self-portrait as subordinate clause

 

and when 

the larkspur

petals fall and when

the fall begins to sing

and when the song weaves

through the loss and when

the loss dyes

everything, when

everything is

emptier and emptiness

is whole somehow, when

whole is what a life 

does, when life is

what is now, when

now is

ever changing

and changing knows

no end, when

any ending

I might seek is

just another

when

~ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

from All The Honey

in morning

 

The Palestinian child

does not think about being Palestinian,

but only of how his kitten

slept last night

and why is it not

in its basket.

Before he walks to school,

he will find it playing

with neighbor kittens

outside his house

and make sure it has breakfast.

The Ukrainian child

checks her doll

in its crib

which is really a box

shoes once lived in

and tucks

the blanket

which is really a napkin

tighter.

The Libyan child

thought he lived in a desert,

so how could his house wash away,

the Moroccan child

never dreamed a building so old

with such fat walls

could fall,

the child of Maui

never wears socks

but someone has given him

socks.

He misses

his old messy room

which he would clean up right now

if he still had it.

Each morning

we put ourselves together.

Try to imagine

what we will do,

gathering things,

thoughts,

mysteries

no one explains.

Scary things

feel farther away

in morning.

We try not to worry.

Wash face

brush teeth,

be as good as possible

because the stones

lined up

by the grandfathers

are still somewhere

and the wind from the west

is still your friend

and the little gray bird

pecking at a crumb

said something

we almost understood.

~ Naomi Shihab Nye

with thanks to Ruth at 

 https://thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com

humility and curiosity in support a meaningful life

 

The first is humility. Humility amounts to an understanding 

that the world is not divided into good and bad people, 

but rather it is made up of all manner of individuals, 

each broken in their own way, each caught up in the common

 human struggle and each having the capacity to do both terrible

 and beautiful things. 

If we truly comprehend and acknowledge that we are all imperfect creatures, 

we find that we become more tolerant and accepting of others’ shortcomings

 and the world appears less dissonant, 

less isolating, less threatening.

The other quality is curiosity. If we look with curiosity at people

 who do not share our values, they become interesting rather than threatening. 

As I’ve grown older I’ve learnt that the world and the people in it

 are surprisingly interesting, and that the more you look and listen,

 the more interesting they become. Cultivating a questioning mind, 

of which conversation is the chief instrument, enriches our relationship

 with the world. Having a conversation with someone I may disagree

 with is, I have come to find, a great,

 life embracing pleasure.

~ Nick Cave

with thanks to The Marginalian 

by Maria Popova

close your eyes

 

Close your eyes.

Fall in love.

Stay there.

~ Rumi

Image: NASA/Chandra X-Ray Center

Once we dreamt that

we were strangers,

We wake up to find that

we were dear to

each other.

~ Tabindranath Tagore

This story began many years ago as two planets

journeyed from far distant regions to circle 

each other in the light and warmth of the sun.

In such company, 

fears fell away,

protective barriers disolved in the light.

Their essences were revealed in 

the flow of their magma. 

Each saw themselves within the living

core of the other.

What joy!

each of us must turn inward

 

 

 

Klaas, all I really wanted to say is this: we have so much work to do on ourselves

 that we shouldn’t even be thinking of hating our so-called enemies.

 We are hurtful enough to one another as it is.

 

 And I don’t really know what I mean when I say that there are bullies

 and bad characters among our own people, for no one is really “bad” deep down. 

I should have liked to reach out to that [bully] with all his fears, 

I should have liked to trace the source of his panic, 

to drive him ever deeper into himself, 

that is the only thing we can do, 

Klaas, in times like these.

And you, Klaas, give a tired and despondent wave and say, 

“But what you propose to do takes such a long time, 

and we don’t really have all that much time, do we?”

 And I reply, “What you want is something people have been trying to get

 for the last two thousand years, and for many more thousand years before that, 

in fact, ever since [humankind] has existed on earth.” 

 

“And what do you think the result has been, if I may ask?” you say.

