a little perspective

 

 

 

 

 

 

~ Carl Sagan

 

 

 

my wilderness

.

.

 

 

I looked up with a wild duck's eye into the trees 

waving as the wind rushed through them... 

Suddenly I felt alone on earth, 

as I do when lying on the damp ground in spring

 to see the bloodroot raising its leaf sheath through the mold.  

These moments are not rare.  

I can summon them whenever I feel the need to retire into the wilderness.  

For this is my wilderness, 

untouched by man, 

of infinite grace and harmony.

.

 

 

 

~ Harlan Hubbard

from "Payne Hollow - Life on the fringe of Society"

.

unbind my eyes

.

Now I must break forth from my old self,

cast away old traditions,

unbind my eyes,

so that I may have a broader vision of truth;

so that I may come to this river, as I do today,

and not find it cluttered with emotions and thoughts of former days;

or its shore lined with drift of cities.

I must see the elements as they are...

.

 

 

 

 

~ Harlan Hubbard

from his journal, quoted here from

"Harlan Hubbard and the River - A Visionary Life"

by Don Wallis

.

 

 

in the midst of

My dear,

 

In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love.

In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile.

In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm.

 

I realized, through it all, that…

In the midst of winter, I found there was, 

within me, an invincible summer.

And that makes me happy.

 

 For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, 

within me, there’s something stronger – 

something better, pushing right back.

Truly yours,

Albert Camus

from Retour à Tipasa, 1952 

(Return to Tipasa, 1952)

one

.

.

I asked for one kiss.  You gave me six.

Who was teacher is now student.

Things good and generous take form in me,

and the air is clear.

There is a strange frenzy in my head,
of birds flying,
each particle circulating on its own.

Is the one I love everywhere?

We take long trips.
We puzzle over the meaning of a painting or a book,
when what we are wanting to see and understand in this world,
we are that.

 

 
.

 

 

 

~ Rumi

from the big red book

.

 

different from any before it

.

This moment is different from any before it

This moment if different, it is now

And if I don't kiss you, that kiss is untasted

I'll never, no never, get it back

But why should I want to, I'll be in the next moment

Sweet moment, sweet lover, sweet now

The walls of this room are different from any before them, they are now

The air that you breathe is different from any before it, it is now

You may think that life is repeating, repeating

You may think that life is repeating, oh no ...

I just want to tell each one of you that

Each note hit is different from any before it

Each note hit is different, it is now.

.

~ Incredible String Band

.

 

 

the great blending

For intervals, then, throughout our lives
we savor a concurrence, the great blending
of our chance selves with what sustains
all chance. We ride the wave and are
the wave. And with renewed belief
inner and outer we find our talk
turned to prayer, our prayer into truth:
for an interval, early, we become at home in the world.

~ William Stafford

come with me

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Come with me

To the quiet minute

Between two noisy minutes

It's always waiting to welcome us

Tucked away under the wing of the day

I'll be there

Where will you be?

 

 .

 

 

 ~ Naomi Shihab Nye

from Everything Comes Next: 

Collected and New Poems

 

 

  

we should consider

 

 

 

 

 

 

 If you don't know the kind of person I am

and I don't know the kind of person you are

a pattern that others made may prevail in the world

and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

 

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,

a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break

sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood

storming out to play through the broken dyke.

 

And as elephants parade holding each elephants tail,

but if one wander the circus won't find the park,

I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty

to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

 

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy

a remote important region in all who talk:

though we could fool each other, we should consider --

lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

 

For it is important that awake people be awake,

or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;

the signals we give -- yes or no, or maybe --

should be clear: the darkness around us is deep. 

 

 

 

 

~ William Stafford

 from The Answers Are Inside the Mountains:

 Meditations on the Writing Life (Poets On Poetry)

 

 

 

 

stripping off the bonds of individuality

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The quietude and outer simplicity of the lichens hides the complexity of their inner lives.

 Lichens are amalgams of two creatures: a fungus and either an alga or a bacterium.

 

 The fungus spreads the strands of its body over the ground and provides a welcoming bed. 

