The moon’s breath

Sunrise this morning.

The morning sings.
The egg-shaped moon
is exhaling clouds.
I breathe in and
exhale a song of my own.
I listen
as the symphony of birds
respond with hymns
of spring.

What’s in a name

A tangle of trees and ice.  (February weather.)

It is when we are confronted with poignant reminders of mortality that we become most aware of the strangeness and wonder of our brief life on Earth.

~ Kathleen Basford

If this time is our only time, and it is, then surely we do owe it to ourselves, and to each other, to pay attention, to look deeply, to listen closely, and to respond to all of it, somehow, with love and gratitude.

~ Katrina Kenison

A billion tiny ways

Just after sunset on Thanksgiving.

There are billions of tiny acts that create suffering in the world—acts of ignorance, greed, violence. But in the same way, each act of caring—all the billion tiny ways that we offer compassion, wisdom, and joy to one another—serves as a preservative and healing agent.

~ Ram Dass, Being Ram Dass

Gratitude is the understanding that many millions of things come together and mesh together and breathe together in order for us to take even one more breath of air, that the underlying gift of life and incarnation as a living, participating human being is a privilege; that we are miraculously, part of something, rather than nothing.  Even if that something is temporarily pain or despair, we inhabit a living world, with real faces, real voices, laughter, the color blue, the green of the fields, the freshness of a cold wind, or the tawny hue of a winter landscape.

~ David Whyte, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words

A Saturday saunter: Morning

While the moon was waning.

Take the whole teatime just to drink your tea. I started doing this in airports. Instead of reading, I sit there and look at everything, and appreciate it. Even if you don’t feel appreciation, just look. Feel what you feel; take an interest and be curious. Write less; don’t try to capture it all on paper. Sometimes writing, instead of being a fresh take, is like trying to catch something and nail it down. This capturing blinds us and there’s no fresh outlook, no wide-open eyes, no curiosity.

~ Pema Chodron

A Monday meander: Short and sweet

A July full moon.

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong.  Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.

~ George Washington Carver

Mornings

Morning moon, just before sunrise (sometime last week).

Deep acceptance of ultimate mystery is ironically the best way to keep the mind and heart spaces always open and always growing.

~ Richard Rohr