Happiness is...

My friend and fellow writer Abby Seixas sent a beautiful email today, part of which I excerpt here:

"So, let's talk about happiness. According to a recent study, happiness is contagious. The study concludes that, "happiness ripples well beyond a person's inner circle of friends and family, lifting the mood of an extended network of social contacts..." The Boston Globe, reporting on the study, says, "It seems obvious that your closest friends might influence your mood, but the study found that even the happiness of a friend's friend boosts your chance of being happy by 9.8 percent..." (Click here to read the complete Globe article.)
...As for how to define happiness, May Sarton does it exquisitely in The Work of Happiness, below. The last four lines of this poem are quoted at the beginning of Chapter 10 of my book because, to me, these lines describe the ripple effect of Deep River work. I have always wanted to share the whole poem, so here it is..."

The Work of Happiness

by May Sarton

I thought of happiness, how it is woven

Out of the silence in the empty house each day

And how it is not sudden and it is not given

But is creation itself like the growth of a tree.

No one has seen it happen, but inside the bark

Another circle is growing in the expanding ring.

No one has heard the root go deeper in the dark,

But the tree is lifted by this inward work

And its plumes shine, and its leaves are glittering.
So happiness is woven out of the peace of hours

And strikes its roots deep in the house alone:

The old chest in the corner, cool waxed floors,

White curtains softly and continually blown

As the free air moves quietly about the room;

A shelf of books, a table, and the white-washed wall--

These are the dear familiar gods of home,

And here the work of faith can best be done,

The growing tree is green and musical.
For what is happiness but growth in peace,

The timeless sense of time when furniture has stood a life's span in a single place,

And as the air moves, so the old dreams stir

The shining leaves of present happiness?

No one has heard thought or listened to a mind,

But where people have lived in inwardness

The air is charged with blessing and does bless;

Windows look out on mountains and the walls are kind.