The alga or bacterium nestles inside these strands and uses the sun’s energy

 to assemble sugar and other nutritious molecules. As in any marriage, both partners are changed

 by their union. The fungus body spreads out, turning itself into a structure similar to a tree leaf:

 a protective upper crust, a layer for the light-capturing algae, and tiny pores for breathing. 

The algal partner loses its cell wall, surrenders protection to the fungus,

 and gives up sexual activities in favor of faster but less genetically exciting self-cloning.

 

 Lichenous fungi can be grown in the lab without their partners, but these widows

 are malformed and sickly. Similarly, algae and bacteria from lichens can generally survive

 without their fungal partners, but only in a restricted range of habitats.

 

 By stripping off the bonds of individuality the lichens have produced a world-conquering union.

 They cover nearly ten percent of the land’s surface, especially in the treeless far north,

 where winter reigns for most of the year.

Like a farmer tending her apple trees and her field of corn, a lichen is a melding of lives.

 Once individuality dissolves, the scorecard of victors and victims makes little sense.

 

 Is corn oppressed? Does the farmer’s dependence on corn make her a victim?

 These questions are premised on a separation that does not exist.

 

 The heartbeat of humans and the flowering of domesticated plants are one life.

 “Alone” is not an option… Lichens add physical intimacy to this interdependence,

 fusing their bodies and intertwining the membranes of their cells, 

like cornstalks fused with the farmer, bound by evolution’s hand.

Blue or purple lichens contain blue-green bacteria, the cyanobacteria.

 Green lichens contain algae. Fungi mix in their own colors by secreting yellow or silver

 sunscreen pigments. Bacteria, algae, fungi: three venerable trunks of the tree of life

 twining their pigmented stems.

The algae’s verdure reflects an older union. Jewels of pigment deep inside algal cells

 soak up the sun’s energy. Through a cascade of chemistry this energy is transmuted into the bonds

 that join air molecules into sugar and other foods. This sugar powers both the algal cell

 and its fungal bedfellow. The sun-catching pigments are kept in tiny jewel boxes, 

chloroplasts, each of which is enclosed in a membrane and comes with its own genetic material.

 The bottle-green chloroplasts are descendants of bacteria that took up residence inside algal cells

 one and a half billion years ago. The bacterial tenants gave up their tough outer coats,

 their sexuality, and their independence, just as algal cells do when they unite with fungi to make lichens.

 

 Chloroplasts are not the only bacteria living inside other creatures.

 All plant, animal, and fungal cells are inhabited by torpedo-shaped mitochondria

 that function as miniature powerhouses, burning the cells’ food to release energy.

 These mitochondria were also once free-living bacteria and have, like the chloroplasts,

given up sex and freedom in favor of partnership.

We are Russian dolls, our lives made possible by other lives within us. 

But whereas dolls can be taken apart, our cellular and genetic helpers cannot be separated from us,

 nor we from them. We are lichens on a grand scale.

 

 

 

 

 ~ David George Haskell

from The Forest Unseen: 

A Year's Watch in Nature

photo by Jim McCulloch

 with thanks to the Marginalian

 

 

 

 

an infinite storm of beauty

No dogma taught by the present civilization seems to form so insuperable

 an obstacle in the way of a right understanding of the relations 

which culture sustains to wildness as that which regards the world

 

 as made especially for the uses of man.

 

 Every animal, plant, and crystal controverts it in the plainest terms.

 Yet it is taught from century to century as something ever new and precious, 

and in the resulting darkness the enormous conceit is allowed to go unchallenged.

I have never yet happened upon a trace of evidence that seemed to show

 that any one animal was ever made for another as much as it was made for itself.

 Not that Nature manifests any such thing as selfish isolation. 

In the making of every animal the presence of every other animal has been recognized.

 Indeed, every atom in creation may be said to be acquainted with 

and married to every other, but with universal union there is a division

 sufficient in degree for the purposes of the most intense individuality; 

no matter, therefore, what may be the note which any creature forms

 in the song of existence, it is made first for itself, then more and more remotely

 for all the world and worlds.

 

The scenery of the ocean, however sublime in vast expanse, 

seems far less beautiful to us dry-shod animals than that of the land 

seen only in comparatively small patches; but when we contemplate 

the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents

 and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together

 as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.

