happiness

Happiness is a butterfly

which when pursued is always just beyond your grasp

but which if you will sit down quietly

 may light upon you.

...

~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

the soft overcomes the hard

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Nothing in the world is weaker than water

 but against the hard and the strong

  nothing outdoes it for nothing can change it

 the soft overcomes the hard

 the weak overcomes the strong

 this is something everyone knows

 but no one is able to practice.

 

 

 

 

 ~ Lao Tzu 

TaoTeChing

 translated by Red Pine

become clear with stillness

 

 

 

 

 

 

If waters are placid, the moon will be mirrored perfectly. 

If we still ourselves, we can mirror the divine perfectly. 

But if we engage solely in the frenetic activities of our daily involvements,

 if we seek to impose our own schemes on the natural order, 

and if we allow ourselves to become absorbed in self-centered views,

 the surface of our waters becomes turbulent. 

Then we cannot be receptive to Tao.

There is no effort that we can make to still ourselves. 

True stillness comes naturally from moments of solitude 

where we allow our minds to settle. 

 

Just as water seeks its own level, the mind will gravitate toward the holy. 

Muddy water will become clear if allowed to stand undisturbed, 

and so too will the mind become clear if it is allowed to be still.

 

 

 

 ~  Deng Ming-Dao

from 365 Tao, Daily Meditations

 with thanks to Heron Dance Art Journal

photo from

 (From http://www.rgbstock.com/bigphoto

/nHepDs6/Moon+Reflected+in+Water+3)

 

 

into unity and belonging

... there is a mirror within the human mind. 
 This mirror collects every reflection. Human solitude is so unsolitary.
 Deep human solitude is a place of great affinity and of tension. 
When you come into your solitude, you come into companionship 
with everything and everyone. When you extend yourself frenetically outward, 
seeking refuge in your external image or role, you are going into exile.
 When you come patiently and silently home to yourself, 
you come into  unity and into belonging.

~ John O'Donohue

art by Shanna Strauss

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

 

what did we see today?

Some days we are passive, listening to the incoming waves.

On other days, we are like a light that sweeps

Out over the husky soybean fields all night.

What did we see today?  Horses at the end 

Of their tethering ropes, the wing of affection going over,

Flying bulls glimpsed passing the moon disc.

Rather than arguing about whether Giordano Bruno

Was right or not, it might be better to fall silent

And lose ourselves in the curved energy.

We know how many men live alone in their twenties,

And how many women are married to the wrong person,

And how many fathers and sons are strangers to each other.

It's all right if we keep forgetting the way home.

It's all right if we don't remember when we were born.

It's all right if we write the same poem over and over.

Robert, I don't know why you talk so confidently

About yourself in this way.  There are a lot of shady

Characters in this town, and you are one of them.

~ Robert Bly

from Talking into the Ear of a Donkey

a broken open place

inside, still no moon.

but there is a broken

open place.

I am learning

to sing from there.

.

~  Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

grateful to the last

 

 

 

 

 

Time is told by death, who doubts it? But time is always halved-for all we know,

it is halved-by the eye blink, the synapse, the immeasurable moment of the present.

Time is only the past and maybe the future; the present moment, dividing and connecting 

them, is eternal. The time of the past is there, somewhat, but only somewhat, to be

remembered and examined. We believe that the future is there too, for it keeps arriving,

though we know nothing about it. But try to stop the present for your patient scrutiny,

or to measure its length with your most advanced chronometer. It exists, so far as I can tell,

only as a leak in time, through which, if we are quiet enough, eternity falls upon us

and makes its claim. And here I am, an old man, traveling as a child among the dead.

 

We measure time by its deaths, yes, and by its births. For time is told also by life.

As some depart, others come. The hand opened in farewell remains open in welcome. 

I, who once had grandparents and parents, now have children and grandchildren. 

Like the flowing river that is yet always present, time that is always going is always

 coming. And time that is told by death and birth is held and redeemed by love, 

which is always present. Time, then, is told by love's losses, and by the coming

of love, and by love continuing in gratitude for what is lost. It is folded and enfolded

and unfolded forever and ever, the love by which the dead are alive and the unborn

welcomed into the womb. The great question for the old and the dying, I think,

is not if they have loved and been loved enough, but if they have been grateful 

enough for love received and given, however much. No one who has gratitude

 is the onliest one. Let us pray to be grateful to the last.

 

 

 

 

~ Wendell Berry

from Andy Catlett

 

 

  

individual shoots were younger

The individual shoots were younger, but these new growths from the past few centuries

 were not considered to be stand-alone trees but part of a larger whole..

 The root is certainly a more decisive factor than what is growing above ground.

  After all, it is the root that looks after the survival of an organism. 

It is the root that has withstood severe changes in climatic conditions. 

And it is the root that has regrown trunks time and time again.

 It is in the roots that centuries of experience are stored, 

and it is this experience that has allowed the tree's survival

 to the present day.

~ Peter Wohllenben

from The Hidden Life of Trees

... down deep, at the molecular heart of life,
we’re essentially identical to trees.

~ Carl Sagan

 

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

.