It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.
Mary Oliver, Praying
photo tango paso
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
David Wagoner, Lost
I learn by going where I have to go.
Theodore Roethke, American poet, 1908 – 1963, The Waking
photo Jlla00
God, I said. What good is language?
part of me wondered, but I did not stop.
God I said, from deep inside of me.
Outside it was almost dawn:
the birds awake in all the trees, singing.
These were not the words I had grown up to say:
My mind quiet before the growing sounds.
The birds have opened all their throats once and then again and again:
God, each one singing, asking for nothing, inside my heart.
Nadia Colburn, Where the Light Enters
photo mike prince
Be the silent watcher of your thoughts and behaviour.
You are not your thoughts
You are beneath the thinker
You are the stillness beneath the mental noise.
You are the love and joy beneath the pain
Eckhart Tolle
I like the silent church
before the service begins,
better than any preaching.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
photo jose luis filpo cabana
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