Sunday Quote: Self care

Sit only under a tree that is full of blossoms. 

Rumi

Like a mighty river

And that’s how we measure out our real respect for people – by the degree of feeling they can register, the voltage of life they can carry and tolerate – and enjoy. End of sermon. As Buddha says: live like a mighty river. And as the old Greeks said: live as though all your ancestors were living again through you.

Ted Hughes, 1930 – 1998, English Poet

No complaints

The weather is unusually disturbed and cold for this time of year, hailstones and frost….

As soon as the snow melts the grass begins to grow.

Even though the daytime high is barely above freezing, even
though May is very like November, marsh marigolds bloom
in the swamp and the popple trees produce a faint green
that hangs under the low clouds like a haze over the valley.

This is the way the saints live, no complaints, no suspicion,
no surprise.

If it rains, carry an umbrella, if it’s cold, wear
a jacket.

Louis Jenkins, American poet, 1942 -2019, Saints

Singing

An early start to the day, to catch the birdsong at dawn in an annual celebration entitled “Dawn Chorus Day”, moments of joy even in these muted and confused times

A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer,

it sings because it has a song.

 Maya Angelou

What nature teaches

The god of dirt
came up to me many times and said
so many wise and delectable things, I lay
on the grass listening
to his dog voice,
crow voice,
frog voice; now,
he said, and now
,

and never once mentioned forever

Mary Oliver, Dream Work

When things are tough…

Don’t despair too much if you see beautiful things destroyed, if you see them perish.

Because the best things are always growing in secret.

Ben Okri