A Monday meander: Life in the Bogs

Perched for a moment.

Dragonflies are reminders that we are light and we can reflect light in powerful ways if we choose to do so.

~ Robyn Nola

We speak of things “catching our gaze,” “calling our attention,” “grabbing our focus,” and those are all quite precise ways of speaking, because as we’re wandering the world, things solicit our attention, draw us into dialog, a kind of conversation without words. A fallen leaf on the ground calls my attention, and so I slow down to stop and gaze at it. And so, in my experience, this leaf is not dead, though it’s been lying on the ground for days. It has its own agency. It has its own power, its potency. And so, it is with everything we experience.

~ David Abrams, The Ecology of Perception, Emergence Magazine

A Monday meander: Heatwave

Droopy.

We have separated matter and spirit and through the power of this collective attitude have starved the world.

~ Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Awakening the World

Once when I was younger I went out and sat under the sky and looked up and asked it to take me back. What I should have done was gone to the swamp and bog and ask them to bring me back because, if anything is, mud and marsh are the origins of life. Now I think of the storm that made chaos, that the storm opened a door. It tried to make over a world the way it wanted it to be. At school I learned that storms create life, that lightning, with its nitrogen, is a beginning; bacteria and enzymes grow new life from decay out of darkness and water. It’s into this that I want to fall, into swamp and mud and sludge and it seems like falling is the natural way of things; gravity needs no fuel, no wings. It needs only stillness and waiting and time.

~ Linda Hogan

A morning walk

Out the back door, near sunrise.

Today is sacred – for it will never come again. What could be more important than living this day with attention and the intention to be of benefit, to the best of your ability, to all you encounter?

~ John Bruna

In spite of all the talk and study about our next years, all the silent ponderings about what lies within them…it seems plain to us that many things are wrong in the present ones that can be, must be, changed. Our texture of belief has great holes in it. Our pattern lacks pieces.

~ M.F.K. Fisher

A Monday meander: Fall in (to) summer

Four crows. (2012)

Anything [manifested] in the physical world is already history.

~ Caroline Myss

Rainbow

Rainbow from last week, edited with Pixlr.

I believe I have already suggested that colour is the most obvious bridge between emotion and perception, that is, between subjective experience of the psyche and quality objective in nature. Both light up only between the extremes of light and darkness, and in their reciprocal interplay. Thus, outward the rainbow–or, if you prefer it, the spectrum–is the bridge between dark and light, but inwardly the rainbow is, what the soul itself is, the bridge between body and spirit, between earth and heaven.

~ Owen Barfield

When I set a glass prism on a windowsill and allow the sun to flood through it, a spectrum of colors dances on the floor. What we call “white” is a rainbow of colored rays packed into a small space. The prism sets them free. Love is the white light of emotion.

~ Diane Ackerman

If you have ever followed a rainbow to its end, it leads you to the ground on which you are standing.

~ Alan Cohen

A Wednesday wander: Past and present

I almost threw this away.

Have no fear of perfection — you’ll never reach it.

~ Salvador Dali

One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn’t exist…..Without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist.

~ Stephen Hawking

I am glad that I paid so little attention to good advice; had I abided by it I might have been saved from some of my most valuable mistakes.

~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

Toad

Sitting by the walkway.

Toads are mostly found on land but can also survive in water. They inhabit every section of the globe and have the ability to endure some of the worse weather conditions. The common connotation of the toad spirit animal is transformation and survival. The toad undergoes a life metamorphosis from a tadpole into a toad. Besides, it braves different weather conditions to find shelter and food.

…The toad as a spirit animal is symbolic of growth. If you have a toad as your spirit guide, consider yourself lucky. Your connection with the spiritual realm is renewed because of this bond. The toad spirit guide will bring you spiritual help to solve all your concerns.

If you are looking for an emotional cleansing, call on the toad spirit guide. It is the best animal totem in this particular context because of its association with water. Besides, the cleanup can also help you start viewing life from a different but better lens.

Another toad totem spiritual significance in your life is intelligence. People born under this spirit animal have the blessings of good brains. It is this gift that they use to survive. When faced with confrontations, solid muscle alone cannot work. There must be a blend of both the strength of the mind and the body.

~ Wendy Jackson