Why a walk in nature helps

tree light

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

Sunday Quote: In the moment

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I learn by going where I have to go.

Theodore Roethke, American poet, 1908 – 1963, The Waking

photo Jlla00

Asking for nothing

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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

At ease

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We are fascinated by words –

but where we meet

is in the silence behind them

Ram Dass

photo renatt stowe

Sunday Quote: No need for words

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I like the silent church

before the service begins,

better than any preaching.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

photo jose luis filpo cabana

To be quiet in heart

File:2014 Eid ul-Fitr Praying - Imam Ali Shrine - Najaf 2 Cropped.JPG

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.

Wendell Berry