Tuesday, November 15, 2011

legs and super powers









~ Aimee Mullins
with thanks to Chemin faisant




Monday, November 14, 2011

the voices







.

It's OK for the rich and the lucky to keep still,
no one wants to know about them anyway,
But those in need have to step forward,
have to say: I am blind,
or: I'm about to go blind,
or: nothing is going well with me,
or: I have a child who is sick,
or: right there I'm sort of glued together...

And probably that doesn't do anything either.

They have to sing; if they didn't sing, everyone
would walk past, as if they were fences or trees.

That's where you can hear good singing.

People really are strange: they prefer
to hear castratos in boychoirs.

But God himself comes and stays a long time
when the world of half-people start to bore him.





~ Rainer Maria Rilke
translation by Robert Bly
art by van gogh





for the senses








May the touch of your skin 
Register the beauty
Of the otherness
That surrounds you.

May your listening be attuned
To the deeper silence
Where sound is honed
To bring distance home.

May the fragrance
Of a breathing meadow
Refresh your heart
And remind you you are
A child of the earth.

And when you partake
Of food and drink,
May your taste quicken 
To the gift and sweetness
That flows from the earth.

May your inner eye
See through the surfaces
And glean the real presence
Of everything that meets you.

May your soul beautify
The desire of your eyes 
That you might glimpse
The infinity that hides
In the simple sights 
That seem worn
To your usual eyes.




~ John O'Donohue
from To Bless the Space Between Us



the fleeting quality of the light








I would like to paint the way a bird sings



~ Claude Monet
 born in Paris in 1840

He met Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, and Frédéric Bazille; the four young artists became disillusioned with the meticulous detail that was fashionable in academic circles, and they began experimenting with a new style of landscape painting, producing rapid "sketches" using short, broken brushstrokes and trying to capture, above all, the fleeting quality of the light.




Saturday, November 12, 2011

a quiet light








There is a quiet light that shines in every heart. It draws no
attention to itself, though it is always secretly there.
It is what illuminates our minds to see beauty, our desire 
to seek possibility, and our hearts to love life. Without this
subtle quickening our days would be empty and wearisome, and
no horizon would ever awaken our longing. Our passion for life
is quietly sustained from somewhere in us that is welded to
the energy and excitement of life. This shy inner light is what
enables us to recognize and receive our very presence here 
as blessing. We enter the world as strangers who all at once 
become heirs to a harvest of memory, spirit, and dream that has 
long preceded us and will now enfold, nourish, and sustain us.
The gift of the world is our first blessing.




~ John O'Donohue
from the introduction to To Bless the Space Between Us
art by Leonardo Da Vinci





starting a poem








You are alone. Then there's a knock 
On the door. It's a word. You
Bring it in. Things go
OK for a while. But this word 

Has relatives. Soon
They turn up. None of them work.
They sleep on the floor, and they steal
Your tennis shoes. 

You started it; you weren't
Content to leave things alone.
Now the den is a mess, and the
Remote is gone. 

That's what being married 
Is like. You never receive your
Wife only, but the
Madness of her family. 

Now see what's happened?
Where is your car? You won't 
Be able to find 
The keys for a week.



~ Robert Bly
art by Janet Sobel



on the death of the beloved









Though we need to weep your loss,
You dwell in that safe place in our hearts,
Where no storm or might or pain can reach you.

Your love was like the dawn
Brightening over our lives
Awakening beneath the dark
A further adventure of colour.

The sound of your voice
Found for us
A new music
That brightened everything.

Whatever you enfolded in your gaze
Quickened in the joy of its being;
You placed smiles like flowers
On the altar of the heart.
Your mind always sparkled
With wonder at things.

Though your days here were brief,
Your spirit was live, awake, complete.

We look towards each other no longer
From the old distance of our names;
Now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath,
As close to us as we are to ourselves.

Though we cannot see you with outward eyes,
We know our soul’s gaze is upon your face,
Smiling back at us from within everything
To which we bring our best refinement.

Let us not look for you only in memory,
Where we would grow lonely without you.
You would want us to find you in presence,
Beside us when beauty brightens,
When kindness glows
And music echoes eternal tones.

When orchids brighten the earth,
Darkest winter has turned to spring;
May this dark grief flower with hope
In every heart that loves you.