And I repeat with the same old passion,

 although I am gradually beginning to think that I am being tiresome,

“It is the only thing we can do, Klaas, I see no alternative, 

each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself 

all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others. 

And remember that every atom of hate we add to this world

 makes it still more inhospitable.”

And you, Klaas, dogged old class fighter that you have always been,

 dismayed and astonished at the same time, say,

 “But that—that is nothing but Christianity!”

And I, amused by your confusion, retort quite coolly,

“Yes, Christianity, and why ever not?”

~ Etty Hillesum

from An Interrupted Life: The Diaries

 

 

 

 

 

the teachings of my blood pulsing within me

 

I have no right to call myself one who knows. 

I was one who seeks, and I still am,

 but I no longer seek in the stars or in books;

 I'm beginning to hear the teachings of my blood pulsing within me.

 My story isn't pleasant, it's not sweet and harmonious 

like the invented stories; it tastes of folly and bewilderment,

 of madness and dream, like the life of all people 

who no longer want to lie to themselves.

~ Hermann Hesse

from Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth

art by Van Gogh

with thanks to whiskey river

other desires are substitutes

A spirit that lives in this world

and does not wear the shirt of love,

such an existence is a deep disgrace.

Be foolishly in love,

because love is all there is.

There is no way into presence

except through a love exchange.

If someone asks, But what is love?

answer, Dissolving the will.

True freedom comes to those

who have escaped the questions

of freewill and fate.

Love is an emperor.

The two worlds play across him.

He barely notices their tumbling game.

Love and lover live in eternity.

Other desires are substitutes

for that way of being.

How long do you lay embracing a corpse?

Love rather the soul, which cannot be held.

Anything born in spring dies in the fall,

but love is not seasonal.

With wine pressed from grapes,

expect a hangover.

But this love path has no expectations.

You are uneasy riding the body?

Dismount. Travel lighter.

Wings will be given.

Be clear like a mirror

reflecting nothing.

Be clean of pictures and the worry

that comes with images.

Gaze into what is not ashamed

or afraid of any truth.

Contain all human faces in your own

without any judgment of them.

Be pure emptiness.

What is inside that? you ask.

Silence is all I can say.

Lovers have some secrets

That they keep.

~ Rumi
photo by Eliot Porter

struggle?

 

When you surrender, the problem ceases to exist. Try to solve it, or conquer it, 

and you only set up more resistance. I am very certain now that… 

if I truly become what I wish to be, the burden will fall away. 

The most difficult thing to admit, and to realize with one’s whole being, 

is that you alone control nothing. 

To be able to put yourself in tune or rhythm with the forces beyond, 

which are the truly operative ones, that is the task

 — and the solution, if we can speak of “solutions.”

One thing I don’t worry about… is what people think, 

how they misinterpret things. There’s nothing you can do about that… 

What amazes me more and more is how much people do understand 

when you give them the full dose, when you hold back nothing.

One has to permit people to become desperate, to become wholly lost, 

that only then are they ready for the right word, only then can they 

avail themselves of the truth. To withhold it then is a crime. 

But to nurse them along is a worse crime. And there is where much

 of the conflict centers, about that point. The human instinct to spare 

the other person his agony (which is his means of salvation, 

in any sense of the word) is a fallacious instinct. Here the subtle temptations, 

the vicious and insidious ones, because so confused and entangled, 

enter in. On this so-called human plane it is the ego which commands — 

often in the most amazing disguises. The temptation to be good, 

to do good, gets us all some time or other.

 It’s the last ruse, I feel, of the ego.

This clamor and agitation which I seem to create all about me, 

even from a distance, 

proceeds from me. 

I know it.

Have I not become more and more aware latterly that the things 

I deeply desire come without struggle? … 

All the struggle, then, is phantom play. 

The fighting with shadows. 

This I know.

~ Henry Miller

from A Literate Passion: 

Letters of Anaïs Nin & Henry Miller

with thanks to The Marginalian by Maria Popova

photo Henry Miller on his bike

Hokusai says

Hokusai says look carefully.
He says pay attention, notice.
He says keep looking, stay curious.
He says there is no end to seeing.

