This is the Solstice, the still point
of the sun, its cusp and midnight,
the year’s threshold
and unlocking, where the past
lets go of and becomes the future,
the place of caught breath
—Margaret Atwood
Eating Fire
In the depth of winter,
I finally learned
that within me there lay
an invincible summer.―Albert Camus
All the complicated details
of the attiring and
the disattiring are completed!
A liquid moon
moves gently among
the long branches.
Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter
the wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold.
—William Carlos Williams
.
What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow which runs across
the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
—Crowfoot
Blackfoot warrior and orator
1830 - 1890
Today is the winter solstice. The planet tilts just so to its star, lists and holds circling in a fixed tension between veering and longing, and spins helpless, exalted, in and out of that fleet blazing touch.
—Annie DillardThe Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
.
They say the sun will come back
at midnight
after all
my one love
but we know how the minutes
fly out into
the dark trees
and vanish
like the great ʻōhiʻas and honey creepers
and we know how the weeks
walk into the
shadows at midday
at the thought of the months I reach for your hand
it is not something
one is supposed
to say
we watch the bright birds in the morning
we hope for the quiet
daytime together
the year turns into air
but we are together in the whole night
with the sun still going away
and the year
coming back
—W.S. Merwin
the solstice
The Soul has two eyes
One looks at time passing
The other sends forth its gaze into eternity.
—Angelus Silesius
[Man] sees the morning as the beginning of a new day; he takes germination as the start in the life of a plant, and withering as its end. But this is nothing more than biased judgment on his part.Nature is one. There is no starting point or destination, only an unending flux, a continuous metamorphosis of all things.—Masanobu Fukuoka
.
We all have our time machines.Some take us back, they're called memories.Some take us forward, they're called dreams.—Jeremy Irons
allchannels
.
If you look at zero you see nothing; but look through it
and you will see the world
—Robert Kaplan
From the earliest times, it was understood that the visible world implied the existence of an invisible world, where everything was infused with the supernatural and the felt sense of the sacred.
Thomas Yellowtail expressed: ‘A man’s attitude toward the nature around him, and the animals in nature, is of special importance, because as we respect our created world, so also do we show respect for the real world that we cannot see.’
Through the traditional wisdom of American Indians we learn that there are ways of knowing that are obtained through the earth that allow human beings to listen and learn directly from the Great Spirit.
—Samuel Bendeck Sotillos
Parabola Magazine
Fall 2017 Issue: “The Sacred”
Names belong to things, but zero belongs to nothing. It counts the totality of what isn’t there. By this reasoning it must be everywhere with regard to this and that: with regard, for instance, to the number of humming-birds in that bowl with seven — or now six — apples. Then what does zero name?
—Robert Kaplan
Could I live like this? I ask myself
and I know, somehow, I must.
More and more my life is peeling paint,
straight horizons.
More and more my name dissolves in the air,
salt, something invisible I taste,
and forget.
—Naomi Shihab Nye
At Otto’s Place, excerpt
The cold slope is standing in darkness
But the south of the trees is dry to the touch
The heavy limbs climb into the moonlight bearing feathers
I came to watch these
White plants older at night
The oldest
Come first to the ruins
And I hear magpies kept awake by the moon
The water flows through its
Own fingers without end
Tonight once more
I find a single prayer and it is not for men
—W. S. Merwin
At the end of the year the stars go out
the air stops breathing and the Sibyl sings
first she sings of the darkness she can see
she sings on until she comes to the age
without time and the dark she cannot see
no one hears then as she goes on singing
of all the white days that were brought to us one by one
that turned to colors around us
a light coming from far out in the eye
where it begins before she can see it
burns through the words that no one has abelieved
—W.S. Merwin
The Pupil, 2001
There is a way between voice and presence where information flows.
In disciplined silence it opens.
With wandering talk it closes.
—Rumi
Every person, from morning till evening, is making invisible forms in space by what he says.
He is creating invisible vibrations around him, and so he is creating an atmosphere.
—Hazrat Inayat KhanThe Mysticism of Sound and Music
Every thought, action, decision, or feeling creates an eddy in the interlocking, inter-balancing, ever-moving energy fields of life, leaving a permanent record for all of time. This realization can be intimidating when it first dawns on us, but it becomes a springboard for rapid evolution.
In this interconnected universe, every improvement we make in our private world improves the world at large for everyone. We all float on the collective level of consciousness of mankind so that any increment we add comes back to us. We all add to our common buoyancy by our efforts to benefit life.
What we do to benefit life automatically benefits all of us because we are all included in that which is life.
—David R. Hawkins
Between where you are now and where you’d like to be there’s a sort of barrier, or a chasm, and sometimes it’s a good idea to imagine that you’re already at the other side of that chasm, so that you can start on the unknown side.—David Bohm
You are like a dewdrop, on a multidimensional spider's web in the morning. And if you look at that thing carefully, you will see in every dewdrop the reflections of all the other dewdrops. So the way that dewdrop looks goes with the way all the other ones look, you see.—Alan Watts.
