Imbolc New Life Moon
Got it. Kate’s idea for eliciting instances of joy in three different life stages will start us out. Then, for those who are willing, we’ll share as many as possible. From that sharing we’ll see if we can define joy, how do we know it when we feel it, see it? Once we’ve done that we’ll try to discover how to incite, embrace, encourage joy as often as we can.
Goals. 1. identify joy in our lives, in the present and the past. 2. experience as much of the joy as we can again, through sharing our own and listening to others. 3. tease out the elements of joy. what is it? 4. Figure out a practice that will increase our joy in the coming month.
I’m also going to prepare a handout for the very end with other people’s thoughts on joy, including Ron’s, below.
“Yesterday, Rich and I sat down and had a short chat about it. Is Joy a verb? Is Joy an emotion? Is it a state of mind or being? And it got me thinking.
What if joy is the energy of life? And what it if manifests as a persistent yet invisible glow or aura that emanates from us at all times… sometimes it’s bright and sometimes dim. The more mindful we are of it, the brighter the glow / aura becomes. We can certainly sense when someone is joyful without them telling us, right? We sense their joyfulness even if they don’t speak (is that charisma?) The Dalai Lama emanates joy. I’ve never met him but I imagine he is joyful even when he is sad or ill (which he must be sometimes, right?) But how can you be sad or ill and still be joyful?
Maybe joy is not a state of well-being, but simply the state of being, period. Not physical, not mental, not emotional, just the fact of being alive is joy. Life is joy. Do trees glow? Do animals glow? Do we feel joy in the forest or in the presence of others? I think so.
My practice is simply going to be to focus on life as joy. Living as joy. Separate from all other things… including pain, sorrow, anger, jealousy. Let me know if you see my glow… because I’ll be looking for yours.” Ron Solomon
