Tag: Nature

All things are charged with..

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Another Saturday, another piece from Mary Oliver

The dog, the donkey, surely they know they are alive. Who would argue otherwise? But now, after years of consideration, I am getting beyond that. What about the sunflowers? What about The tulips, and the pines? Listen, all you have to do is start and There?ll be no stopping. What about mountains? What about water Slipping over rocks? And speaking of stones, what about The little ones you can Hold in your hands, their heartbeats So secret, so hidden it may take years Before, finally, you hear them?

Mary Oliver, Swan: Poems and Prose Poems

All things therefore are charged with love, are charged with God and if we knew how to touch them give off sparks and take fire, yield drops and flow, ring and tell of him

Gerard Manley Hopkins, Letters

After the rain….

Karl Duffy3 Comments

A nice poem for a rainy Saturday.

Her capacity to see wonder in nature, and in life, no matter what the weather,  was extraordinary

Last night
the rain spoke to me
slowly, saying,

what joy
to come falling out of the brisk cloud,
to be happy again

in a new way on the earth!
That’s what it said
as it dropped,

smelling of iron,
and vanished like a dream of the ocean
into the branches

and the grass below.
Then it was over.
The sky cleared.
I was standing

under a tree.
The tree was a tree with happy leaves,
and I was myself,

and there were stars in the sky
that were also themselves at the moment,
at which moment

my right hand was holding my left hand
which was holding the tree
which was filled with stars

and the soft rain—
imagine! imagine!
the wild and wondrous journeys
still to be ours.

Mary Oliver, Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me

Sunday Quote: Lie low

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This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes

Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning

John O’Donohue, from To Bless the Space Between Us

Do nothing

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The first day of Spring in the Celtic Calendar, even though you would not think so with the cold snap which has hit us after a mild January.

A text I have posted before but I really like its simplicity.

It is often wiser just to let things happen rather than forcing the universe into how we think it should be

Sitting quietly, doing nothing,

Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself

Basho

True freedom

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When you fall in love with the unknown,

you are free.

Byron Katie

Wonderful and wise

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Just yesterday I watched an ant crossing a path, through the
tumbled pine needles she toiled.
And I thought: she will never live another life but this one.
And I thought: if she lives her life with all her strength
is she not wonderful and wise?
And I continued this up the miraculous pyramid of everything
until I came to myself.

Mary Oliver, Reckless Poem (extract)