lessons

~ Elizabeth Lesser

still life

The rose that no longer blooms in the garden,

blooms inside her whole body, among the veins

and organs and the skeleton.

Linda Gregg 

A hidden blossoming.

Petals flaming beneath the skin.

And a softness pressing,

as delicate as the mouth

of a blind lover.

Each movement,

each quiet gesture

awakens

a rosary in the blood.

Was it desire

which brought her to this moment,

this arrival at source,

or was it merely a need 

to be still, to be richly fed

from this fountain

of dark silence?

~ Dorothy Walters

from Marrow of Flame

 

the difficulty of return

When I first got back,

I thought people would

wish to listen,

moved by my unlikely tale.

Soon I saw that to them I was

mere pariah, outcast,

traveler from a far country

no one had ever heard of,

or believed in.

These goods I brought home

were invisible to all

but the most discerning eye.

My recitals, my celebrations

and laments for what had transpired,

a dumb-show

to all but the most

finely tuned ear.

Now I am ringed by a halo of silence,

and move cautiously,

mouth closed

over this stone

I carry on my tongue.

~ Dorothy Walters

from Marrow of Flame

 

observe

Surely any form of accumulation, either of knowledge or experience, any form of ideal, any projection of the mind, any determined practice to shape the mind - what it should be and should not be - all this is obviously crippling the process of investigation and discovery.

So I think our inquiry must be not for the solution of our immediate problems but rather to find out whether the mind, the conscious as well as the deep unconscious mind in which is stored all the tradition, the memories, the inheritance of racial knowledge,whether all of it can be put aside. I think it can be done only if the mind is capable of being aware without any sense of demand, without any pressure, just to be aware.

 I think it is one of the most difficult things to be so aware because we are caught in the immediate problem and in its immediate solution, and so our lives are very superficial. Though one may go to all the analysts, read all the books, acquire much knowledge, attend churches, pray, mediate, practice various disciplines; nevertheless, our lives are obviously very superficial because we do not know how to penetrate deeply. 

I think the understanding, the way of penetration, how to go very, very deeply, lies through awareness, just to be aware of our thoughts and feelings, without condemnation, without comparison, just to observe. You will see, if you will experiment, how extraordinarily difficult it is, because our whole training is to condemn, to approve, to compare.  

~ J. Krishnamurti

from The Book of Life

the unstructured sources of our beings

Poetry leads us to the unstructured sources of our beings, to the unknown, and returns us to our rational, structured selves refreshed. Having once experienced the mystery, plenitude, contradiction, and composure of a work of art, we afterward have a built-in resistance to the slogans and propaganda of oversimplification that have often contributed to the destruction of human life. Poetry is a verbal means to a nonverbal source. It is a motion to no-motion, to the still point of contemplation and deep realization.

~ A. R. Ammons

a stream I go a-fishing in

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. 
 I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is.
 Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky,
 whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot count one. I know not the first letter
 of the alphabet. I have always been regretting that I was not
 as wise as the day I was born.

~ Henry David Thoreau

from Walden: Where I lived and What I lived for

 

 

 

 

the path

The path to heaven lies through heaven,
and all the way to heaven is heaven.

 

~ Catherine of Siena

with thanks to Love is a Place

hoeing

As I drew a still fresher soil about the rows with my how, I disturbed the ashes of unchronicled nations who in primeval years lived under these heavens, and their small implements of war and hunting were brought to the light of this modern day.  They lay mingled with other natural stones, some of which bore the marks of having been burned by Indian fires, and some by the sun, and also bits of pottery and glass brought hither by the recent cultivators of the soil.  When my hoe tinkled against the stones, that music echoed to the woods and the sky, and was an accompaniment to my labor which yielded an instant and immeasurable crop.  It was no longer beans that I hoed, nor I that hoed beans...

~ Henry David Thoreau

from Walden, The Bean-Field

art by Clotilde Espinosa

wind on water

A field of water betrays a spirit that is in the air. It is continually receiving

new life and motion from above.  It is intermediate in its nature between land

and sky.  On land only the grass and trees wave, but the water itself is rippled

by the wind. I see where the breeze dashes across it by the streaks or flakes of

light.  It is remarkable that we can look down on its surface.  We shall, perhaps, 

look down thus on the surface of air at length, and mark where a still subtler

spirit sweeps over it.

 ~ Henry David Thoreau

excerpt from Walden, the ponds

no such thing

There is no such thing as a person.
There are only restrictions and limitations.
The sum total of these defines the person.

You think you know yourself when you know what you are.
But you never know who you are. The person merely appears to be, like the space within the pot appears to have the shape and volume and smell of the pot.

See that you are not what you believe yourself to be.
Fight with all the strength at your disposal against the idea that you are nameable and describable.

You are not.

Refuse to think of yourself in terms of this or that.
There is no other way out of misery, which you have created for yourself through blind acceptance without investigation.

