“…as long as I can walk up the trail behind the house, or as long as I can go out into the yard and look up at the stars, I’ll never be unhappy, never. Not just count my blessings, but shout them.”
-Rick Bass, Winter (notes from Montana)
A Strange Idea
“How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us.
If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?
Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people. The sap which courses through the trees carries the memories of the red man.
The white man’s dead forget the country of their birth when they go to walk among the stars. Our dead never forget this beautiful earth, for it is the mother of the red man. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man — all belong to the same family.”-Chief Seattle
To Greet the Morning
These winter mornings are filled with grace and gratitude.
Thank you is the sentiment of the heart.
Once You Are Real
“He said, ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.'”
-Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit
Simplicity
“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”
– Hans Hofmann
The necessary?
Food, shelter, safety, beauty, Love.
What else do we truly need? If we are quiet enough, we can hear the real, the raw and the necessary.
The Time of Inner Workings
As The Day Moves Into Night
As this serene and majestic winter day winds into the night, I am absorbed with the simple luxury of watching the sun’s colors paint the evening sky. What better to be doing than this?
Still I will have time for more books, snow walks in the twilight, contemplation, before rest. I will wish for more before sleep…
The world is so grand in its offerings!
“I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read and all the friends I want to see.”
~John Burroughs
Something of the Marvelous
“In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous. ”
–Aristotle
We Always Begin Anew
2015 has dawned!
With it, a renewed realization that in every day, every hour and every new year, we are empowered to begin anew. We can create the miraculous. Revolutionary changes in our very being are available in each new moment.
The new year inspires. Breathing together and in solitary communion, we know we have the power to change. And to be. There is hope. A quickening. A deepening.
May 2015 allow deep breathing into the wonder…
and a realization of the gifts of the present.
Peace, prosperity, laughter, great love, simple deeds, adventures, inner growth, understanding, quiet, time to reflect in gratitude are wished for people everywhere. And to the planet and the animals may there be reverence, respect and radiance.
May our awareness allow the absorption into the new hours and moments of this new year.
The World in White
These snow days are sweet with wonder. The white carpet ensconces us warmly, allowing a deep simmering. The simmering distills to peace.
A soul distilled from simmering shimmers with radiance reflecting the peace within.
Sweet, soft glow across the snow. Oneness of white.
Time stills.
“There is no other time when the whole world seems composed of one thing and one thing only.” – Joseph Wood Krutch
“Lo. sifted through the winds that blow, Down comes the soft and silent snow, White petals from the flowers that grow In the cold atmosphere.” -George W. Bungay
