Numbered (Revisited), Episode 400
It's our 400th episode, and in a special celebration for which we were joined by a live audience of listeners to Turning Towards Life, we return to the theme of our very first episode, revisiting a source about living as fully as we can in the light of a life that is limited in time, and in which everything ends.
Can we find a way not to turn away from the truth of this and, indeed, to use its truth as a path into living our lives contactfully, attentively and with joy, care, delight, sorrow, grief and truthfulness?
Hosted as always by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace
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Here’s our source for this week:
Numbered
Sometimes I remember that my days are numbered.
My days for working are numbered.
My days for seeing a cloudless sky are numbered.
My days are numbered for sitting beneath tall trees.
And my days are numbered for learning.
My days for holding the ones I love are numbered,
As are my days of kisses.
My days of anguish, fear, and longing – they too are numbered.
And my days of walking the crests of high hills.
My days of deep conversation with friends and colleagues are numbered
And the days on which I can make a dent on the world.
My days for inventing, creating, demolishing, undoing, subverting, contributing.
My days for mending and tearing apart.
My days of confusion.
My days of spreadsheets, keyboards, pens, paperclips.
My days for travelling by train, bus, boat, plane.
My days for reading, music, turning my face towards the stars, and washing the dishes.
My days of getting to know myself.
My days for understanding what life is.
My days for loving.
My days for knowing.
All of these, too.
I don’t think I can remember this all the time.
I am too forgetful for that.
Too easily absorbed in the work of the day.
But when I do remember, life shines with new depth and wonder.
And I find it much more straightforward
To do what I am here to do.
Justin Wise
From Justin’s blog ‘On Living and Working’
Photo by Maksym Kaharlytskyi on Unsplash