gratitude

Learn by little the desire for all things
which perhaps is not desire at all
but undying love which perhaps
is not love at all but gratitude
for the being of all things which
perhaps is not gratitude at all
but the maker's joy in what is made,
the joy in which we come to rest.

 

~ Wendell Berry

from Leavings

belonging to each other

 

~ Father Greg Boyle

bright but hidden, before and behind, to the right and to the left, above and below

Bright but hidden, 

the Self dwells in the heart.

Everything that moves,

breathes, opens, and closes

Lives in the Self. 

 He is the source of love

And may be known through love

 but not through thought.

He is the goal of life. 

...

In his robe are woven heaven and earth,

Mind and body.  Realize him as the One

Behind the many and stop all vain talk.

He is the bridge from death to deathless life.

Where all the nerves meet like spokes in a wheel,

There he dwells, the One behind the many.

Meditate upon him in the mantram.

May he guide us from death to deathless life!

...

The Lord of Love is before and behind.

He extends to the right and to the left.

He extends above; he extends below.

There is no one here but the Lord of Love.

He alone is; in truth, he alone is.

~ excerpt from The Mundaka Upanishad

translated by Eknath Easwaran

art by Jeff Metal

I shall walk quietly the beautiful trail

 

Now Talking God

With your feet I walk.

I walk with your limbs

I carry forth your body

For me your mind thinks

Your voice speaks for me

Beauty is before me

And beauty is behind me

Above and below me hovers the beautiful

I am surrounded by it

I am immersed in it

In my youth I am aware of it

And in old age I shall walk quietly

The beautiful trail.

The mountains,

I become part of it . . .

The herbs, the fir tree,

I become part of it.

The morning mists, the clouds,

the gathering waters,

I become part of it.

The wilderness, the dew drops, the pollen . . .

I become part of it.

May it be delightful my house;

From my head may it be delightful;

To my feet may it be delightful;

Where I lie may it be delightful;

All above me may it be delightful;

All around me may it be delightful.

'Sa'ah naaghéi, Bik'eh hózhó

excerpts from the

Navaho Night Chant

art by Ted DeGrazia

The nine-night ceremony known as the Night Chant

 or Nightway is believed to date from around 1000 B. C. E.,

 when it was first performed by those who lived in Canyon de Chelly.

  It is considered to be the most sacred of all Navajo ceremonies

 and one of the most difficult and demanding to learn, 

involving the memorization of hundreds of songs,

 dozens of prayers, and several very complicated sand paintings.

At its core, the Night Chant is a healing ritual, 

aimed at curing the sick

 and restoring balance

 and harmony within the universe.

a common bond

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Always in big woods 

when you leave familiar ground

 and step off
alone into a new place there will be,
along with the feelings of curiosity and excitement,

 a little nagging of dread.

It is the ancient fear of the unknown,

 and it is your first bond
with the wilderness you are going into.

You are undertaking the first experience, 

not of the place,
but of yourself in that place. 

It is an experience of our essential loneliness,
nobody can discover the world for anybody else.

It is only after we have discovered it for ourselves
that it becomes a common ground

 and a common bond,
and we cease to be alone.

And the world cannot be discovered

 by a journey of miles,
no matter how long, 

but only by a spiritual journey,
a journey of one inch,

 very arduous

 and humbling

 and joyful,
by which we arrive

 at the ground at our feet,
and learn to be at home.





~ Wendell Berry

from The Unforeseen Wilderness: 

Kentucky’s Red River Gorge

 

no form - not a thing

 

True intelligence operates silently.

Stillness is where creativity and

solutions to problems

are found.

Wisdom comes with the ability to be still.

Just look and just listen.

No more is needed.

Being still, looking, and listening

activates the non-conceptual

intelligence within you.

Let stillness direct your

words and actions.

When you look and listen in this way,

you may become aware of a subtle and at

first perhaps hardly noticeable sense of calm.

Some people feel it as a

stillness in the background.

Others call it peace.

When consciousness is no longer

totally absorbed by thinking,

some of it remains in its formless,

unconditioned, original state.

This is inner space.

Stillness is the only thing in

this world that has no form.

But then, it is not really a thing,

and it is not of this world.

Become at ease with the

state of 'not knowing.

~ Eckhart Tolle 

from A New Earth

art by Odilon Redon

with thanks to Tao of Photography

like the small hole by the path-side something lives in

Like the small hole by the path-side something lives in,

in me lives I do not know the names of,

nor the fates of,

nor the hungers of or what they eat.

