This world, after all our science – is still a miracle;
wonderful, inscrutable, magical and more.
Thomas Carlyle, 1795 – 1881, British historian, essayist, philosopher, mathematician, and teacher.
Tag: impermanence
Nature
Many indigenous cultures and spiritual traditions recognize four natural sanctuaries where we can remember and come home to who we are: the desert, the mountains, the waters, and the woods. Nature comes from the Latin ‘natus,’ ‘to be born.’ Native peoples look to these places for remembrance, soul retrieval work, and to be reborn or renewed. Because we are made from the natural elements- fire (our energy), air (our breath), water (our blood), and earth (our bones),- we are always drawn to come into harmony with the beauty of nature around us. It nourishes the soul and opens us to be born into the mysterious presence and promptings of our own vast inner world.
Angeles Arrien
At a time of not knowing
People are afraid to forget their minds, fearing to fall through the void with nothing to break their fall.
They do not know that the Void is not really void, but the place of the real dharma
Huángbò Xīyùn, died 850, Chinese Chan(Zen) Buddhist master
A new month : Our own path
We cannot live in a world that is interpreted for us by others.
An interpreted world is not a home.
Part of the terror is to take back our own listening.
To use our own voice. To see our own light
Hildegard of Bingen, 1098 – 1179
You are all possibilities
Recall the way mere mortals are overwhelmed
by circumstance, how great reputations
dissolve with infirmity and how you,
in particular, stand a hairsbreadth from losing
everyone you hold dear.
Then, look back down the path to the north,
the way you came, as if seeing
your entire past and then south
over the hazy blue coast as if present
to a broad future.
Recall the way you are all possibilities
you can see and how you live best
as an appreciator of horizons
whether you reach them or not.
David Whyte, Mameen (extract)
Appreciating life
There’s a kind of white moth, I don’t know
what kind, that glimmers
by mid-May
in the forest, just
as the pink mocassin flowers
are rising.
If you notice anything,
it leads you to notice
more
and more.
And anyway
I was so full of energy.
I was always running around, looking
at this and that….
Finally, I noticed enough.
All around me in the forest
the white moths floated.
How long do they live, fluttering
in and out of the shadows?
You aren’t much, I said
one day to my reflection
in a green pond,
and grinned.
Mary Oliver, Moths (extracts)
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