blessings be

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My writing, when it hasn't been in defense of precious things,

has been a giving of thanks for precious things.

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Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years. 

Listen to carrion -- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts. 

So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth? 

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.


—Wendell Berry
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

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Learn by little the desire for all things 
which perhaps is not desire at all 

but undying love which perhaps 
is not love at all but gratitude 

for the being of things which perhaps
is not gratitude at all

but the maker’s joy in what is made, 
the joy in which we come to rest.


—Wendell Berry
Leavings

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yes

 

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For all that has been, Thanks.
To all that shall be, Yes.


—Dag Hammarskjöld

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know(ledge of the spirit

Hilma af Klint, The Swan (No. 17), 1914-15

Hilma af Klint, The Tail of the Swan, 1914

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So long as a symbol is a living thing, it is the expression for something that cannot be characterized in any other or better way. The symbol is alive only so long as it is pregnant with meaning. 

But once its meaning has been born out of it, once that expression is found which formulates the thing sought, expected, or divined even better than the hitherto accepted symbol, then the symbol is dead, i.e., it possesses only an historical significance.


—Carl Jung (1875-1961)

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Hilma af Klint’s paintings are diagrams of a spiritual plane that underlies the visual world. She was a member of a small group of women who would meet to access religious spirits with knowledge of the afterlife. 

Gregor, one of the spiritual masters she contacted during these meetings, said to her that the paintings represent “All the knowledge that is not of the senses, not of the intellect, not of the heart but is the property that exclusively belongs to the deepest aspect of your being […] the knowledge of your spirit.” 

Hilma af Klint (Swedish, 1862-1944) wanted to keep her paintings secret from the public until 20 years after her death. 

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the third thing

  

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The tension of the future is unbearable in us. It must break through narrow cracks, it must force new ways. You want to cast off the burden, you want to escape the inescapable. Running away is deception and detour.

Shut your eyes so that you do not see the manifold, the outwardly plural, the tearing away and the tempting. There is only one way and that is your way; there is only one salvation and that is your salvation.

Why are you looking around for help? Do you believe that help will come from outside? What is to come is created in you and from you. 

Hence look into yourself. Do not compare, do not measure.

No other way is like yours. All other ways deceive and tempt you.  

You must fulfill the way that is in you.

—Carl Jung

The Red Book

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If a union is to take place between opposites like spirit and matter, conscious and unconscious, bright and dark, and so on, it will happen in a third thing, which represents not a compromise but something new.


—Carl Jung

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love with no object

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Love with no object.
There is a way of loving not attached to what is loved.

Observe how water is with the ground, always moving toward the ocean, though the ground tries to hold water’s foot and not let it go.
This is how we are with wine and beautiful food, wealth and power, or just a dry piece of bread: we want and we get drunk with wanting, then the headache and bitterness afterward.

Those prove that the attachment took hold and held you back. Now you proudly refuse help. “My love is pure. I have an intuitive union with God. I don’t need anyone to show me how to be free!” This is not the case. A love with no object is a true love. All else, shadow without substance. Have you seen someone fall in love with his own shadow? That’s what we’ve done. 

Leave partial loves and find one that’s whole.

Where is someone who can do that? They’re so rare, those hearts that carry the blessing and lavish it over everything. Hold out your beggar’s robe and accept their generosity. Anything not coming from that will damage the cloth, like a sharp stone tearing your sincerity. Keep that intact, and use clarity; call it reason or discernment, you have within you a deciding force that knows what to receive, what to turn from.


—Rumi
Mathnawi III: 2248-80
Coleman Barks version

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stars behind stars behind stars

 

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As I lay there, listening to the soft slap of the sea, and thinking these sad and strange thoughts, more and more and more stars had gathered, obliterating the separateness of the Milky Way and filling up the whole sky. 

And far far away in that ocean of gold, stars were silently shooting and falling and finding their fates, among these billions and billions of merging golden lights. 

And curtain after curtain of gauze was quietly removed, and I saw stars behind stars behind stars, as in the magical Odeons of my youth. 

And I saw into the vast soft interior of the universe which was slowly and gently turning itself inside out. I went to sleep, and in my sleep I seemed to hear a sound of singing.

—Iris Murdoch

The Sea, The Sea

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There is in each person, in every animal, bird and plant 

a star which mirrors, matches or is in some sense the same 

as a star in the heavens.

—Paracelsus 

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question

 

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The flowers, the incense,
Grain, spices, and honey
Offered in worship
Are made out of the same divine stuff as you.

Who then worships?


—Vijnana Bhairava Tantra

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blessings be

  .

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Thanks and blessings be
to the Sun and the Earth
for this bread and this wine,
this fruit, this meat, this salt,
this food;
thanks be and blessing to them
who prepare it, and who serve it;
thanks and blessings to them
who share it
(and also the absent and the dead).

Thanks and Blessing to them who bring it
(may they not want),
and to them who plant and tend it,
harvest and gather it
(may they not want);
thanks and blessing to them who work
and blessing to them who cannot;
may they not want - for their hunger
sours the wine and robs
the taste from the salt.