They eat of me.

Of small and blemished apples in low fields of me

whose rocky streams and droughts I do not drink.

And in my streets - the narrow ones,

unlabeled on the self-map -

they follow stairs down music ears can't follow,

and in my tongue borrowed by darkness,

in hours uncounted by the self-clock,

they speak in restless syllables of other losses, other loves.

There too have been the hard extinctions,

missing birds once feasted on and feasting.

There too must be machines

like loud ideas with tungsten bits that grind the day,

A few escape, A mercy,

They leave behind

small holes that something unweighed by the self-scale lives in.

~ Jane Hirshfield 

from The Beauty

Fremont rock painting from San Raphael Swell

2000-1000 BC Caves Painting

free, through all is has given up

.

Dove that ventured outside,     flying far from the dovecote:

housed and protected again,     one with the day, the night,

knows what serenity is,     for she has felt her wings

pass through all distance and fear     in the course of her wanderings.

The doves that remained at home,     never exposed to loss,

innocent and secure,     cannot know tenderness;

only the won-back heart      can ever be satisfied: free,

through all is has given up,     to rejoice in its mastery.

Being arches itself     over the vast abyss.

Ah the ball that we dared,     that we hurled into infinite space,

doesn't it fill our hands     differently with its return:

heavier by the weight     of where it has been.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

translation by Stephen Mitchell

from: The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke

one loss

One loss

folds itself inside another.

It is like the origami

held inside a plain sheet of paper

Not creased yet.

Not yet more heavy.

The hand stays steady.

~ Jane Hirshfield

from Come Thief

within the circles of our lives

Within the circles of our lives

we dance the circles of the years,

the circles of the seasons

within the circles of the years,

the cycles of the moon

within the circles of the seasons,

the circles of our reasons

within the cycles of the moon.

Again, again we come and go,

changed, changing.  Hands

join, unjoin in love and fear,

grief and joy.  The circles turn,

each giving into each, into all.

Only music keeps us here,

each by all the others held.

In the hold of hands and eyes

we turn in pairs, that joining 

joining each to all again.

And then we turn aside, alone,

out of the sunlight gone

into the darker circles of return.

~ Wendell Berry

art by Sammy Hill, Swinomish Nation

rejoice

 

~ Kathleen Battle

2500 Montréalers sing L. Cohen’s “Hallelujah”

 

~ Leonard Cohen

and 2500 Montrealers

now is the time

Now is the time to know

That all that you do is sacred.

Now, why not consider

 A lasting truce with yourself and God.

Now is the time to understand 

That all your ideas of right and wrong 

Were just a child's training wheels 

To be laid aside 

When you finally live

 With veracity And love.

Hafiz is a divine envoy 

Whom the Beloved 

Has written a holy message upon.

My dear, please tell me, 

Why do you still 

Throw sticks at your heart 

And God?

What is it in that sweet voice inside 

That incites you to fear?

Now is the time for the world to know 

That every thought and action is sacred.

This is the time

 For you to compute the impossibility

 That there is anything

 But Grace.

Now is the season to know 

That everything you do Is sacred.

~ Hafiz

from Poetry of Presence 

through the sacred womb of your soul

If
you want
the Virgin will come walking down the road
pregnant with the holy
and say,
“I need shelter for the night, please take me inside your heart,
my time is so close.”

Then, under the roof of your soul, you will witness the sublime
intimacy, the divine, the Christ
taking birth
forever,
as she grasps your hand for help, for each of us
is the midwife of God, each of us.

Yes there, under the dome of your being does creation
come into existence externally, through your womb, dear pilgrim—
the sacred womb of your soul,
as God grasps our arms for help; for each of us is
His beloved servant
never
far.

If you want, the Virgin will come walking
down the street pregnant
with Light, and
sing . . .





~ St. John of the Cross
Daniel Ladinsky translation
Love Poems from God

to Mary

A child unborn, the coming year

Grows big within us, dangerous,

And yet we hunger as we fear

For its increase: the blunted bud

To free the leaf to have its day,

The unborn to be born.  The ones

Who are to come are on their way,

And though we stand in mortal good

Among our dead, we turn in doom

In joy to welcome them, stirred by 

That Ghost who stirs in seed and tomb,

Who brings the stones to parenthood.

~ Wendell Berry

from This Day - Collected and New Sabbath Poems