Suffering is a call for enquiry, all pain needs investigation.
Don’t be too lazy to think.





~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

with thanks to Love is a Place

 

no man's land

But oh!
How far I have to go to find You in Whom I have already arrived!
For now, oh my God, it is to You alone that I can talk,
because nobody else will understand.
I cannot bring any other on this earth
into the cloud where I dwell in Your light,
that is,
Your Darkness,
where I am lost and abashed.

I cannot explain to any other
the anguish which is Your joy
nor the loss which is the possession of You,
nor the distance from all things
which is the arrival in You.
nor the death which is the birth in You
because I do not know anything about it myself
and all I know
is that I wish it were over
-- I wish it were begun.

You have contradicted everything.
You have left me in no man's land.

~ Thomas Merton
from Dancing in the Water of Life

compassion

~ Lucinda Williams

roses underfoot

If anyone asks you to say who you are,

say without hesitation, soul

within soul within soul.

There's a pearl diver who does not know

how to swim!  No matter.

Pearls are handed him on the beach.

 We lovers laugh to hear, "This should be

more that and that more this,"

coming from people sitting in a wagon

tilted in a ditch.

Going in search of the heart, I found

a huge rose, and roses under all our feet!

How to say this to someone who denies it?

The robe we wear is the sky's cloth.

Everything is soul and flowering.

~ Rumi

Coleman Barks translation

art by Hilary Williams

 

the winds will blow their own freshness into you

Ansel Adams - Winter Sunrise

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, 

places to play in and pray in, 

where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.

...

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. 

Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. 

The winds will blow their own freshness into you, 

and the storms their energy, 

while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn."

~ John Muir

John Muir was one of the earliest advocates of the national park idea, and its most eloquent spokesman. Born in Dunbar, Scotland, on April 21st 1838, he moved with his family to a Wisconsin farm in 1849. Muir's father, an itinerant Presbyterian minister, treated him harshly and insisted that he memorize the Bible. By age 11, he was able to recite three-quarters of the Old Testament by heart, and all of the New Testament.

Muir studied botany and geology at the University of Wisconsin and had a natural flair for inventions. In 1867, after recovering from a factory accident that left him temporarily blinded for several months, he cut short a promising career in industry to walk from Indiana to Florida, creating botanical sketches on his way. From there he sailed to California and then walked from San Francisco to the Sierra Nevada – the "Range of Light" that would transform his life with his "unconditional surrender" to nature.

After working as a sheepherder in the high country for a season, Muir took a job in the Yosemite Valley in 1869, building a sawmill for James Mason Hutchings. In his free time, he roamed Yosemite, where he developed a scientific theory that the valley had been carved by glaciers. Muir felt a spiritual connection to nature; he believed that mankind is just one part of an interconnected natural world, not its master, and that God is revealed through nature.

Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir at Glacier Point, Yosemite National Park, 1903

To preach his gospel of nature, he moved to Oakland in 1873 to write articles for leading magazines like Overland Monthly, Scribner's and Harper's Magazine. Muir's articles made him nationally famous. He married Louie Wanda Strentzel and turned her family's farm in Martinez, California, into a profitable orchard business. But he grew restless to immerse himself in nature again, and, at Louie's urging, he traveled to Alaska's Glacier Bay and Washington's Mount Rainier. His writings brought national attention to two more places that would eventually become national parks.

Muir would also champion protection of the Petrified Forest and the Grand Canyon in Arizona. He was the public voice for setting aside the high country around Yosemite Valley as a national park in 1890, as well as for General Grant and Sequoia national parks. His efforts to make a large park in the Kings Canyon region of central California would not be successful, but later park supporters would take up the cause.

Muir's three-night camping trip with President Theodore Roosevelt in 1903 could be considered the most significant camping trip in conservation history. He was able to persuade Roosevelt to return Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove to federal protection as part of Yosemite National Park. The trip would have a lasting impact on the president.

Muir's final crusade, to prevent the city of San Francisco from building a dam and creating a massive water reservoir in Yosemite's Hetch Hetchy Valley, ended in bitter defeat with federal approval of the project in 1913. Muir died a year later, on Christmas Eve, at age 76.

Muir was a founder and the first president of the Sierra Club; Muir Woods National Monument, a grove of redwoods north of San Francisco, is named in his honor.

"If you think about all the gains our society has made, from independence to now, it wasn't government. It was activism. People think, 'Oh, Teddy Roosevelt established Yosemite National Park, what a great president.' BS. It was John Muir who invited Roosevelt out and then convinced him to ditch his security and go camping. It was Muir, an activist, a single person." 

~ Yvon Chouinard

 Patagonia founder and outdoor enthusiast

wind in the vast sky

If someone asks

about the mind of this monk,

say it is no more than

a passage of wind

in the vast sky.

~ Ryokan