A beautiful Spring morning, open to possibilities and kindness
If you keep a green bough
in your heart,
a singing bird
will come.
Chinese Proverb
Singing
Tag: Nature
Morning thoughts
The sun rises in spite of everything
and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything is going to be all right.
Derek Mahon, 1941-2020, Irish Poet, Everything is going to be all right.
One day more
Cold here this week and snow falls. Some beautiful words to help us in challenging conditions
Windowsills evenly welcome both heat and cold.
Radiators speak or fall silent as they must.
Doors are not equivocal, floorboards do not hesitate or startle.
Impatience does not stir the curtains,
a bed is neither irritable nor rapacious.
Whatever disquiet we sense in a room
we have brought there.
And so I instruct my ribs each morning,
pointing to hinge and plaster and wood —
You are matter, as they are.
See how perfectly it can be done.
Hold, one day more, what is asked.
Jane Hirshfield, A Room
Waves and water
Most people view themselves as waves and forget that they are also water. They are used to living in the realm of birth and death, and they forget about the realm of no birth and no death. Just as a wave lives the life of water, so, too, do we live the life of no birth and no death
Thich Nhat Hanh
It always comes.
Living without contention, we are well-rooted in the earth. Zen poets say we become a mature bamboo – steady at the base, flexible in strong winds, and responsive to the movement of life. The strength of non-contentiousness brings patience and trust. The poet Rilke reminds us,
“Being fully alive means not numbering or counting,
but ripening like a tree which doesn’t force its sap and stands confidently in the storms of winter
not afraid that summer might not come.
It does come. It always comes.”
Jack Kornfield, The Wise Heart
Again and again
Each person becomes a wanderer again and again in the course of life, as we find our true self by becoming lost. Each person carries a “story that could be true.” Each crossroad in life secretly asks the question: Who are you really?
Michael Meade, 1944 – American author and mythologist.
Mindfulbalance 