I took a bike ride this morning first thing. It felt so good to ride through the neighborhood on paths and streets, up hill and down, a gentle breeze in my face. What a beautiful way to start my day.
Though there is much going on in the world that I could talk about today, I won’t. Instead I plan on
Scattering a Bit of Joy
I’m going to share a few favorite poems and quotes along with recent photos I’ve made on my walks and a couple of flower photos from earlier this week.
I think that scattering a bit of joy is another form of activism. In today’s world many of us are feeling Apocalypse Overwhelm. We can feed our souls and recover by focusing on and spreading beauty, love, and light.
Sometimes, when I fearthe small light I bringisn’t big enough or brightenough, I think of that nighton the beach years agowhen every step I tookin the cool wet sand turneda glowing, iridescent blue—and the waves themselveswere a flashing greenish hue—imagine we could dowhat 7.9 billionone-celled plankton can do—can shine when it’s dark,can shine when agitated,can shine with our owninner light and trust when we allring the tiny light we have,it’s enough to illumine the next stepin the long stretch of night.— Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
Centering is a verb. It is an ongoing process… Centering is not a model, but a way of balancing, a spiritual resource in times of conflict, an imagination. It seems in certain lights to be an alchemical vessel, a retort, which bears an integration of purposes, an integration of levels of consciousness. It can be called to, like a divine ear.[…]Centering… is the discipline of bringing in (i.e., of sympathy or empathy) rather than of leaving out. Of saying “Yes, Yes” to what we behold. To what is holy and to what is unbearable. But my experience tells me now that there is an important crucial stage of saying Yes to a No. For resistance also must be embraced. Not only accepting resistance but practicing it.— M. C. Richards, Four Virgins of the Elk Dance
HOW TO BE A POETto remind myself)Make a place to sit down.Sit down. Be quiet.You must depend uponaffection, reading, knowledge,skill — more of eachthan you have — inspiration,work, growing older, patience,for patience joins timeto eternity. Any readerswho like your poems,doubt their judgment.Breathe with unconditional breaththe unconditioned air.Shun electric wire.Communicate slowly. Livea three-dimensioned life;stay away from screens.Stay away from anythingthat obscures the place it is in.There are no unsacred places;there are only sacred placesand desecrated places.Accept what comes from silence.Make the best you can of it.Of the little words that comeout of the silence, like prayersprayed back to the one who prays,make a poem that does not disturbthe silence from which it came.— Wendell Berry
We are not apart from nature, we are a part of Nature.— John Paul Caponigro
Joy is inexpressibly more than happiness,Happiness befalls people; happiness is fate,while people cause joy to bloom inside themselves.Joy is plainly a good season for the heart;joy is the ultimate achievement of which human beings are capable.— Rilke
Widening Circles
I live my life in widening circlesthat reach out across the world.I may not complete this last onebut I give myself to it.I circle around God, around the primordial tower.I’ve been circling for thousands of yearsand I still don’t know: am I a falcon,a storm, or a great song?
If to be enchanted is to fully participate in the world, to be open both to its transparency and its mystery, then to be disenchanted is its opposite. To be disenchanted is to be shut down.— Sharon Blacke , The Enchanted Life: Unlocking the Magic of the Everyday
May you walk in beauty (and scatter a bit of joy as you go).
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