“I soon realized that no journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within.”
-Lillian Smith
“Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.”
-Anatole France
“Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they’re going.”
-Paul Theroux
“Not all who wander are lost.”
-J.R.R. Tolkien
“One attraction in coming to the woods to live was that I should have leisure and opportunity to see the Spring come in.”
-Henry David Thoreau
“Sit quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.”
-Zen Saying
“The force of Spring – mysterious, fecund, powerful beyond measure.”
-Michael Garofalo
“The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.”
-James Taylor
The hurry sickness has left me. The ease of the morning to contemplate life, nature, the day, fulfills a longing to sit with the purity of being here now. Hearing those words, there is a knowing, a real knowledge, that being fully present, attentive, focused, and aware truly does bring peace. The gift of life is acknowledged in these moments – and these moments expand to hours and inform the days.
The house still needs to be cleaned, bills paid, the plants tended… with the awareness of the morning extended, these small tasks take on a sacred feeling. Every movement a prayer. This is not a constant state of course – for me. The periods of time though are extended more and more…. I need so much less to feel full. Less activity, less doing, more be-ing is a grace filled way.
“Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”
-John Lennon
“If the only prayer you ever say is, “thank you”,
it will be enough”.– Meister Eckhart“For all that has been, Thank you!
For all that is to come, Yes!”
-Dag Hammarskjold
The forest is a sanctuary, a temple of contemplation, connection and peace. Serenity surrounds with a warm cohesiveness – an encasing womb. Comfort, meditation, life expressing itself, all waiting for our immersion. Honest and raw. Inviting and absorbing. A sweet embrace.
When you can, get into the forest again!
“When we get out of the glass bottle of our ego and when we escape like the squirrels in the cage of our personality and get into the forest again, we shall shiver with cold and fright. But things happen to us so that we don’t know ourselves. Cool unlying life will rush in.”
D.H. Lawrence
“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
-John Muir
“We must not always talk in the market-place of what
happens to us in the forest.”
-Nathaniel Hawthorne
“A forest bird never wants a cage.”
-Henrik Ibsen
“When the oak is felled the whole forest echoes with its fall, but a hundred acorns are sown in silence by an unnoticed breeze.”
-Thomas Carlyle
There are places where you can love the night. Under the big sky, when cares are far away, as calm peace absorbs the day. Stars to get lost in, time does not work as when sunshine warms. Alone with yourself. The dog breathing. The stars and night breathing too. And the trees. The moon hidden.
Night wonders deep and satisfying.
“I want to live my life so that my nights are not full of regrets.”
-D.H. Lawrence
“What hath night to do with sleep?”
-John Milton – Paradise Lost
“Late, by myself, in the boat of myself,
no light and no land anywhere, cloudcover thick
I try to stay
just above the surface,
yet I’m already under
and living with the ocean”
-Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi
“Life is grace. Sleep is forgiveness. The night absolves. Darkness wipes the slate clean, not spotless to be sure, but clean enough for another day’s chalking.”
-Frederick Buechner, The Alphabet of Grace
“The world rests in the night. Trees, mountains, fields, and faces are released from the prison of shape and the burden of exposure. Each thing creeps back into its own nature within the shelter of the dark. Darkness is the ancient womb. Nighttime is womb-time. Our souls come out to play. The darkness absolves everything; the struggle for identity and impression falls away. We rest in the night.”
-John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
Here’s to the night and the promise of a new day dawning…
(written at 3am!)
Singing with the flowers, feeling the forest’s music, listening for raven song. Seeing connections large and small. May is sure to be filled with simple pleasures that are deeply fulfilling.
Unfolding, evolving, expanding, deep breathing earth mirrors our own journey through the season.
A “cross-quarter day” of importance in Celtic festivals this day was also the first day of Summer in early European history. An important marking of time is this day!
Dances, singing and cake are part of the official celebration of this first day of May, May Day, across our planet – a spring holiday for many, I hope you too will celebrate Spring, flowers, nature, life and connections with cake, singing and dancing!
“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things”
-Robert Brault
“May you live all the days of your life.”
-Jonathan Swift
Wakefulness this new morning brought a deep feeling of wonder and mystery…
Beautiful sense of being immersed.
Sun streaming through the windows.
Warmth of knowing and not knowing.
There will be many wonders and mysteries today!
“It is the dim haze of mystery that adds enchantment to pursuit.”
-Antoine Rivarol
“The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.”
-Anais Nin
“We have to be humble enough to understand that there is something called mystery.”
-Paulo Coelho
“I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it.”
-Harry Emerson Fosdick
“As I make my slow pilgrimage through the world, a certain sense of beautiful mystery seems to gather and grow.”
-A. C. Benson
“No sight is more provocative of awe than is the night sky.”
-Llewelyn Powys
“A man is a very small thing, and the night is very large and full of wonders.”
-Edward Plunkett
I see wonders everywhere! From tiny stills in the forest, to the incomprehensible star majesty, these gifts surround us, asking nothing but our attention. Power, calm, wind, clouds, big trees, rocks, the creatures… so much – just so very much, to mesh with us and take in. In gratitude and with a long sweet breath, the day is embraced, the wonders absorbed…
“There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
–Albert Einstein-Albert Einstein
“The world is full of magic things,
patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
-W.B. Yeats
May your day and night be filled with wonder, miracles and magic!
We all travel the Milky Way together, trees and men.”
-John Muir, The Mountains of California
The tree pictured below is traveling the same Milky Way as the rest of us, and as Carl Sagan says, “down deep, at the molecular heart of life” shares essentially the same components that make up we humans. I would love to feel the energy of this tree!
It is 3,200 years old and so massive it was impossible to get the whole tree into one photograph. This majestic giant sequoia is called The President and is located in California’s Sierra Nevada. It is 247 feet tall, 27 feet in diameter, and the article I read said it holds some 2 billion needles – the most of any tree on our planet. The tree is still growing, adding one cubic meter of wood per year!
This photo was quite an endeavor and labor of love requiring a pulley system with levers for climbers and requiring 32 days and 126 separate photos that are pieced together. (the little tiny red dot at the bottom of the picture is a person!)
