They dwell in lowly spots

.

The best, like water, 

Benefit all and do not compete. 

They dwell in lowly spots that everyone else scorns. 

Putting others before themselves, 

They find themselves in the foremost place 

And come very near to the Tao. 

.

~ Lao Tzu

.

A day comes

.

A day comes

when the mouth grows tired

of saying "I."

.

Yet it is occupied

still by a self which must speak.

Which still desires,

is curious.

Which believes it has also a right.

.

What to do?

The tongue consults with the teeth

it knows will survive

both mouth and self,

.

which grin - it is their natural pose -

and say nothing.

.

~ Jane Hirshfield

from "After"

.

Time became as smooth and even as the current

.

.

I worked too hard and furiously about the boat last week, trying to get the interior more or less complete, so as to get at the construction of a johnboat.  But I suddenly came to myself, realizing that none of it mattered a great deal, and I was losing much by my absorption in it.  We are really comfortable here, with the chores inside and out easy enough to do.  All that we plan to do will make for added comfort, convenience and neatness, but will come in time, and leisure must be had for other activities and for just living, or we will miss our way.

.

Time became as smooth and even as the current outside our windows, and we began to realize our true aims in coming to the river... 
I had no theories to prove.

.

~ Harlan Hubbard 

bookcover art by the author

.

Tear: An Assay

A great philosopher is born, walks his lifetime's allotment of footsteps, and dies, but while he is living he has the demeanor and body and voice of a great clown.   Each of his propositions is heard, but met with snorts, guffaws, and the wiping of tears of laughter from the eyes.  Or perhaps it is the reverse: A great comic is born, walks the earth, and dies.  But her demeanor and body and voice are such that people listen gravely, they nod in silence at her words, are moved to weeping by the feelings her thoughts cause to rise.  The composition to tears of laughter and tears of grief is not, it seems, the same, though the tongue cannot tell this.  Different still the tears of outrage, or the tears that come from a misplace dust mote, errant eyelash, of flake of soot.  Each brought to the earth a great if different pleasure.  Each died unsatisfied and angry, though this too is not perceived.   And where does the mistake lie, if a mistake is granted at all?  In the person who refuses an inescapable fate, or in those who shed at his works their tears of subtly erroneous composition?

~ Jane Hirshfield
art by aiden-ivanov

.

some wholly communal thing

.

Happy who know that behind all speeches

still the unspeakable lies;

that it's from there that greatness reaches

us in the form we prize!

Trusting not to the diversely fashioned

bridges of difference we outfling:

so that we gaze out of every impassioned

joy at some wholly communal thing.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Youth of Grass

.

Yesterday in the hushed white sunlight 

down along the meadows by the river

through all the bright hours they cut the first hay

of this year to leave it tossed in long rows

leading into the twilight and long evening

while thunderheads grumbled from the horizon

and now the whole valley and the slopes around it 

that look down to the sky in the river

are fragrant with hay as this night comes in

and the owl cries across the new spaces

to the mice suddenly missing their sky

and so the youth of this spring all at once is over 

it has come upon us again taking us

once more by surprise just as we began

to believe that those fields would always be green

.

~ W.S. Merwin

.

.

Falling

.

Long before daybreak

none of the birds yet awake

rain comes down with the sound

of a huge wind rushing

through the valley trees

it comes down around us

all at the same time

and beyond it there is nothing

it falls without hearing itself

without knowing

there is anyone here 

without seeing where it is

or where it is going

like a moment of great

happiness in our own

that we cannot remember

coasting with the lights off

.

~ W.S. Merwin
from "The Shadow of Sirius"

art by Bertha Lum

.

thought is no longer of worth to me

Thought is no longer of worth to me,

Nor work, nor speech.

Love draws me so high

(Thought is no longer of worth to me)

With her divine gaze,

That I have no intent.

Thought is no longer of worth to me.

Nor work, nor speech.

