May your longing inhabit its deepest dreams
within the shelter of the Great Belonging
John O Donohue, Eternal Echoes
photo Mullaghreelan Wood near Kilkea, Co Kildare
Tag: Life
Learning from the birds these days
The phoebe sits on her nest
Hour after hour,
Day after day,
Waiting for life to burst out
From under her warmth.
Can I weave a nest for silence,
Weave it out of listening,
Listening, Layer upon layer?
But one must first become small,
Nothing but a presence,
Attentive as a nesting bird,
Proffering no slightest wish,
No tendril of a wish
Toward anything that might happen
Or be given,
Only the warm, faithful waiting,
Contained in one’s smallness.
Beyond the question, the silence.
Before the answer, the silence.
May Sarton, Beyond the question, 1
Home
The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for.
And the most you can do is live inside that hope.
Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.
Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams
photo of a small cottage in the west of Ireland by louise price
Where we belong
Our bodies know they belong;
it is our minds that make our lives so homeless.
John O Donohue
The right instructions
You mustn’t wish for another life. You mustn’t want to be somebody else.
What you must do is this:
“Rejoice evermore.
Pray without ceasing.
In everything give thanks.”
I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions.
Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter
photo: trou
Stay in the present
The mind that tries to shape tomorrow beyond its capacities
will find no rest.
Rumi, That lives in Us