He says look forward to getting old.
He says keep changing,
you just get more who you really are.
He says get stuck, accept it, repeat yourself
as long as it’s interesting.

He says keep doing what you love.
He says keep praying.
He says every one of us is a child,

every one of us is ancient,
every one of us has a body.
He says every one of us is frightened.
He says every one of us has to find a way to live with fear.

He says everything is alive—
shells, buildings, people, fish, mountains, trees.
Wood is alive.
Water is alive.
Everything has its own life.
Everything lives inside us.
He says live with the world inside you.

He says it doesn’t matter if you draw, or write books.
It doesn’t matter if you saw wood, or catch fish.
It doesn’t matter if you sit at home
and stare at the ants on your verandah or the shadows of the trees
and grasses in your garden.

It matters that you care.
It matters that you feel.
It matters that you notice.
It matters that life lives through you.

Contentment is life living through you.
Joy is life living through you.
Satisfaction and strength
are life living through you.
Peace is life living through you.

He says don’t be afraid.
Don’t be afraid.
Look, feel, let life take you by the hand.
Let life live through you.

 

 

 

~ Roger Keyes

a single word

 

A single word can brighten the face

of one who knows the value of words.

Ripened in silence, a single word

acquires a great energy for work.

War is cut short by a word,

and a word heals the wounds,

and there's a word that changes

poison into butter and honey.

Let a word mature inside yourself.

Withhold the unripened thought.

Come and understand the kind of word

that reduces money and riches to dust.

Know when to speak a word

and when not to speak at all.

A single word turns the universe of hell

into eight paradises.

Follow the Way. Don't be fooled

by what you already know. Be watchful.

Reflect before you speak.

A foolish mouth can brand your soul.

Yunus, say one last thing

about the power of words --

Only the word "I"

divides me from God.

~ Yunus Emre

from The Drop That Became the Sea: 

Lyric Poems of Yunus Emre 

Translated by Kabir Helminski and Refik Algan

with thanks to Poetry Chaikhana

all beings

All beings
are words of God,
His music, His
art.

Sacred books we are, for the infinite camps
in our
souls.

Every act reveals God and expands His Being.
I know that may be hard
to comprehend.

All creatures are doing their best
to help God in His birth
of Himself.

Enough talk for the night
He is laboring in me;

I need to be silent
for a while,

worlds are forming
in my
heart.

~ Meister Eckhart

from Love Poems from God

translation by Daniel Ladinsky

the way it is

 

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among

things that change. But it doesn’t change.

People wonder about what you are pursuing.

You have to explain about the thread.

But it is hard for others to see.

While you hold it you can’t get lost.

Tragedies happen; people get hurt

or die; and you suffer and get old.

Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.

You don’t ever let go of the thread.

The morning before he died in the final year of his seventies,

 he drafted a poem containing these lines:

You can’t tell when strange things with meaning

will happen. I’m [still] here writing it down

just the way it was. “You don’t have to

prove anything,” my mother said. “Just be ready

for what God sends.” I listened and put my hand

out in the sun again. It was all easy.

~ William Stafford

from The Way It Is

with thanks to Maria Popova

"you can't think and hit at the same time" - Yogi Berra

 

 

 

Third Chinese Patriarch of Zen (The Hsin Hsin Ming)

 

 

The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however,
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.

If you wish to see the truth
then hold no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.
When the deep meaning of things is not understood,
the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail.

The Way is perfect like vast space
where nothing is lacking and nothing in excess.
Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject
that we do not see the true nature of things.

Live neither in the entanglements of outer things,
nor in inner feelings of emptiness.
Be serene in the oneness of things and such
erroneous views will disappear by themselves.

When you try to stop activity by passivity
your very effort fills you with activity.
As long as you remain in one extreme or the other
you will never know Oneness.

Those who do not live in the single Way
fail in both activity and passivity,
assertion and denial.
To deny the reality of things
is to miss their reality;
To assert the emptiness of things
is to miss their reality.

