Joy Returns - a little (maybe)

 I have recently experienced illness with a fever. 
During the night the fever broke, and I awoke
feeling lightness and Joy - if only for a few moments -
as I scurried to the bathroom and back to bed, excited
to be feeling Joy again :)  It lasted only a few moments,
but I felt relieved...

In my journal I wrote:

 the weight of illness,
 how heavy it is and how it
weighs you down,
like the dampening sound of a bell
 when struck - dampened by the weight of illness -

dis-ease...
dis-pair...
grief...

in this case a fever of unknown origin. I know that many 
have experienced this great weight of illness in the past year.

And yet - for a short moment
Joy breaks through
and sings from within the bell.

I am grateful knowing that Joy returns for
many of us - no matter what the illness, even if only a
little, for only a moment, and our bell begins to ring again...

Many Blessings

_/\_

~

Don't try to find it in the future.  Joy is not hope.
Don't try to find it in the past.  Joy is not an ancient story.
And all our stories are ancient, even the tale of yesterday.
And please don't travel to a higher plane, an elevated state
of consciousness, in search of joy.  You will never find it
there, because joy is not a "state" to be gained - or lost.

Neither is joy a condition of circumstance, the good fortune
of some but not others.

Joy is what Existence is doing...

It glows from the Heart of Presence...

Does the light of joy descend from "above"?
No, it wells up like a tear from within.

Joy is the light already embedded in the darkness,
the fragrance of the void, the music in the hollow
of the bell not struck, the overflowing wealth earned

by not-doing.  If you need a reason for joy,
it isn't joy.

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering