“To learn is to be young, however old.”
-Aeschylus
“There is a certain part of all of us that lives outside of time. Perhaps we become aware of our age only at exceptional moments and most of the time we are ageless.”
– Milan Kundera
“May you always be courageous, stand upright and be strong, may you stay forever young.”
Bob Dylan
“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?”
– Satchel Paige
“Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.”
– Franz Kafka
“When darkness surrounds, even the smallest spark can guide the way. It’s not the size of the light that matters, but the courage to hold it through the night.”
Dipendra Tamang
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
Dr. Martin Luther King
“The clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness”
-John Muir
“So, all of you lovers of wild nature, keep going outside, even when it’s cold. Notice the way ice cracks in the sun. Notice the burst of red when a cardinal visits your bird feeder. Notice how cold air reminds you to how it feels to be alive, even when it isn’t comfortable. Build your capacity for attentiveness, and practice paying attention, and then give voice to the bits of astonishment that gather in the wake of doing so. Be attentive to the way winter polishes the moon, and give in to wonder. Because the world needs us to keep wonder alive.”
—Heidi Barr
I have been witnessing. I have been attuned. I have been immersed in wonder and awe. Not every moment, every hour, but more and more and more. There are big forces out there responding in ways that are incalculable and hard to articulate. They are listening. They have been waiting. It is beautiful. It is interactive. I am learning each day to stay awake, as Rumi says, “don’t go back to sleep!”
Oh this life has so much inner expansion lying dormant for us to touch. Magnificent. Awe inspiring, wonder evoking…. These philosophers, poets and scientists words express this awe and wonder much better than I ever could, but I’m seeing it, feeling it, living it from my home to Chief Mountain – all sacred:
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”
―
“How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?” Instead they say, “No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.” A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.”
―“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
―
Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
―“The feeling of awed wonder that science can give us is one of the highest experiences of which the human psyche is capable. It is a deep aesthetic passion to rank with the finest that music and poetry can deliver. It is truly one of the things that make life worth living and it does so, if anything, more effectively if it convinces us that the time we have for living is quite finite.”
―“The obligation falls upon us to foster in ourselves the sensibilities that modernity has suppressed or even denigrated. … Without awe, our lives are impoverished, our society decays.”
―“Awe, you see, is what moves us forward.”
―“I suspect that it was simply that I had admired the earth, and the universe. The more I say and think that I admire it, and love it, the more it gives me what I admire, or strange coincidences that leave me in more awe than I was before.”
―
“May you know that absence is alive with hidden presence, that nothing is ever lost or forgotten.May the absences in your life grow full of eternal echo.May you sense around you the secret Elsewhere where the presences that have left you dwell.”-John O’Donohue
What Can I Say (by Mary Oliver)
What can I say that I have not said before?
So I’ll say it again.
The leaf has a song in it.
Stone is the face of patience.
Inside the river there is an unfinishable story
and you are somewhere in it
and it will never end until all ends.Take your busy heart to the art museum and the
chamber of commerce
but take it also to the forest.
The song you heard singing in the leaf when you
were a child
is singing still.
I am of years lived, so far, seventy-four,
and the leaf is singing still.-Mary Oliver
“In the rush to return to normal, use this time to consider which parts of normal are worth rushing back to.”
-Dave Hollis
“Live in fertile soil. Take in nutrients like your life depends on it. Breathe fresh air, in and out. Take a break from the rapids, surrender, and the current will either carry you or kick you out towards its gentle edges. Move away from depleting habitats. Leave a sedentary mind and body for the one that is waiting for you on the other side of this and any other present uncertainty. Your future gains certainty when you rise, like your voluntary breath, actively inspiring, consciously and unconsciously inhaling and exhaling.”
-Erika Putnam
“…it is a serious thing
just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world.”
-Mary Oliver
“Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break. And all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention. So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.”
-L. R. Knost
