Monday, April 21, 2014

a struggle with water and wind






All my life’s a struggle with water and wind. 
two against one must be my story— 
as I make my way into the earth
 under the waves. There’s no country
 I can call my own. But I’ve learned
 to grow strong by being still. I know
 if I fail I’ll be broken, and all
 that’s part of me will be torn from me. 
Let me find my place 
 among the stones, and be held.



~ Lawrence Raab
from The Word Exchange
Anglo-Saxon Poems in Translation


who am i being?








~ Benjamin Zander

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

the great way is not difficult






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 minds essential peace is disturbed to no avail. 

The Way is perfect like vast space 
where nothing is lacking and nothing is 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 to achieve passivity 
your very effort fills you with activity. 

As long as you remain in one extreme or the other 
you will never know Oneness.



~ Seng-T’san




Monday, April 14, 2014

a friend's umbrella






Ralph Waldo Emerson, toward the end
of his life, found the names
of familiar objects escaping him.
He wanted to say something about a window,
or a table, or a book on a table.

But the word wasn't there,
although other words could still suggest
the shape of what he meant.
Then someone, his wife perhaps,

would understand: "Yes, window! I'm sorry,
is there a draft?" He'd nod.
She'd rise. Once a friend dropped by
to visit, shook out his umbrella
in the hall, remarked upon the rain.

Later the word umbrella
vanished and became
the thing that strangers take away.

Paper, pen, table, book:
was it possible for a man to think
without them? To know
that he was thinking? We remember
that we forget, he'd written once,
before he started to forget.

Three times he was told
that Longfellow had died.

Without the past, the present
lay around him like the sea.
Or like a ship, becalmed,
upon the sea. He smiled

to think he was the captain then,
gazing off into whiteness,
waiting for the wind to rise. 




~ Lawrence Raab
from The History of Forgetting
found here: http://deathdeconstructed.blogspot.com/




Friday, March 21, 2014

the power of introverts







~ Susan Cain

Thursday, March 20, 2014

all kinds of minds







~ Temple Grandin

Sunday, March 2, 2014

happiness and bare consciousness









~ Matthieu Ricard


Thursday, February 27, 2014

a hide





There's a skin or hide between ourselves and our inner being.  And in the West that skin is very thick.  Inside us there's a sea and that sea is your inner life, your spiritual life, and your sexual impulses - everything you've gotten from the memory stores of evolution.  Then there's the outside world made of buildings and automobiles.  And these two worlds can't rub against each other.  It's too painful.  Therefore you develop a hide exactly like a cow develops a hide.  You don't want her guts to rub against the barn.



~  Robert Bly
spoken to Lewis Hyde in an interview
taken here from Robert Bly - In This World




Thursday, January 30, 2014

that lonesome valley









~ Pete Seeger and Joan Baez

the return of the rivers





All the rivers run into the sea;
yet the sea is not full;
unto the place from whence the rivers come,
thither they return again. 

It is raining today
in the mountains. 

It is a warm green rain
with love
in its pockets
for spring is here,
and does not dream
of death.


Birds happen music
like clocks ticking heaves
in a land
where children love spiders,
and let them sleep
in their hair. 

A slow rain sizzles
on the river
like a pan
full of frying flowers,
and with each drop
of rain
the ocean
begins again.



~ Richard Brautigan

Monday, January 20, 2014

moonlight sonata




Ludwig Van Beethoven actually intended for his pieces to be played a lot faster but no orchestra could manage it so they had to slow it down. Here is moonlight sonata 3rd movement played in the original intended tempo. Simply amazing.





~ Valentina Lisitsa

Saturday, January 18, 2014

stanzas of the soul / the living flame of love









~ St. John of the Cross


sunflower






What sower walked over earth,
which hands sowed
our inward seeds of fire?
They went out from his fists like rainbow curves
to frozen earth, young loam, hot sand,
they will sleep there
greedily, and drink up our lives
and explode it into pieces
for the sake of a sunflower that you haven't seen
or a thistle head or a chrysanthemum.

Let the young rain of tears come.
Let the calm hands of grief come.
It's not all as evil as you think.





~ Rolf Jacobsen
translated by Robert Bly




Thursday, January 16, 2014

from 'Flatirons'






V

It’s when we’re most engaged with other things
that the angel enters, a twist in temperature,
a lightness in the chest that we call wings.
Giddy with sacrament and the impure
gluttony of blood and air and skin,
we look with panoramic eyes to where
the earth curls under and the sky begins,
though we ourselves are of this light-shot air,
senses extending without obstacle,
reaching past by rooting down through rock—
obdurate kindness, heaven’s windowsill.
We are as useless as an open lock,
more insubstantial than a drinking song,
and marked by sandstone long after we’re gone. 




~ David Yezzi
from Flatirons
with thanks to http://fivebranchtree.blogspot.com//



Friday, January 10, 2014

the lamp once out








The lamp once out
Cool stars enter
The window frame.





~ Natsume Soseki
from Zen Haiku: Poems and Letters of Natsume Soseki, by Natsume Soseki 
 Translated by Soiku Shigematsu