May you continue to inspire us:

To enter each day with a generous heart.
To serve the call of courage and love
Until we see your beautiful face again
In that land where there is no more separation,
Where all tears will be wiped from our mind,
And where we will never lose you again.



~ John O'Donohue
from To Bless the Space Between Us
art by Camille Pissarro

Pissarro





Friday, November 11, 2011

happy birthday Kurt











Thursday, November 10, 2011

The Work of Karlfried Graf Dürckheim









with thanks to intense city






Wednesday, November 9, 2011

too simple for words







truth is too simple for words
before thought gets tangled up in nouns and 
verbs
there is a wordless sound
a deep breathless sigh
of overwhelming relief
to find the end of fiction
in this ordinary
yet extraordinary moment
when words are recognized
as words
and truth is recognized
as everything else




~ Nirmala
with thanks to poetry chaikhana
Nirmala is a contemporary spiritual teacher in the nondualist Advaita tradition. 
He traces his spiritual lineage through Neelam and H.W.L. Poonja to Ramana Maharshi.


love of the wind





.

We've spent a lot of time keeping some old men alive. 
I don’t’ think you should criticize us for that. 
Even old sailors keep their love of the wind. 

We know so little of our neighbor’s sorrow. 
He never told us what happened to his son. 
What can it mean that Jesus had no sister? 

We’ll never know anything better than a dog. 
It doesn't matter how deeply he sleeps. 
The sleeping dog leaves all the world for the floor. 

It’s all right if the family gathers together at night 
And sings like sailors when the wind rises. 
The roof of the house will last the night. 

I've never been an old friend to the wind. 
Don’t expect me to be happy about haystacks 
Scattered in a storm or blown-down barns. 

Don’t expect me to talk about the Spanish armada 
Getting into trouble off the Galway coast. 
Even old sailors keep their love of the wind.






~ Robert Bly
art by van gogh




Tuesday, November 8, 2011

carmel point








The extraordinary patience of things!
This beautiful place defaced with a crop of suburban houses -
How beautiful when we first beheld it,
Unbroken field of poppy and lupin walled with clean cliffs;
No intrusion but two or three horses pasturing,
Or a few milch cows rubbing their flanks on the outcrop rockheads -
Now the spoiler has come: does it care?
Not faintly, It has all time, It knows the people are a tide
That swells and in time will ebb, and all
Their works dissolve.  Meanwhile the image of the pristine beauty
Lives in the very grain of the granite,
Safe as the endless ocean that climbs our cliff. - As for us:
We must uncenter our minds from ourselves;
We must unhumanize our views a little, and become confident 
As the rock and ocean that we were made from.






~ Robinson Jeffers
art by Gordon Mortensen



Saturday, November 5, 2011

790








Nature — the Gentlest Mother is,
Impatient of no Child —
The feeblest — or the waywardest —
Her Admonition mild —

In Forest — and the Hill —
By Traveller — be heard —
Restraining Rampant Squirrel —
Or too impetuous Bird —

How fair Her Conversation —
A Summer Afternoon —
Her Household — Her Assembly —
And when the Sun go down —

Her Voice among the Aisles
Incite the timid prayer
Of the minutest Cricket —
The most unworthy Flower —

When all the Children sleep —
She turns as long away
As will suffice to light Her lamps —
Then bending from the Sky —

With infinite Affection —
And infiniter Care —
Her Golden finger on Her lip —
Wills Silence — Everywhere —






~ Emily Dickinson
with thanks to writers almanac



Friday, November 4, 2011

lost in the forest








Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twig
and lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips:
myabe it was the voice of the rain crying, 
a cracked bell, or a torn heart.

Something from far off it seemed
deep and secret to me, hidden by the earth,
a shout muffled by huge autumns,
by the moist half-open darkness of the leaves.

Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprig
sang under my tongue, its drifting fragrance
climbed up though my conscious mind

as if suddenly the roots I had left behind
cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood -
and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent.









~ Pablo Neruda

.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

a thought





Some thoughts
throw off 
a backward heat
as walls might,
at night, in summer.

It could happen 
this moment -

Some movement.

One word's almost
imperceptible shiver.

And what was
long cold
in your left palm,
long cold in your right palm,
might find itself
malleable, warmer.

An apricot
could be planted
in such a corner.





~ Jane Hirshfield
from Come, Thief