“No matter how old you get, may you always stop to fill your pockets with smooth stones, empty snail shells & other little treasures.”
-Nicolette Gowder
“The mystery of life is the plainest part of it. Every stone or flower is a hieroglyphic of which we have lost the key.”
-G.K. Chesterton
“Once upon a time… there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.”
-Terry Tempest Williams
The further I wake into this life, the more I realize that God is everywhere and the extraordinary is waiting quietly beneath the skin of all that is ordinary. Light is in both the broken bottle and the diamond, and music is in both the flowing violin and the water dripping from the drainage pipe. Yes, God is under the porch as well as on top of the mountain, and joy is in both the front row and the bleachers, if we are willing to be where we are.”
-Mark Nepo
“This magnificent refuge is inside you. Enter. Shatter the darkness that shrouds the doorway. Be bold. Be humble. Put away the incense and forget the incantations they taught you. Ask no permission from the authorities. Close your eyes and follow your breath to the still place that leads to the invisible path that leads you home.”
-St. Teresa of Avila
“I think 99 times and I find nothing.
I stop thinking, swim in silence,
and the truth comes to me.”
-Albert Einstein
“I sat staring, staring, staring – half lost, learning a new language or rather the same language in a different dialect.
So still were the big woods where I sat, sound might not yet have been born.”
-Emily Carr
What to Remember Upon Waking by David Whyte.
I’m endeavoring, and am successful more and more often, to remember to pause, to settle, to be grateful, before moving into the plans and tasks, upon waking…
“In that first
hardly noticed
moment
in which you wake,
coming back
to this life
from the other
more secret,
moveable
and frighteningly
honest
world
where everything
began,
there is a small
opening
into the new day
that closes
the moment
you begin your plans.
What you can plan
is too small
for you to live.What you can live
wholeheartedly
will make plans
enough
for the vitality
hidden in your sleep.To become human
is to become visible
while carrying
what is hidden
as a gift to others.To remember
the other world
in this world
is to live in your
true inheritance.You are not
a troubled guest
on this earth,
you are not
an accident
amidst other accidents
you were invited
from another and greater
night
than the one
from which
you have just emerged.Now, looking through
the slanting light
of the morning
window toward
the mountain
presence
of everything
that can be
what urgency
calls you to your
one love?What shape waits
in the seed of you
to grow and spread
its branches
against a future sky?Is it waiting
in the fertile sea?
In the trees
beyond the house?
In the life
you can imagine
for yourself?In the open
and lovely
white page
on the waiting desk?”-David Whyte
Spring continues to unfold, with the absorbing music of life bubbling just beneath the surface. I feel it.
Parker J. Palmer’s words resonated deeply with me this morning as he wrote the following words as a prelude to Mary Oliver’s poem – both his words and Mary’s poem follow. They speak to me of of season of rebirth in northwest Montana and of Love.
“Spring arrived on my patch of the planet last week, but it’s 25° here as I write! To encourage the season to show up more fully, here’s Mary Oliver with her spot-on description of “the brisk and shallow restlessness of early spring.”
I’m especially grateful for the profound reminder in the pivotal line of this poem: “There is only one question: how to love this world.”
Oliver illustrates love for the world not with a Valentine sentiment, but with a black bear “just risen from sleep” coming down the mountain with “her white teeth, her wordlessness, her perfect love.”
Wild animals “love the world” because they depend on it for their well-being. We are dependent, too, no matter how arrogantly we pretend that we are self-sufficient.
There’s only one way for us to survive and thrive. We must learn to love the earth and each other with the ferocity of a mother bear—saying “NO!” to everything that threatens that which we love, and “YES!” to all that gives it life…”
-Parker J. Palmer
“Somewhere a black bear has just risen from sleep and is staring
down the mountain. All night in the brisk and shallow restlessness of eary spring
I think of her, her four black fists flickering the gravel, her tongue
like a red fire touching the grass, the cold water. There is only one question:
how to love this world. I think of her rising like black and leafy lodge
to sharpen her claws against the silence of the trees. Whatever else
my life is with its poems and its music and its glass cities,
it is also this dazzling darkness coming down the mountain, breathing and tasting,
all day I think of her — her white teeth, her wordlessness, her perfect love.”
-Mary Oliver
Ah Spring!
Your vibration has been simmering, now ready to burst forth! I feel this awakening in every cell, the sweetness on my skin, a soft embrace, an invitation.
The inner world of winter making way for the outer connections of Spring into Summer. So many Gifts! I am present.
“Only with winter-patience can we bring the deep-desired, long-awaited spring”
-Anne Morrow Lindbergh
“The life of the earth comes up with a rush in springtime.”
-Laura Ingalls Wilder
“To me a lush carpet of pine needles on spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug.”
-Helen Keller
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”
-Lao Tsu