This must be well grasped: the world hangs on the thread of consciousness. No consciousness, no world.
—Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
On foot
I had to walk through the solar system
before I found the first thread of my red dress.
Already, I sense myself.Somewhere in space hangs my heart,
sparks fly from it, shaking the air,
to other reckless hearts.
—Edith Södergran (1892-1923)
Stina Katchadourian version
In order to keep the mind on one thing it is necessary to preserve attention and so lead it into the heart: for so long as the mind remains in the head, where thoughts jostle one another, it has not time to concentrate on one thing. But where attention descends into the heart, it attracts all the powers of the soul and body into one point there.This concentration of all human life in one place is immediately reflected in the heart by a special sensation that is the beginning of future warmth. This sensation, faint at the beginning, becomes gradually stronger, firmer, deeper. At first tepid, it grows into warm feeling and concentrates the attention upon itself.And so it comes about that, whereas in the initial stages the attention is kept in the heart by an effort of will, in due course this attention, by its own vigour, gives birth to warmth in the heart. This warmth then holds the attention without special effort.From this, the two go on supporting one another, and must remain inseparable; because dispersion of attention cools the warmth, and diminishing warmth weakens attention.—Theophan the Recluse, 1815-1894
For silence is not God, nor speaking;
fasting is not God, nor eating;
solitude is not God, nor company;
nor any other pair of opposites.
He is hidden between them,
and cannot be found by anything your soul does, but only by the love of your heart.
He cannot be known by reason,
he cannot be thought, caught,
or sought by understanding.
But he can be loved and
chosen by the true, loving will of your heart.
—the cloud of unknowing
We are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth successfully for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common.
It has to be everybody or nobody.
—Buckminster Fuller
.Although the evening is cold and starless
And the rain is raging,
I'm still singing my song during this period,
Don't know who's listening.
Though the world is drowned in war and fear,
At some point
Burning secretly, if no one sees them,
The love continues.
—Hermann Hesse
wait - what ?.
.
If
you want
the Virgin will come walking down the road
pregnant with the holy,
and say,
“I need shelter for the night, please take me inside your heart,
my time is so close.”
Then, under the roof of your soul, you will witness the sublime
intimacy, the divine, the Christ
taking birth
forever,
as she grasps your hand for help, for each of us
is the midwife of God, each of us.
Yet there, under the dome of your being does creation
come into existence eternally, through your womb, dear pilgrim—
the sacred womb in your soul,
as God grasps our arms for help; for each of us is
His beloved servant
never far.
If you want, the Virgin will come walking
down the street pregnant
with Light
and sing ...
—St. John of the Cross
1542 – 1591
Advent Poem
.
On the journey of the warrior-bodhisattva, the path goes down, not up, as if the mountain pointed toward the earth instead of the sky.
Instead of transcending the suffering of all creatures, we move toward turbulence and doubt however we can. We explore the reality and unpredictability of insecurity and pain, and we try not to push it away. If it takes years, if it takes lifetimes, we let it be as it is.
At our own pace, without speed or aggression, we move down and down and down. With us move millions of others, our companions in awakening from fear. At the bottom we discover water, the healing water of bodhichitta. Bodhichitta is our heart—our wounded, softened heart. Right down there in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die. This love is bodhichitta. It is gentle and warm; it is clear and sharp; it is open and spacious. The awakened heart of bodhichitta is the basic goodness of all beings.
—Pema Chödrön
Comfortable with Uncertainty: 108 Teachings on Cultivating Fearlessness and Compassion
.
Between the poles of the conscious and the unconscious, there has the mind made a swing: Thereon hang all beings and all worlds, and that swing never ceases its sway.
Millions of beings are there: the sun and the moon in their courses are there: Millions of ages pass, and the swing goes on. All swing! the sky and the earth and the air and the water; and the Lord Himself taking form: And the sight of this has made Kabîr a servant.
—Kabîr
Song of Kabîr
Rabindranath Tagore version
The moon is full tonight
an illustration for sheet music,
an image in Matthew Arnold
glimmering on the English Channel,
or a ghost over a smoldering battlefield
in one of the history plays.
It's as full as it was
in that poem by Coleridge
where he carries his year-old son
into the orchard behind the cottage
and turns the baby's face to the sky
to see for the first time
the earth's bright companion,
something amazing to make his crying seem small.
And if you wanted to follow this example,
tonight would be the night
to carry some tiny creature outside
and introduce him to the moon.
And if your house has no child,
you can always gather into your arms
the sleeping infant of yourself,
as I have done tonight,
and carry him outdoors,
all limp in his tattered blanket,
making sure to steady his lolling head
with the palm of your hand.
And while the wind ruffles the pear trees
in the corner of the orchard
and dark roses wave against a stone wall,
you can turn him on your shoulder
and walk in circles on the lawn
drunk with the light.