 

 

 

 

 ~ John Muir

from Nature Writings

 

 

 

some essential questions

Nachiketa

Teach me That you see as beyond right 

And wrong, cause and effect, past and future.

Yama

...

The all-knowing self was never born,

Nor will it die.  Beyond cause and effect,

This Self is eternal and immutable.

When the body dies, the Self does not die.

If the slayer believes that he can kill

Or the slain believes that he can be killed,

Neither knows the truth.  The eternal Self

Slays not, nor is ever slain.

Hidden in the heart of every creature 

Exists the Self, subtler than the subtlest,

Greater than the greatest,  They go beyond

All sorrow who extinguish their self-will

And behold the glory of the Self

Through the grace of the Lord of Love.

...

When the wise realize the Self,

Formless in the midst of forms, changeless

In the midst of change, omnipresent

And supreme, they go beyond sorrow.

The Self cannot be known through study

Of the scriptures, nor through the intellect,

Nor through hearing discourses about it.

The Self can be attained only by those 

Whom the Self chooses.  Verily unto them

Does the Self reveal himself.

...

~ The Katha Upanishad (8th-6th century BC)

as translated by Eknath Easwaran

The Katha is a story which beautifully brings together a confrontation

 of the ideal student with the ideal teacher, leading to a highly creative

 and naked consideration of the key questions: "Who am I?" "What dies?" 

"What is left?" and "what, if anything, can we say about death

 - now, while we are alive?

Tolstoy on kindness

 

 

 

 

 

 

The kinder and the more thoughtful a person is, 

the more kindness he can find in other people.

You should respond with kindness toward evil done to you, 

and you will destroy in an evil person that pleasure which he derives from evil.

Kindness is for your soul as health is for your body: 

you do not notice it when you have it.

Love is real only when a person can sacrifice himself for another person. 

Only when a person forgets himself for the sake of another, 

and lives for another creature,

 only this kind of love can be called true love,

 and only in this love do we see the blessing and reward of life.

 This is the foundation of the world.

Nothing can make our life, or the lives of other people, 

more beautiful than perpetual kindness.

 

 

 

 

 

~ Leo Tolstoy

from  A Calendar of Wisdom: Daily Thoughts to Nourish the Soul,

 Written and Selected from the World’s Sacred Texts

translation by Peter Sekirin

 with thanks to brainpickings

 

until

Until each breath refuses they, those, them.
Until the Dramatis Personae of the book’s first page says, “Each one is you.”
Until hope bows to its hopelessness only as one self bows to another.

 Until cruelty bends to its work and sees suddenly: I.

Until anger and insult know themselves burnable legs of a useless table.
Until the unsurprised unbidden knees find themselves bending.

 Until fear bows to its object as a bird’s shadow bows to its bird.

 Until the ache of the solitude inside the hands, the ribs, the ankles.

 Until the sound the mouse makes inside the mouth of the cat.

 Until the inaudible acids bathing the coral.

Until what feels no one’s weighing is no longer weightless.
Until what feels no one’s earning is no longer taken.
Until grief, pity, confusion, laughter, longing know themselves mirrors.
Until by we we mean I, them, you, the muskrat, the tiger, the hunger.
Until by I we mean as a dog barks, sounding and vanishing and
sounding and vanishing completely.

Until by until we mean I, we, you, them, the muskrat, the tiger, the
hunger, the lonely barking of the dog before it is answered.

~ Jane Hirshfield

from Ledger

 

Inside its bends

.

.

 

 

Inside its bends, the river 

builds the land, outside

it frets the land away.

This is unjust only from

a limited view.  Forever

it doesn't matter, is only

the world's way, the give

and take, the take and 

give we suffer in order 

to live.  This household

of my work, ungainly on

its stilts, stands outside

the bend, and the river wears

near and near, flow

outlasting the standing firm.

Trees once here are gone,

the slope they stood upon

gone.  I needed what is lost,

although I love as well

the flow that took it.  Now

spring is coming, the redbird's

peal rings from the thicket,

the pair exchanges like

a kiss a seed from the feeder,

and this is timeless.  But a day

in time will come when this

house will give way, the walls

lean and fall.  Shattered will be

my window's rectitude.

 

 

 

 

 

~ Wendell Berry

from Leavings
photo by Ansel Adams

.