Thanks be for the sustenance and strength
for our dance and work of justice, and of peace.


—Rafael Jesus Gonzalez
In Praise of Fertile Land

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Rejoice evermore.
Pray without ceasing.
In everything give thanks.

I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions.


—Wendell Berry

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listen

   

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Out of my deeper heart a bird rose and flew skyward.
Higher and higher did it rise, yet larger and larger did it grow.

At first it was but like a swallow, then a lark, then an eagle, then as vast as a spring cloud, and then it filled the starry heavens.
Out of my heart a bird flew skyward. And it waxed larger as it flew.
Yet it left not my heart.


—Kahlil Gibran

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what is the nature of the world?

    

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Sometimes I patrol the perimeter of life,

checking for holes where reality might leak in.

—Sayings of Te Toh 

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in(formation

  

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The premise of Digital Physics is that at the fundamental level, matter is made up of information. Recent advances in the physics of information suggest that the universe is more fundamentally made up of bits or qubits: everything in the cosmos, from black holes to galaxies and planets registers these bits of information. 

In addition, the holographic property of the universe suggests that information is the basis for understanding reality. It appears that humans, animals, plants and particles, in fact everything in the universe, communicates, computes and transmits information non-locally and holographically.


—Ediho Lokanga
Digital Physics

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there is no proof whatever 

of the existence of an 

objective reality apart 

from our senses, 

and I do not see why 

we should accept the 

outside world as such 

solely by virtue 

of our senses.


—M. C. Escher

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the world exerts pressure on us from the distance

  

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Being attentive unlocks a sphere of reality that no one suspects. If, for instance, I walked along a path without being attentive, completely immersed in myself, I did not even know whether trees grew along the way, nor how tall they were, or whether they had leaves. When I awakened my attention, however, every tree immediately came to me. This must be taken quite literally. 

Every single tree projected its form, its weight, its movement—even if it was almost motionless—in my direction. I could indicate its trunk, and the place where its first branches started, even when several feet away. By and by something else became clear to me, and this can never be found in books. 

The world exerts pressure on us from the distance.

The seeing commit a strange error. They believe that we know the world only through our eyes. For my part, I discovered that the universe consists of pressure, that every object and every living being reveals itself to us at first by a kind of quiet yet unmistakable pressure that indicates its intention and its form. 

I even experienced the following wonderful fact: A voice, the voice of a person, permits him to appear in a picture. When the voice of a man reaches me, I immediately perceive his figure, his rhythm, and most of his intentions. 

Even stones are capable of weighing on us from a distance. So are the outlines of distant mountains, and the sudden depression of a lake at the bottom of a valley. This correspondence is so exact that when I walked arm in arm with a friend along the paths of the Alps, I knew the landscape and could sometimes describe it with surprising clarity. 

Sometimes; yes, only sometimes. I could do it when I summoned all my attention. Permit me to say without reservation that if all people were attentive, if they would undertake to be attentive every moment of their lives, they would discover the world anew. 

They would suddenly see that the world is entirely different from what they had believed it to be.


—Jacques Lusseyran, blind hero of the French Resistance
Against the Pollution of the I

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note to self

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You live in a cage of your own projections pretending to be somebody. 

Still, the door is always open. 

—Robert Adams

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other(wise

 

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Be suspicious of what you want.

—Rumi

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If you are lugging a heavy bag,
do not fail to look inside it
to see whether what is inside is bitter or sweet.

If it is really worth bringing along, bring it;
otherwise, empty your sack
and redeem yourself from fruitless effort.

Only put into your sack
that which is worth bringing.


—Rumi

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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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God is a religious name for happiness

  

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All that a Guru can tell you is: “My dear Sir, you are quite mistaken about yourself. You are not the person you think yourself to be.”

Trust nobody, not even yourself. Search, find out, remove and reject every assumption till you reach the living waters and the rock of truth.

Until you are free of the drug, all your religions and sciences, prayers and Yogas are of no use to you, for based on a mistake, they strengthen it.

But if you stay with the idea that you are not the body nor the mind, nor even their witness, but altogether beyond, your mind will grow in clarity, your desires in purity, your actions in charity and that inner distillation will take you to another world, a world of truth and fearless love. Confide in your inner self.

Truly, your inner self is the supreme teacher. It alone can take you to your goal and it alone meets you at the end of the road. Confide in your inner self and you need no outer Guru.

You must have the strong desire to find truth and do nothing that will create obstacles and delays.

And do not waste energy and time on regrets.


—Nisargadatta Maharaj


 

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tru(ly

   

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If you expect any benefits from your search, material, mental or spiritual, you have missed the point. 

Truth gives no advantage. It gives no higher status, no power over others; all you get is truth and freedom from the false.

—Nisargadatta Maharaj

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make it rain

 

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The view of things that all plurality is only apparent, that in the endless series of individuals, passing simultaneously and successively into and out of life, generation after generation, age after age, there is but one and the same entity really existing, which is present and identical in all alike; this theory … may be carried back to the remotest antiquity. 

