i am that

 

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Watching my hand; He is moving it.

Hearing my voice; He is speaking...

Walking from room to room --

No one here but Him.


—Rumi

Andrew Harvey version 

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Staying very still in the darkness, I became less and less convinced of the fact that I actually existed.


—Haruki Murakami

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Listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world. —Jack Kerouac

 

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God is not external to anyone, but is present with all things,

though they are ignorant that this is so.

—Plotinus

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You need not go to heaven to see God; nor need you speak loud, as if God were far away; nor need you cry for wings like a dove to fly to Him. Only be in silence, and you will come upon God within yourself.


—Saint Teresa of Avila

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tonight

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Everything will be alright tonight

Everything will be alright tonight

No one moves

No one talks

No one thinks 

No one walks tonight

Everyone will be alright tonight

Everyone will be alright tonight

No one moves

No one talks

No one thinks 

No one walks tonight

I’m gonna love you till the end

I will love you till I reach the end

I will love her till I die

I will see you in the sky

Tonight

Everything will be alright tonight

Everything will be alright tonight

No one moves

No one talks

No one thinks 

No one walks tonight

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We are one, after all, you and I.

Together we suffer, together exist,
and forever will recreate each other.


—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

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wait

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I’d woken up early, and I took a long time getting ready to exist. —Fernando Pessoa

 

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My originality consists in putting logic of the visible 

to the service of the invisible.

—Odilon Redon

The Death of Buddha

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So what can they tell us,

the writers of dreambooks,

the scholars of oneiric signs and omens,

the doctors

with couches for analyses—

if anything fits,

it’s accidental,

and for one reason only,

that in our dreamings,

in their shadowings and gleamings,

in their multiplings, inconceivablings,

in their haphazardings and widescatterings at times

even a clear-cut meaning may slip through.

—Wisława Szymborska

Dreams, excerpt

Clare Cavanaugh and Stanisław Barańczak version

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If the eye were a complete animal, sight would be its soul. —Aristotle

   

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Blessed be you,
mighty matter,
irresistible march of evolution,
reality ever newborn;
you who, by constantly
shattering our mental categories,
force us to go ever further
and further in our
pursuit of the truth.


—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881 - 1955)
Hymn of the Universe

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Thinking and prayer are much the same thing anyway, when you stop to think about it ... Prayer goes up and thought comes down—or so it seems. 

As far as I can tell, that's the only difference.


—Alan Bradley
A Red Herring Without Mustard

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the house we live in

  

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What we speak
becomes the house
we live in. 
Who will want
to sleep in your bed
if the roof leaks
right above it?

Fear is the 
cheapest room 
in the house,
I would like
to see you living
in better conditions.

There is only one reason
we have followed God
into this world:
to encourage laughter,
freedom,
dance and love ....

God and I are rushing
from every corner of 
existence,
needing to say
we are yours.

The sun never says
to the earth,
even after all this time
“you owe me”.

I once asked a bird
how is it that you 
fly in this gravity
of darkness?
she responded,
love lifts me.

I should not make 
any promises right now
but I know if you pray
somewhere in this world
something good 
will happen.


—Hafiz
Daniel Ladinsky and
Robert Bly version

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listen

 

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The airy sky has taken its place leaning against the wall.
It is like a prayer to what is empty.

And what is empty turns its face to us and whispers:
“I am not empty, I am open.”


—Tomas Tranströmer
Robert Bly version

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exercises

 

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First, forget what time it is
for an hour
do it regularly every day

then forget what day of the week it is
and do this regularly for a week
then forget what country you are in
and practice doing it in company
for a week
and then do them together
for a week
with as few breaks as possible 

follow these by forgetting to add
or to subtract
it makes no difference
you can change them
around after a week
both will help you later
to forget how to count 

forget how to count
starting with your own age
starting with how to count backwards
starting with even numbers
with Roman numerals
starting with fractions of Roman numerals
with the old calendar
going on to the old alphabet
going on to the alphabet
forgetting it all until everything
is continuous again 

go on to forgetting elements
starting with water
proceeding to earth
rising in fire 

forget fire


—W. S. Merwin

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certain(ty

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Where does unbelief begin? 
When I was young 

there were degrees of certainty. 
I could say, Yes I know that I have two hands.
Then one day I awakened on a planet of people whose hands occasionally 
disappear.


—Anne Carson 

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wonders

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I stand at the seashore, alone, and start to think. There are the rushing waves… mountains of molecules, each stupidly minding its own business… trillions apart… yet forming white surf in unison.

Ages on ages… before any eyes could see… year after year… thunderously pounding the shore as now. For whom, for what?… on a dead planet, with no life to entertain.

Never at rest… tortured by energy… wasted prodigiously by the sun… poured into space. A mite makes the sea roar.

Deep in the sea, all molecules repeat the patterns of one another till complex new ones are formed. They make others like themselves… and a new dance starts.

Growing in size and complexity… living things, masses of atoms, DNA, protein… dancing a pattern ever more intricate.

Out of the cradle onto the dry land… here it is standing… atoms with consciousness… matter with curiosity.

Stands at the sea… wonders at wondering… I… a universe of atoms… an atom in the universe.

—Richard Feynman, 1955

An Untitled Ode to the Wonder of Life

listen to Yo-yo Ma and read the wonder of Maria Popova here

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