Trusting in times of danger

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All night under the pines
the fox moves through the darkness
with a mouthful of teeth
and a reputation for death
which it deserves.
In the spicy villages of the mice
he is famous, his nose in the grass
is like an earthquake, his feet on the path
is a message so absolute
that the mouse, hearing it,
makes himself as small as he can
as he sits silent or, trembling, goes on
hunting among the grasses
for the ripe seeds.

Maker of All Things,
including appetite, including stealth,
including the fear that makes
all of us, sometime or other,
flee for the sake of our small and precious lives,
let me abide in your shadow–
let me hold on to the edge of your robe
as you determine what you must let be lost
and what will be saved.

Mary Oliver, Maker of all Things, even Healing

Sunday Quote: Seeing and not yet seeing

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The art of living is to enjoy what we can see

and not complain about what remains in the dark

Henri Nouwen, The Dance of Life

photo:  Philippe Alès, Contre-allée de l’avenue Foch, Le Havre.

No longer rushing after something

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The mind can be free only when it is completely still. Though it has problems, innumerable urges, conflicts, ambitions, if — through self-knowledge, through watching itself without acceptance or condemnation — the mind is choicelessly aware of its own process, then out of that awareness there comes an astonishing silence, a quietness of the mind in which there is no movement of any kind. It is only then that the mind is free because it is no longer desiring anything; it is no longer seeking; it is no longer pursuing a goal, an ideal — which are all the projections of a conditioned mind.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

photo russavia

Pause today

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[Pausing] creates an open doorway to the sacredness of the place in which you find yourself. The vastness, stillness, and magic of the place will dawn upon you, if you let your mind relax and drop for just a few breaths the storyline you are working so hard to maintain. If you pause just long enough, you can reconnect with exactly where you are, with the immediacy of your experience.

Pema Chodron, Waking up to your World

photo kenny louie

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Calm weather

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The rain has stopped, the clouds have drifted away

and the weather is clear again.

If your heart is clear, then all things in your world are clear

Ryokan, Zen poet, 1758 – 1831

Photo nevit dilmen

Not buying into it

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To acknowledge that suffering has an origin is already an abandonment of sorts. It means rather than thiniking, “I am a victim of a frustrating world that refuses to conform to my wishes”,  we acknowledge that suffering is an inevitable part of life and it is something we take into ourselves by the way we react to circumstances.

Ajahn Sucitto, Turning the Wheel of Truth