The more you talk and think about it,
the further astray you wander from the truth.
Stop talking and thinking,
and there is nothing you will not be able to know.

~ excerpt from
The Third Patriarch of Zen Hsin Hsin Ming by Seng-T'san

 Translated from the Chinese by Richard B. Clarke

 teachings of the Buddha

 

 

 

 

addicted to the external

It is strange to be here. The mystery never leaves you alone. Behind your image, below your words, above your thoughts, the silence of another world waits. A world lives within you. No one else can bring you news of this inner world. Through our voices, we bring out sound from the mountain beneath our soul. These sounds are words. There are so many talking all the time, loudly, quietly, in rooms, on streets, on TV, on radio, in the paper, in books. The noise of words keeps what we call the world there for us. We take each others’ sounds and make patterns and predictions, benedictions, and blasphemies. Each day, our tribe of language holds what we call the ‘world’ together. Yet the uttering of the world reveals how each of us relentlessly creates. Everyone is an artist. Each person brings out sound out of silence and coaxes the invisible to become visible.

Humans are new here. Above us, the galaxies dance out toward infinity. Under our feet is the ancient earth. We are beautifully molded from this clay. Yet the smallest stone is millions of years older than us. In your thoughts, the silent universe seeks echo.

An unknown world aspires towards reflection. Words are the oblique mirrors which hold your thought. You gaze into these word mirrors and catch glimpses of meaning, belonging shelter. Behind their bright surfaces is the dark and the silence. Words are like the god Janus, they face inwards and outwards at once.

If we become addicted to the external our interiority will haunt us. We will become hungry with a hunger no image, person or deed can still. To be wholesome, we must remain truthful to our vulnerable complexity. In order to keep our balance, we need to hold the interior and exterior, visible and invisible, known and unknown, temporal and eternal, ancient and new together. No one else can undertake this task for you. You are the one and only threshold of your inner world. This wholesomeness is holiness. To be holy is natural; to befriend the worlds that come to balance in you.

Behind the facade of image and distraction, each person is an artist in this primal and inescapable sense. Each one of us is doomed and privileged to be an inner artist who carries and shapes a unique world.

Human presence is a creative and turbulent sacrament, a visible sign of invisible grace.

~ John O'Donohue

from Anam Cara

it’s enough

 

 

 

 

Now you too must learn to be satisfied with the many years

 you’ve already depended on your body. You should feel that it’s enough.

You can compare it to household utensils that you’ve had for a long time—

your cups, saucers, plates and so on. When you first had them 

they were clean and shining, but now after using them for so long,

 they’re starting to wear out. Some are already broken, some have disappeared, 

and those that are left are deteriorating: they have no stable form,

 and it’s their nature to be like that. Your body is the same way. 

It has been continually changing right from the day you were born, 

through childhood and youth, until now it has reached old age. 

Allow the mind to let go of its attachments. The time is ripe.

Even if your house is flooded or burnt to the ground, 

whatever the danger that threatens it,

 let it concern only the house. 

If there’s a flood, don’t let it flood your mind. 

If there’s a fire, don’t let it burn your heart.

 Let it be merely the house, that which is external to you, 

that is flooded and burned. Allow the mind to let go of its attachments.

 The time is ripe.

It is the same with your wealth, your possessions, and your family—

they are all yours only in name; they don’t really belong to you, 

they belong to nature.

It’s like the water of a river. It naturally flows down the gradient; 

it never flows against it, and that is its nature. If a person were to go

 and stand on a river bank and, seeing the water flowing swiftly 

down its course, foolishly want it to flow back up the gradient, 

he would suffer. Whatever he was doing, his wrong thinking 

would allow him no peace of mind. He would be unhappy

 because of his wrong view, thinking against the stream.

Find your real home

 

 

~  Ajahn Chah
excerpt from:
 First published on January 1, 1994 by permission of the Abbot, 

Wat Pah Nanachat, Thailand

found in Lions Roar