Wednesday, February 26, 2014

messengers of grief











There is a sacredness in tears. They are not a mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition and of unspeakable love.


—Washington Irving



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Saturday, February 22, 2014

not to worry



 




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The great sea
Has sent me adrift,

It moves me as the weed in a great river,
Earth and the great weather move me,

Have carried me away,
And move my inward parts with joy.


–Eskimo woman shaman







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Friday, February 21, 2014

shadows








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Everyone knows the great energies running amok cast
terrible shadows, that each of the so-called
senseless acts has its thread looping
back through the world and into a human heart.
And meanwhile
the gold-trimmed thunder
wanders the sky; the river
may be filling the cellars of the sleeping town.

Cyclone, fire, and their merry cousins
bring us to grief - but these are the hours
with the old wooden-god faces;
we lift them to our shoulders like so many
black coffins, we continue walking
into the future. I don't mean
there are no bodies in the river,
or bones broken by the wind. I mean
everyone who has heard the lethal train-roar
of the tornado swears there was no mention ever
of any person, or reason - I mean
the waters rise without any plot upon
history, or even geography. Whatever
power of the earth rampages, we turn to it
dazed but anonymous eyes; whatever
the name of the catastrophe, it is never
the opposite of love.

–Mary Oliver








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Wednesday, February 19, 2014

from Romeo and Juliet







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Friar Laurence: 

The earth that’s nature’s mother is her tomb; 
What is her burying grave that is her womb, 
And from her womb children of divers kind 
We sucking on her natural bosom find, 
Many for many virtues excellent, 
None but for some and yet all different. 

O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies 
In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities: 
For nought so vile that on the earth doth live 
But to the earth some special good doth give, 
Nor aught so good but strain’d from that fair use 
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse: 
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied; 
And vice sometimes by action dignified. 

Within the infant rind of this small flower 
Poison hath residence and medicine power: 
For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part; 
Being tasted, slays all senses with the heart. 
Two such opposed kings encamp them still 
In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will; 
And where the worser is predominant,
Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.

—Shakespeare









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saturnrising 

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Monday, February 17, 2014

10 seconds



 
 
 
 
 


 
























Saturday, February 15, 2014

science meets non-dualty













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Sunday, February 2, 2014

the waking








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I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.


–Theodore Roethke




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