“You were once wild here. Don’t let them tame you.”
-Isadora Duncan
What Do You See?
What do you see? What is left out, not acknowledged, missed? In recent posts I’ve focused on the small wonders – tiny flowers and sparkling raindrops. Taking time with these wonders have reignited my passion for seeing with the heart. Taking the time, focusing the attention, allowing feelings to inform the seeing, engaging the heart, will always deepen the experience.
In taking the extra time, focus and attention is there a feeling just under the surface of sight? A whole huge world can unfurl and unfold in that moment of heart seeing.
Carlos Castenada in his studies with the Yaqui sorcerer Don Juan, learned the definition of “seeing” as: “perceiving energy directly as it moves through the universe”. (He certainly was taking “seeing” to a whole new level of awareness!).
It is possible to feel the energy moving through the universe and to increase our depth of seeing and feeling our world. Taking a long sweet breath, go out to this day, this one and only new day, and see what’s new and what’s been there all along…see with the heart.
“One day with life and heart is more than time enough to find a world.”
-James Lowell
Idle and Blessed
“…I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”-Mary Oliver (from “A Summer’s Day”)
Wednesday’s Wonders – A Day in Spring
“Write it in your heart that every day is the best day of the year.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time: Thus is your time on earth filled with glory.”
-Betty Smith
What You Really Love
“Let yourself be silently drawn
by the strange pull
of what you really love
it will not lead you astray.”
-Rumi
Sparkling Diamond Rain Drops – A Gallery of Photos
“Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.”
-Langston Hughes
“A rainy day is the perfect time for a walk in the woods.”
-Rachel Carson
The sweetness of rain showered the earth all day with nurturing. I learned to love the rain while living in Hawaii and have continued to love it since. On an island where fresh water is a life force, the rain is always a blessing. The Hawaiian language shows the respect and honoring for rain in its more than 100 words of description for the gift of falling water. “Awa” is a mist or fine rain, 
“Kawa” is for heavy rain, “Ililani” for a storm, “hikiki’i” for rain that comes at a slant. Earlier in this blog, I enjoyed writing about the Eskimos many names for snow, and my 200 names for Love. It is this honoring of the essence of things and of taking the time needed to notice, acknowledge and feel the nuances and differences, that bestows the rain, the snow and love with such depth and breath.
During a brief respite between showers I found sparkling diamonds of rain drops scattered everywhere!
Slide show will load below:
So many ways of seeing, feeling and honoring the rain!
June Trembled Like a Butterfly
“Green was the silence, wet was the light,
the month of June trembled like a butterfly.”-Pablo Neruda
“I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it was always June.”
-L. M. Montgomery
“It was June, and the world smelled of roses. The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside.”
-Maud Hart Lovelace
That’s How the Light Gets In
“Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”-Leonard Cohen
It’s all about the light. As a photographer and lover of all the wonder, I look for light continually. It is there to be found. We naturally gravitate to it, we revel in it, we bathe in its warmth, dance in its radiance, savor its luminance of all the wonders around us.
When darkness comes, light a candle, sit close and peer into the flame-light. Wait for the sunshine. We can trust that it will come, through the cracks and around the obstacles. Until then, “ring the bells that still can ring, and forget your perfect offering!”
What People Don’t Forget
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
-Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou will live on. Her passion, poetry, and powerful resonate voice are deeply instilled. Such depth there, hard won, and strength. I am deeply grateful for the many gifts she brought to the world.
Still I Rise! Maya!
*click on the link below to hear Maya read her “Still I Rise”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&list=RD7HiE4lt_DUY&v=7HiE4lt_DUY
“Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”
-Maya Angelou
“Life is pure adventure and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life
as art.”-Maya Angelou
Little Wonders (There are No Weeds) – A Gallery of Photos
Ruth Bebee Hill, in her book of the Lakota, Hanta Yo, first introduced me to the nonexistence of a “weed”. I was in my twenties when I first read her words and hadn’t thought of a weed in just that way before. In her dedication to authenticity, the author translated the entirety of her book to the Lakota language from English, then back to English again for publication (this has since been disputed). She stated that she had a deep sense that she had not captured the essence of the Lakota experience on her first try in English, and in learning the language, and therefore the worldview and conceptual landscape the culture lived in, she was able to give the reader a more true feel and understanding of the life and connections of the Lakota (ethnologists again disagree). No word for “weed” exists in the Lakota language (this I believe they do agree on!). They do not have a concept for a throw away or non-respected plant in their world. There is an honoring of all that is given as useful, unique and sacred. This is a good way of living on the planet.
I captured these images (slideshow will load below) in my yard and woods. Not planted and unplanned, these living wonders are gifts given by nature. Beautiful and appreciated beyond measure. Certainly not “weeds”.
