Community

Autumn light.

We are all leaves on different branches of the same tree.

~ Laura Lynne Jackson

In order to survive, a plurality of true communities would require not egalitarianism and tolerance but knowledge, an understanding of the necessity of local differences, and respect. Respect, I think, always implies imagination – the ability to see one another, across our inevitable differences, as living souls.

~ Wendell Berry

Walktober 2019: Finding beauty wherever you go

Deep in the woods, on a path we walked.

Take my hand.
We will walk.
We will only walk.
We will enjoy our walk
without thinking of arriving anywhere.
Walk peacefully.
Walk happily.
Our walk is a peace walk.
Our walk is a happiness walk.
Then we learn
that there is no peace walk;
that peace is the walk;
that there is no happiness walk;
that happiness is the walk.
We walk for ourselves.
We walk for everyone
always hand in hand.
Walk and touch peace every moment.
Walk and touch happiness every moment.
Each step brings a fresh breeze.
Each step makes a flower bloom under our feet.
Kiss the Earth with your feet.
Print on Earth your love and happiness.
Earth will be safe
when we feel in us enough safety.

(from “Call me by My True Names  – The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh”, Parallax Press, 2005.)

A Monday meander: My Walktober

Autumn in the woods.

The Trees

The trees
Do you think of them as decoration?
Think again.
Here are maples, flashing.
And here are the oaks, holding on all winter
to their dry leaves.
And here are the pines, that will never fail,
until death, the instruction to be green.
And here are the willows, the first
to pronounce a new year.
May I invite you to revise your thoughts about them?
Oh, Lord, how we are all for invention and
advancement!
But I think
it would do us good if we could think about
these brothers and sisters, quietly and deeply.
The trees, the trees, just holding on
to the old, holy ways.

~ Mary Oliver

A Monday Meander: The equinox

Last Thursday’s sunset.

To walk quietly until the miracle in everything speaks is poetry, whether we write it down or not.

~ Mark Nepo

A Friday walk around the ranch

I don’t know how this photo happened. It’s as if the clouds went swooping by, in a hurry to be somewhere.  It created a double exposure look without any editing on my part.

Sometimes I think there are only two instructions we need to follow to develop and deepen our spiritual life: slow down and let go.

~ Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Brighter day

The roses glow on dark and stormy days.  (Shot through the window while the rain was coming down in sheets.)

Patience from a Buddhist perspective is not a “wait and see” attitude, but rather one of “just be there”… Patience can also be based on not expecting anything. Think of patience as an act of being open to whatever comes your way. When you begin to solidify expectations, you get frustrated because they are not met in the way you had hoped… With no set idea of how something is supposed to be, it is hard to get stuck on things not happening in the time frame you desired. Instead, you are just being there, open to the possibilities of your life.

~ Lodro Rinzler, The Buddha Walks Into A Bar…

Waiting for Dorian

Scene from a bike ride on Labor Day.

Whatever we are waiting for — peace of mind, contentment, grace, the inner awareness of simple abundance — it will surely come to us, but only when we are ready to receive it with an open and graceful heart.

~ Sarah Ban Breathnach

If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you’ll never enjoy the sunshine.

~ Morris West