~ Marguerite Porete
(1260?-1310)

Her book, The Mirror of Simple Souls (or The Mirror of Simple Annihilated Souls, a reference to ecstatic annihilation in God), survived her death and was translated into many European languages, attributed initially to "an unknown French mystic." The book is a collection of poetry and prose that suggests a profound experience of mystical union which resulted in a complete loss of personal identity in which only the Divine remains.

The earth is hushed

.

.

The bright moon lights the path

through the gray woods

From the unlit depths of the hollow comes

the soft sound of broken water

A faint brightness, or is it a low cloud

within the eastern sky

The earth is hushed

.

~ Harlan Hubbard

.

a deeper silence

.

.

No writing on the solitary, meditative dimensions of life can say anything 

that has not already been said better by the wind in the pine trees. 

These pages seek nothing more than to echo the silence and peace 

that is “heard” when the rain wanders freely among the hills and forests.

.

But what can the wind say when there is no hearer?

.

 There is then a deeper silence:

 the silence in which the Hearer is No-Hearer. 

That deeper silence must be heard before one can speak truly of solitude.

~ Thomas Merton

thanks to http://practiceofzen.wordpress.com/

.

In a frontispiece poem to The Solitary Life, Merton wrote:

.

Follow my ways and I will lead you

To golden-haired suns,

Logos and music, blameless joys,

Innocent of questions

And beyond answers.

For I, Solitude, am thine own Self:

I, Nothingness, am thy All.

I, Silence, am thy Amen.

.

I see through my pictures

.

Harlan's studio at Payne Hollow

When I am painting, or have painting in my mind, 

I see more, observe more carefully, am more sensitive... 

I see through my pictures.

I see everything as a painting. I see so much more.

Seeing things as a painter, seeing pictures.  

This is a great happiness.

It brings everything into balance and harmony.

Painting can only be done in some state of exaltation.  

It is a force that breaks through the routine of life, 

that transcends life itself.

It is exciting with boundless possibilities.

I am always painting in my mind.

Just a little solid, creative painting and the day is good.  

It brings us closer to the earth, 

makes the present moment exhilarating, 

the future hopeful.

It is a strange life when I consider it, 

how I endeavor to attain strength and clarity, 

to mold these base materials into forms which will express me, 

and my attitude, my joy and thankfulness.  

I work alone, 

who cares whether I produce anything or not, 

or who appreciates it?  

Yet I believe a good thing will not perish.

~ Harlan Hubbard

from "Harlan Hubbard and the River - A Visionary Life"

by Don Wallis

their graciousness is an invitation

.

.

 a bell is placed across the river for visitors to ring, 

their graciousness is an invitation

.

"There is a fascination about the distant tones of the bell sounding across the river.  

Who is there, with what news?  

Is it a dear friend long unseen, 

or a stranger whose coming will change the course of our lives?"

.

~ Harlan Hubbard

.

.

.

that secret from the river

..

"Have you also learned that secret from the river; 

that there is no such thing as time?"

That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at

the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the

ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only

exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the

future.

~ Herman Hesse

from "Siddhartha"

I will be watered to my roots

A pale sun burning through the mist, 

the soft clouds barely visible in the gray, blue sky... 

Looking up the river I saw a bolt of lightning, 

an arrow from the sky that pierced the earth.

A soft rain comes down from the gray sky, 

and sullen thunder rolls into the distance.  

My spirit drinks in the rain like the plants do.  

I will be watered to my roots.

It is suddenly full summer.  

We look out from leafy trees.

The fragrance of wild grape and honeysuckle 

flowers drifts through the air.  

You enter and leave currents of it as you go along the paths.

In the leafy woods there is such contrast to the sunlight

 that the shade is like twilight, 

like going down into a deep ravine.  

The pale green of the jewel weed is ghostly... 

Then to hear the thrush singing on the hill above...

I think I saw the first green heron.  

Yes.

~ Harlan Hubbard 

from his journals, taken here from

"Harlan Hubbard and the River - A Visionary Life"

by Don Wallis

.

.

Michelangelo spoke of his work as releasing 
"Prisoners in Stone"

.

and we too, 
captured in invisible "stone"
wait for our Michelangelo to free us.  
.