This is good advice.
To keep the body in good health is a duty… otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear. ~Buddha
Monthly Archives: December 2017
Good Health
Merry Christmas
I wrote this poem several years ago about the magic provided by the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) and Christmas. What message was in those celestial colours and sounds? As a child, I thought the sky talked to me and told me a creation story.
I grew up in Northern Alberta and Christmas was a special time. I recall cold winter nights. I mean they were cold–almost minus 40 at night. Our windows upstairs were almost completely frosted over. On moonlit nights, the light kept me awake or that is what I told others.
During Advent, my mom and older brothers walked across the street for evening Mass. The younger ones, including me, went to bed. I did not fall asleep right away and would watch out the window for them to come home. I thought no one saw me, but my Mom would come up and tell me to go to bed.
At that time of year, I recall is the Northern Lights and how you could hear them as well as see them light up the sky as they danced across the sky. We don’t see them very often in Edmonton with the urban light.
When we spend time at the farm at Christmas, we hear and see them again. On cold nights we hear the train (about a mile away) and it sounds like it is coming through the house.
Small children–
Breathlessly awaiting,
Peering through frosted window
Soaking it in.
Heavens rippling–
Lights undulating;
A celebratory fury
An indisputable guide.
This old house speaks;
Nature answers–
Heavens crackle
Sweet symphonic sounds shimmering.
Earth’s floor–
Blanketed in white
Celestial colours speaking
Capturing young senses.
A vivid winter scene,
A sensual, sensory palette,
Reminding us–
Christ’s Mass is here.
we all dance to a mysterious tune,
Einstein had a way with words that make them sound poetic.
“we all dance to a mysterious tune,
intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.”
~ Albert Einstein
Image credit: Earthschool Harmony https://web.facebook.com/SpiritualQuotesandSoulfood/
Wildness
via Wildness
Michele‘s post reminded me of poems by two of my favourite poets.
Environmentalists refer to Wendell Berry and Mary Oliver‘s poems. An educated guess is that Henry David Thoreau, who Michele quotes, informed their writing.
Wendell Berry wrote in moments of despair he “comes into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought.”
Mary Oliver ends Summer Day with the following question: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do/ with your one wild and precious life?” Paradoxically, the question is an answer to her eloquent questions about who created nature.
Nature has a way of being and providing us with lessons for life. It is in meditative moments, when we just are, we grow to understand what that can mean. We grow and value what is essential not to us, but to those who come after us.
“We do not inherit the world from our ancestors, but borrow it from our children.”
Teacher as Transformer 