It is the alpha and omega of the oldest book in the world, the sacred Vedas, whose dogmatic part, or rather esoteric teaching, is found in the Upanishads. There, in almost every page this profound doctrine lies enshrined; with tireless repetition, in countless adaptations, by many varied parables and similes it is expounded and inculcated.


—Arthur Schopenhauer

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We are not one but many.

Every other living organism has a point of view, something like mind, a feeling for life and a strong inclination to go on getting about in it. We humans not only construct a world but are, ourselves, an often intimate part of the makings, the natural constructions, of other kinds of equally semiotic life in this ecology of meanings.

Our various, always subjectively experienced, umwelten overlap, not with shared points of view but with shared biosemiotic systems. This shared and finally semiotically interdependent ecology of meanings is what we mean when we talk about reality.


—Wendy Wheeler
A Feeling for Life

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I will light candles this Christmas.

Candles of joy, despite all the sadness.
Candles of hope where despair keeps watch.
Candles of courage where fear is ever present.
Candles of peace for tempest-tossed days.
Candles of grace to ease heavy burdens.
Candles of love to inspire all of my living.
Candles that will burn all the year long. 


—Howard Thurman
Meditations Of The Heart (1953)

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the world is everywhere

   

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Commonplace miracle:
that so many commonplace miracles happen.

An ordinary miracle:
in the dead of night
the barking of invisible dogs.

One miracle out of many:
a small, airy cloud
yet it can block a large and heavy moon.

Several miracles in one:
an alder tree reflected in the water,
and that it's backwards left to right
and that it grows there, crown down
and never reaches the bottom,
even though the water is shallow.

An everyday miracle:
winds weak to moderate
turning gusty in storms.

First among equal miracles:
cows are cows.

Second to none:
just this orchard
from just that seed.

A miracle without a cape and top hat:
scattering white doves.

A miracle, for what else could you call it:
today the sun rose at three-fourteen
and will set at eight-o-one.

A miracle, less surprising than it should be:
even though the hand has fewer than six fingers,
it still has more than four.

A miracle, just take a look around:
the world is everywhere.

An additional miracle, as everything is additional:
the unthinkable
is thinkable.


—Wislawa Szymborska
Joanna Trzeciak version

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leave what is heavy behind

 

Adam Thomas Hall - Leave What Is Heavy Behind
thank you largerloves

 

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From Thee emerge all forms, 

In Thee live and move all forms,

In Thee are all forms dissolved.

—Jai Ma

 

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I part the out thrusting branches and come in

beneath the blessed and the blessing trees. 

Though I am silent there is singing around me. 

Though I am dark there is vision around me. 

Though I am heavy there is flight around me.

—Wendell Berry

Woods

 

 

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bless

 

 

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Discriminate between that which is ever-changing 

and that which is changeless. 

The world comprises both. 

Know this.

—Tripura Rahasya

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Tear off the mask. Your face is glorious. —Rumi

  

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"We see the seasons pass, the moons fatten and go dark, infants grow to old men, but this is not time. 

We see the water strike against the shore and with each wave we say a moment has passed, but this is not time. Inside, we feel our strength go from a baby’s weakness to a youth’s strength to a man’s endurance to the weakness of a baby again, but this is not time, either, nor are your whiteman’s clocks and bells, nor the sun rising and the sun going down. These things are not time."

“What is it then?” said Father Damien. “I want to know, myself.” 

“Time is a fish,” said Nanapush slowly, “and all of us are living on the rib of its fin.” Damien stared at him in quizzical fascination and asked what type of fish.

“A moving fish that never stops. Sometimes in swimming through the weeds one or another of us will be shaken off time’s fin.” 

“Into the water?” asked Damien.

“No,” said Nanapush, “into something else called not time."


—Louise Erdich
The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse

 

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The Savior said, All nature, all formations, all creatures exist in 

and with one another, and they will be resolved again into their own roots.

—The Gospel of Mary Magdalene

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this much is true

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You know quite well, deep within you,
that there is only a single magic,

a single power, a single salvation...
and that is called loving.


—Herman Hesse

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For small creatures such as we,

the vastness is bearable only through love.

—Carl Sagan 

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we are that

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The thinker of thoughts is merely 

Another thought.

The one who knows this is

No longer in his own way.

—Wu Hsin

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Like two birds of golden plumage, inseparable companions, the individual self and the immortal Self are perched on the branches of the self-same tree. 

The former tastes of the sweet and bitter fruits of the tree; the latter, tasting of neither, calmly observes.


—The Mundaka Upanishad

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the greatest secret

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Meaning is important, is even central. It is not only that man is adapted to the universe. The universe is adapted to man. Imagine a universe in which one or another of the fundamental dimensionless constants of physics is altered by a few percent one way or the other?

Man could never come into being in such a universe.

That is the central point of the anthropic principle. According to this principle, a life-giving factor lies at the centre of the whole machinery and design of the world.


—John A. Wheeler
foreword to The Anthropic Cosmological Principle
John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler

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For the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers.

The truth - that Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.


—Viktor Frankl

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thank you

noosphe

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