A nearing the end of the year ramble

Christmas tree decorations and reflections (with some bokeh thrown in for good measure).

Everything in the world began with a yes. One molecule said yes to another molecule and life was born. But before prehistory there was the prehistory of prehistory and there was the never and there was the yes.

~ Clarice Lispector

Always say “yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is? what could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say “yes” to life — and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.

~ Eckhart Tolle

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Easing in

Light when the power goes out.

You wake from dreams of doom and – for a moment – you know: beyond all the noise and the gestures, the only real thing, love’s calm unwavering flame in the half-light of an early dawn.

~ Dag Hammarskjöld

A Monday meander: Rainy days and hurricanes

A rainy day moment.

Here is a moment of extravagant beauty: I drink its liquid from the shells of my hands and almost all of it runs sparkling through my fingers: but beauty is like that, it is a fraction of a second, quickness of a flash and then immediately it escapes.

~ Clarice Lispector, A Breath of Life

A Monday meander: Silence

The silence of sunset.

Silence is like a cradle holding our endeavors and our will; a silent spaciousness sustains us in our work and at the same time connects us to larger worlds that, in the busyness of our daily struggle to achieve, we have not yet investigated. Silence is the soul’s break for freedom.

~David Whyte

Listen to the silence as it echoes around you. Ancient spirits dance to it.

~Amber Coverdalle Sumrall

A Monday meander: Apologies and such

A sunrise

Take a journey into the things which you are carrying, the known —
not into the unknown — into what you already know:
your pleasures, your delights, your despairs, your sorrows.
Take a journey into that, that is all you have.

~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Some Friday thoughts

Messages on the way to Chincoteague.

We are beckoned to see the world through a one-way mirror, as if we are threatened and innocent and the rest of humanity is threatening, or wretched, or expendable. Our memory is struggling to rescue the truth that human rights were not handed down as privileges from a parliament, or a boardroom, or an institution, but that peace is only possible with justice and with information that gives us the power to act justly.

~ John Pilger

Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling?

~ Bertrand Russell

Shoot from the hip

An intermission.

Ask yourself:  How much time do you spend just observing your surroundings?  Driving or navigating while walking on busy streets doesn’t count.  And how much time do you spend with your eyes glued to some type of screen?  Most of your impressions of the world are mediated.  They have been altered by someone else, who wants you to see things in a certain way — and they are usually trying to influence us for their own reasons.  As a society, we seem to passively accept and even embrace this troubling condition of the electronic age.

Poet Theodore Roethke writes:  “I wish I could find an event that meant as much as simple seeing.”  I agree, and believe that the world itself is fascinating, deserving of our attention, and far more interesting than anything we might say about it — in any medium.

~ David Ulrich, Zen Camera: Creative Awakening with a Daily Practice in Photography