“…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)
Tag Archives: Quotes
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
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.
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
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
A New and Different Sun
“The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”
~Christopher McCandless
Oh yes each day, every last one of them, whether spent at home in the familiar, or on a new exotic adventure, holds the promise of a different sun, and an endlessly changing horizon. Taking the time to absorb these wonders, in the new encounter with the often explored, or with the totally new experience, brings wonder into the moment, into our days, into our lives.
The picture above is from home, the one below from Bryce Canyon National Park, and the one below that from Amelia Island, Florida, and the final one from this year’s Christmas Day at home – a new and different sun as the sun rises to begin a new day each and every one…
Rise Like the Sun and Burn
Welcome Back the Sun!!
On this beautiful winter solstice day the myriad gifts of the warm and nurturing Sun are acknowledged.
There is thankfulness for the grace in the giving. Appreciation too for the countless ways we are sustained and lifted up by the radiance.
Now, even as winter settles in, the hours of sunlight grow longer and we have the potential with each day for more luminance and warmth, accelerating inner growth and deepening.
Roots reach for depths unexplored.
The knowledge that the sun lengthens its shining each day allows for a serene, restful absorption of the season. No need to yearn for Spring. It is coming. .. In the meantime, the present of winter is to be savored. Deep snow and long nights. Love and light. Dark mornings by candlelight. Warm fires. Good books. Snowshoe walks. Life.
“The day will be what you make it,
so rise,
like the sun,
and burn.”
-William C. Hannan
“…the Persian savior Mithra, who, as an incarnation of eternal light, was born on the night of winter solstice.”
-Joseph Campbell
Saying Nothing
“Saying nothing…
sometimes says the most.”
-Emily Dickinson
