the back of the world

.

Shall I tell you the secret of the whole world? 

It is that we have only known the back of the world. 

We see everything from behind, and it looks brutal.

That is not a tree, but the back of a tree. 

That is not a cloud, but the back of a cloud. 

Cannot you see that everything is stooping and hiding a face? 

If we could only get round in front—

~ G. K. Chesterton, 1908

from The Man Who Was Thursday

the spirit within the earth

.

It is lovely indeed, it is lovely indeed.

I, I am the spirit within the earth.

The feet of the earth are my feet;

The legs of the earth are my legs.

The strength of the earth is my strength;

The thoughts of the earth are my thoughts;

The voice of the earth is my voice.

The feather of the earth is my feather;

All that belongs to the earth belongs to me;

All that surrounds the earth surrounds me.

I, I am the sacred works of the earth.

It is lovely indeed, it is lovely indeed.

~ Navajo origin legend

Song of the Earth Spirit

art by van gogh

when I detect a beauty

.

 

When I detect a beauty in any of the recesses of nature, 

I am reminded by the serene and retired spirit in which it requires to be contemplated, 

of the inexpressible privacy of life - how silent and unambitious it is.  

The beauty there in mosses will have to be considered from the holiest, quietest nook.

 

My truest, serenest moments are too still for emotion; they have woolen feet.  

In all our lives we live under the hill, and if we are not gone we live there still. 

....

To be calm, to be serene!  

There is the calmness of the lake when there is not a breath of wind;

there is the calmness of a stagnant ditch.  So is it with us.  

Sometimes we are clarified and calmed healthily, as we never were before in our lives, 

not by an opiate, but by some unconscious obedience to the all-just laws, 

so that we become like a still lake of purest crystal 

and without an effort our depths are revealed to ourselves.  

 

I awoke into a music which no one by me heard.

Whom shall I thank for it?  I feel my Maker blessing me.

To the sane man the world is a musical instrument.

The very touch affords an exquisite pleasure.

 

~ Henry David Thoreau

taken from a journal entry, June 22,1851

 

completely empty

Settle down in your room at a moment when you have nothing else to do.

 Say “I am now with myself,” and just sit with yourself. 

After an amazingly short time you will most likely feel bored. 

This teaches us one very useful thing. It gives us insight into the fact that

 if after ten minutes of being alone with ourselves we feel like that, 

it is no wonder that others should feel equally bored! Why is this so? 

It is so because we have so little to offer to our own selves as food for thought,

 for emotion and for life. If you watch your life carefully you will discover 

quite soon that we hardly ever live from within outwards; 

instead we respond to incitement, to excitement. In other words, 

we live by reflection, by reaction… We are completely empty, 

we do not act from within ourselves but accept as our life a life

which is actually fed in from the outside; we are used to things happening 

which compel us to do other things. How seldom can we live simply

 by means of the depth and the richness we assume that there is within ourselves.

~ Archbishop Anthony Bloom

from Beginning to Pray

without cause or calculation

 

 

 

A lover doesn't figure the odds.

He figures he came clean from God

as a gift without a reason,

he gives without cause

or calculation or limit.

 

A conventionally religious person

behaves a certain way

to achieve salvation.

 

A lover gambles everything, the self,

the circle around the zero! He or she

cuts and throws it all away.

 

This is beyond

any religion.

 

Lovers do not require from God any proof,

or any text, nor do they knock on a door

to make sure this is the right street.

 

They run,

and they run.

 

 

 

 

~ Rumi

translation: Coleman Barks, 

from: Feeling the Shoulder of the Lion

 

fable - everyone was everything

 

 

 

Ages of fire and of air
Youth of water
From green to yellow
From yellow to red
From dream to watching
From desire to act
It was only one step and you took it so lightly
Insects were living jewels
The heat rested by the side of the pond
Rain was a willow with unpinned hair
A tree grew in the palm of your hand
And that tree laughed sang prophesied
Its divinations filled the air with wings
There were simple miracles called birds
Everything was for everyone
Everyone was everything
There was only one huge word with no back to it
A word like a sun
One day it broke into tiny pieces
They were the words of the language we now speak
Pieces that will never come together
Broken mirrors where the world sees itself shattered

 

 

 

 
 ~  Octavio Paz

 with thanks to whiskey river

 

 

 

where without whom

 

 

 

 

 

 There is not

a single soul among the trees.

and I

 don't know where I've gone.

~ Octavio Paz

 

 

binding the torn threads

 

 

Ruth Bader as a child.

The war has left a bloody trail and many deep wounds not too easily healed.

 Many people have been left with scars that take a long time to pass away. 

We must never forget the horrors which our brethren were subjected to

 in Bergen-Belsen and other Nazi concentration camps.

 

 Then, too, we must try hard to understand that for righteous people

 hate and prejudice are neither good occupations nor fit companions.

