I taught myself to live simply and wisely,
to look at the sky and pray to God,
and to wander long before evening to tire my superfluous worries.
Anna Akhmatova, 1889 – 1966 I Taught Myself to Live Simply
Living simply
Tag: Life
Not limiting oneself
Forget distinctions
Leap into the boundless
and make it your own.
Zhuang Zhou, Chinese philosopher, 4th century BC
a life without regret
December 6 is the feastday of the legendary Saint Nicholas, traditionally a big celebration in the Low Countries, Germany and Eastern Europe. Most children have a natural sense of wonder and adventure which life has a tendency to erode.
Twenty years from now
You will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do
than by the ones you did.
Mark Twain
Created anew
Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange
sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again
and fasten themselves to the high branches —
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands
of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails
for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it
the thorn
that is heavier than lead —
if it’s all you can do
to keep on trudging —
there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted —
each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,
whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.
Mary Oliver, Morning Poem
Hoping for something else
Something to remember each day as we start the last month of the year
If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life
as in hoping to have another life
and in turning away from the implacable grandeur of this one.
[Car s’il y a un péché contre la vie, ce n’est peut-être pas tant d’en désespérer que d’espérer une autre vie, et se dérober à l’implacable grandeur de celle]
Albert Camus, Nuptials
Holding both
Though the years are sad,
the days have a way of being jubilant
Edith Wharton’s autobiography, A Backward Glance
Mindfulbalance 