Before the fall

On the Hemlock Trail (New Germany State Park in western Maryland)

Lost
by David Wagoner

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

New Germany

Under the clear water of the lake. (October 2017, New Germany Lake, western Maryland)

We can touch wonder in every moment as we slow down and perceive the world around us as if for the first time. And when we contact wonder, we know thankfulness for the most ordinary, extraordinary things of life.

~M. J. Ryan

Chasing waterfalls

Deep Creek Lake State Park. (October 2017)

Like billowing clouds,
Like the incessant gurgle of the brook,
The longing of the spirit can never be stilled.”

~ Hildegard of Bingen

35. Rain and sun

Rainy morning.

And I would be the wind, whispering through the tangled woods, running airy fingers over the island’s face, tingling in the chill of concealed places, sighing secrets in the dawn. And I would be the light, flinging over the island, covering it with flash and shadow, shining on rocks and pools, softening to a touch in the glow of dusk. If I were the rain and wind and light, I would encircle the island like the sky surrounding earth, flood through it like a heart driven pulse, shine from inside it like a star in flames, burn away to blackness in the closed eyes of its night.

~ Richard Nelson, The Island Within

34. A Monday meander

Dew-kissed rose.

When there has been a breakthrough, make it a point to relive it again and again.  Just sitting silently, remember it; don’t just remember it, relive it.

Start feeling the same as you felt when the breakthrough happened.  Let the vibrations surround you.  Move into the same space, and allow it to happen so it becomes, by and by, very natural to you.  You become so capable of bringing it back that any moment you can do it.

Many valuable insights happen, but they need follow-up.  Otherwise they become just memories and you will lose contact and will not be able to move into the same world.  By and by, one day you yourself will start disbelieving them.  You may think that it was a dream or a hypnosis or some trick of the mind.  That’s how humanity lost many beautiful experiences.

Everybody comes to beautiful spaces in life.  But we never try to make a path to those beautiful spaces so that they become as natural as eating, taking a bath, or going to sleep, so that whenever you close your eyes you can be in that space.

~ Osho, Everyday Osho, Day 103

32. Tea and a chat

Toys in the fort.

A person’s life consists of a collection of events, the last of which could also change the meaning of the whole, not because it counts more than the previous ones but because once they are included in a life, events are arranged in an order that is not chronological but, rather, corresponds to an inner architecture.

– Italo Calvino