 

 Rabbi Alfred Bettleheim once said:

 “Prejudice saves us a painful trouble, the trouble of thinking.”

No one can feel free from danger and destruction until 

the many torn threads of civilization are bound together again.

 We cannot feel safer until every nation, regardless of weapons or power, 

will meet together in good faith, the people worthy of mutual association. 

 

There can be a happy world and there will be once again, 

when men create a strong bond towards one another,

 a bond unbreakable by a studied prejudice or a passing circumstance.

 

 

 

 

 ~  Ruth Bader Ginsburg

 comments written as a 13 year old child

with thanks to Brainpickings

mindfulness - taking care of anger

 

 

 

 

 

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

 

 

 

the culture of the day

The cities only care for what is theirs

and uproot all that's in their path.

They crush the creatures like hollow sticks

and burn up nations like kindling.

Their people serve the culture of the day,

losing all balance and moderation,

calling their aimlessness progress,

driving recklessly where they once drove slow,

and with all that metal and glass

making such a racket.

It's as if they were under a spell:

they can no longer be themselves.

Money keeps growing, takes all their strength,

and empties them like a scouring wind,

while they wait for wine and poisonous passions

to spur them to fruitless occupations.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

III,31, The Book of Poverty and Death
translation by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows
photo by robert frank

eyes are blind

“‘People where you live,”

 the little prince said,

 “grow five thousand roses in one garden… 

yet they don’t find what they’re looking for…”

“They don’t find it,” I answered.

“And yet what they’re looking for could be found 

in a single rose, or a little water…”

“Of course,” I answered.

And the little prince added,

 “But eyes are blind. You have to look with the heart.’”

~  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

from The Little Prince

born in Lyon in 1900. He was rather a poor student, and he failed his entrance exam to the naval academy, but he joined the French army in 1921, and that's where he flew his first plane. He left the military five years later and began flying airmail routes into the Sahara Desert, eventually becoming the director of a remote airfield in Rio de Oro. Living conditions were Spartan, but he said, "I have never loved my house more than when I lived in the desert." He wrote his first novel, Southern Mail (1929), in the Sahara and never lost his love for the desert.

In 1929, he moved to South America to fly the mail through the Andes, and he later returned to carry the post between Casablanca and Port-étienne. He worked as a test pilot and a journalist throughout the 1930s, and survived several plane crashes. He also got married in 1931, to Consuelo Gómez Carrillo. She wrote of him in her memoir, "He wasn't like other people, but like a child or an angel who has fallen down from the sky."

He rejoined the French army upon the outbreak of World War II, but when the Nazis invaded France in 1940, he fled to the United States, hoping to serve the U.S. forces as a fighter pilot. He was turned down because of his age, and, homesick and discouraged, he began his best-known book, The Little Prince (1943). The following year, he returned to North Africa to fly a warplane for France. He took off on a mission on July 31, 1944, and was never heard from again.

when we are weak

 

 

 

When we are weak, we are

strong.  When our eyes close

on the world, then somewhere

within us the bush

burns.  When we are poor

and aware of the inadequacy

of our table, it is to that 

uninvited the guest comes.

 

 

 

 

~ R. S. Thomas

art by Picasso

when they sleep

 

 

All people are children when they sleep.

there's no war in them then.
They open their hands and breathe
in that quiet rhythm heaven has given them.
They pucker their lips like small children
and open their hands halfway,
soldiers and statesmen, servants and masters.
The stars stand guard
and a haze veils the sky,
a few hours when no one will do anybody harm.
If only we could speak to one another then
when our hearts are half-open flowers.
Words like golden bees
would drift in.

 
-- God, teach me the language of sleep.

 

 

 

 

~ Rolf Jacobsen

from Night Music - Selected Poems

translation by Robert Hedin 

photo - children of the boat people

with thanks to Poetry Chaikhana

ask anything

"Ask anything,"

My Lord said to me.

And my mind and heart thought deeply 

for a second,

then replied with just one word,

"When?"

God's arms then opened up and I entered Myself.

I entered Myself when I entered

Christ.

And having learned compassion I

allowed my soul

to stay.

~ Saint Thomas Aquinas

 from for lovers of god everywhere -

Poems of the Christian Mystics 

the half-finished heaven

Cowardice breaks off on its path.

Anguish breaks off on its path.

The vulture breaks off in its flight.

The eager light runs into the open,

even the ghosts take a drink.

And our paintings see the air,

red beasts of the ice-age studios.

Everything starts to look around.

We go out in the sun by hundreds.

Every person is a half-open door

leading to a room for everyone.

The endless field under us.

Water glitters between the trees.

The lake is a window into the earth.

~ Tomas Transtromer

from Half-Finished Heaven

translated by robert bly

art by rolf harris