to be helpless in the face of what we may be suffering now. We are also what was present before the scarring, our original wholeness, what was born whole. And we can reconnect up with our intrinsic wholeness at any time because its very nature is that it is always present. So when we make contact with the domain of being in the meditation practice, we are already beyond the scarring, beyond the isolation and fragmentation and suffering we may be experiencing. This means it will always be possible to trascend fragmentation, fear, vulnerability and insecurity, even despair, if you come to see differently, to see with eyes of wholeness. ...
Feeling whole, even for brief moments (as in meditation) nourishes us on a deep level. It is a source of healing and wisdom when faced with stress and pain. ... You probably won't be too surprised to learn that the very word "health" itself means whole. Whole implies integration, an interconnectedness of all parts of a system or organism, a completeness. The nature of wholeness is that it is always present."
So I thought I would share that excerpt.
Have not yet been to the ocean. Need to leave in 90 minutes to take Daniel back to the airport (he is down for the day). The beach is pretty full (it is Memorial Day weekend, after all, even if it is not really toasty and warm). People are at the water, but not a lot in the water. The sailboats are having a wonderful time in the wind, tho.
