Wanting Simplicity

Last night I was not sleepy when my usual bed time arrived. Maybe it was that nice tall glass of Greek Iced Coffee.
I read some blogs and was struck by a simple sentence on one. No doubt it was not intended to produce hours of deep thinking for the reader, it was more just a comment made in passing. It was about someone being fascinated by the Amish life style.
Which I suspect is a pretty common feeling since our world seems so rushed and complicated in comparison to the Amish life.
However, Amish life is not simple, its full of complexities and although some aspects are simple, most are not.
I spent the greater portion of the night thinking about living simply. What is it about, why does it intrigue so many, yet so few are willing to live that way. Henry David Thoreau's writings are responsible in part for the way I live today. And although I read his works for the first time, when just a young teenager, they spoke to me and helped me form what I believe to be important in my life. The older I got and the more I read the same books over and over, the more defined my beliefs became.
Part of the reason we sought out the Mennonite life was to "find" a simple way of living. I suspect this is true of the blogger who is fascinated by the Amish and their "simple" life. The only problem is, that arriving to a simple life is not found by joining a group, or selling it all and moving to a goat farm. Its all in the heart. Thoreau said, and wisely I might add, "Be wary of any enterprise that requires new clothes." Look on the inside of your heart to find the answers, not in another person or groups lifestyle.
What is needed in this pursuit of simplicity is to bear in mind the old Zen saying, " How refreshing, the whinny of a packhorse unloaded of everything."
I can loose sight easily of my desire to maintain a simple life. I have so many beautiful and wonderful things given to me and I treasure them, but they also attach themselves to desire. Desire to have just one more to complete the set, or desire for a better surface to lay them on. I went through the house this morning, bagging up mounds of things, yes, things. Hats, gloves, hankies, clothes, fabric, dishes, linens, and more. Things I have to move, store, clean and that burden me down. Even books that are just containers of words with nice bindings. Not volumes of wisdom that can make my life better.
I am forever grateful for the long hours of introspection that grew from a simple sentence from a blog that really was not intended to produce "profundity".
I want to leave you with some thoughts.

"I believe we would be happier to have a personal revolution in ourindividual lives and go back to simpler living and more direct thinking. It is the simple things of life that make living worthwhile, the sweet fundamental things such as love and duty, work and rest, and living close to nature. There are not hothouse blossoms thatcan compare in beauty and fragrance with my bouquet of wildflowers".-
Laura Ingalls Wilder


"You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need".
Vernon Howard

"Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful words in the English language, and yet one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying. The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things."
Elise Boulding

"He who buys what he does not need steals from himself"
Author Unknown

"Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials. "
Lin Yutang

"Voluntary simplicity means going fewer places in one day rather than more, seeing less so I can see more, doing lessso I can do more, acquiring less so I can have more."
John Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go There You Are, p. 69

"You can't force simplicity; but you can invite it in by finding as much richness as possible in the few things at hand. Simplicity doesn't mean meagerness but rather a certain kind of richness, the fullness that appears when we stop stuffing the world with things."
Thomas Moore, The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life, p. 293

Music today..... Zen Tranquility, it fits the mood perfectly
Temperature..... Hot, no need to know the numbers, its just plain hot
Cold Chai to drink
From the garden, Fresh asparagus, collard greens, and red cabbage to eat
Work to be done....plant more flowers, weed the perimeter of the vegetable garden.
Sit for hours in the shade and talk of life and love
Work towards minimalism by packing up more things
Dream a bit

pictures are....
A weed, but such a pretty tiny flower.
Emery in the thick of the soap wort, weeding along the fence line