You can lift him up into the sky,
your eyes nearly as wide as his,
as the moon climbs high into the night.
—Billy Collins
When we get out of the glass bottles of our ego, and when we escape like squirrels turning in the cages of our personality and get into the forests again, we shall shiver with cold and fright but things will happen to us so that we don't know ourselves.
Cool, unlying life will rush in, and passion will make our bodies taut with power, we shall stamp our feet with new power and old things will fall down, we shall laugh, and institutions will curl up like burnt paper.
—D. H. Lawrence
I want to let go -
so I don't give a damn about fine writing,
I'm rolling my sleeves up.
The dough's rising...
Oh what a shame
I can't bake cathedrals...
that sublimity of style
I've always yearned for...
Child of our time -
haven't you found the right shell for your soul?
Before I die I
shall
bake a cathedral.
—Edith Södergran
Hidden in the heart of every creature
Exists the One Self, subtler than the subtlest,
Greater than the greatest. They go beyond
All sorrow who extinguish their self-will
And behold the glory of the Self
Through the grace of the One Heart.
Though one sits in meditation in a
Particular place, the Self within
Can exercise its influence far away.
Though still, it moves everything everywhere.
When the wise realize the Self,
Formless in the midst of forms, changeless
In the midst of change, omnipresent
And supreme, they go beyond sorrow.
The Self cannot be known through study
Of the scriptures, nor through the intellect,
Nor through hearing discourses about it.
The Self can be attained only by those
Whom the Self chooses. Verily unto them
Does the Self reveal itself.
—The Katha Upanishad
Eknath Easwaran gateway
What has been an ancient spiritual truth is now increasingly verified by science: We are all indivisibly part of one another. We share a common ancestry with everyone and everything alive on earth.
The air we breathe contains atoms that have passed through the lungs of ancestors long dead. Our bodies are composed of the same elements created deep inside the furnaces of long-dead stars.
We can look upon the face of anyone or anything around us and say—as a moral declaration and a spiritual, cosmological, and biological fact: You are a part of me I do not yet know.—Valarie Kaur
Sikh activist and human rights lawyer
Love is the basis of the spirit
and the law of love is the basis of creation.
—Walter Russell
The sign of God’s love is to bestow three attributes on His lover:
A generosity like that of the sea,
a kindness like that of the sun, and,
a humility like that of the earth.
—Bayazid
In a different mode, or another plane of being, music is the equivalent of some of man’s most significant and most inexpressible experiences. By mysterious analogy it evokes in the mind of the listener, sometimes the phantom of these experiences, sometimes even the experiences themselves in their full force of life — it is a question of intensity; the phantom is dim, the reality, near and burning. Music may call up either; it is chance or providence which decides. The intermittences of the heart are subject to no known law.
... After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. Music “says” things about the world, but in specifically musical terms. Any attempt to reproduce these musical statements “in our own words” is necessarily doomed to failure. We cannot isolate the truth contained in a piece of music; for it is a beauty-truth and inseparable from its partner.
The best we can do is to indicate in the most general terms the nature of the musical beauty-truth under consideration and to refer curious truth-seekers to the original. Thus, the introduction to the Benedictus in the Missa Solemnis is a statement about the blessedness that is at the heart of things. But this is about as far as “our words” will take us. If we were to start describing in our “own words” exactly what Beethoven felt about this blessedness, how he conceived it, what he thought its nature to be, we should very soon find ourselves writing lyrical nonsense…
Only music, and only Beethoven’s music, and only this particular music of Beethoven, can tell us with any precision what Beethoven’s conception of the blessedness at the heart of things actually was. If we want to know, we must listen — on a still June night, by preference, with the breathing of the invisible sea for background to the music and the scent of lime trees drifting through the darkness, like some exquisite soft harmony apprehended by another sense.
—Aldous Huxley
via Maria Popova here
As the sun needs an eye in order to shine, and music an ear in order to sound, so the worth of every masterpiece in art and science is conditioned by the mind related and equal to it to which it speaks.Only such a mind possesses the incantation to arouse the spirits imprisoned in such a work and make them show themselves. The commonplace head stands before it as before a magic casket he cannot open, or before an instrument he cannot play and from which he can therefore summon only inchoate noises, however much he would like to deceive himself in the matter.
A beautiful work requires a sensitive mind, a speculative work a thinking mind, in order really to exist and to live.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860)
from Essays and Aphorisms
R. J. Hollingdale version
So a little spring prays to the ocean, so the beating heart prays to the heart of the universe, so the little word prays to the great Logos, so a dust speck prays to the earth, so the earth prays to the cosmos, so the one prays to the billion, so human love prays to God’s love, so always prays to never, so the moment prays to eternity, so the snowflake prays to winter, so the frightened beast prays to the forest silence, so uncertainty prays to beauty itself.
And all these prayers are heard.
—Anna Kamieńska
In the Great River: A Notebook
