We stand beside many rivers, literally and metaphorically, without hearing them. when we take a moment and pause, we hear the world speak to us, perhaps even the cosmos when we listen even deeper.
Love After Love
I have thought about this poem a lot lately. It just keeps popping into my head during quiet times. It is a beautiful poem by Derek Walcott. Whenever I read it, it reminds each moment is a fresh beginning and it passes with its own truth contained within it.
As I mature, I get a sense of both getting to know me better and, at the same, realizing how little I know about myself. These feelings would feel counter-intuitive if they did not feel so right.
The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
A world starved for solitude, silence and privacy
Solitude is an important of everyday and the quote from C. S. Lewis is a reminder of the important of creating space. We should not try to cure those who seek the space, but stand guard for them as they sit in meditation.
In our own age the idea that religion belongs to our private life— that it is, in fact, an occupation for the individual’s hour of leisure—is at once paradoxical, dangerous, and natural. It is paradoxical because this exaltation of the individual in the religious field springs up in an age when collectivism is ruthlessly defeating the individual in every other field. . . . .
There is a crowd of busybodies, self-appointed masters of ceremonies, whose life is devoted to destroying solitude wherever solitude still exists. They call it “taking the young people out of themselves,” or “waking them up,” or “overcoming their apathy.” If an Augustine, a Vaughan, a Traherne, or a Wordsworth should be born in the modern world, the leaders of a youth organization would soon cure him.
If a really good home, such as the home of Alcinous and Arete in the Odyssey or the Rostovs in War and Peace…
View original post 90 more words
You Were Talking About Bliss
This poem and image brought to mind many of the thoughts that emerged with David Whyte. We are the authors of our lives, but there is uncertainty as we look and step forward with each step.
The Opening of Eyes
I spent a great two weeks at home. I concluded my time away with a wonderful weekend in Seattle where I attended a poetry weekend, along with about 150 others, facilitated by David Whyte. A major theme was asking beautiful questions: questions we need to ask that show stories in our lives that are possibly outdated. We open our eyes for what appears to be the first time and there is a renewal.
An important part of beautiful questions is they guide us towards new horizons. We feel grounded by home’s foundations and drawn forward from that stable place in imaginative ways. There is something spiritual and biblical about this feeling as we find the courage in our hearts to let go in ways we had never imagined possible.
That day I saw beneath dark clouds
the passing light over the water
and I heard the voice of the world speak out,
I knew then, as I had before,
life is no passing memory of what has been
nor the remaining pages of a great book
waiting to be read.
It is the opening of eyes long closed.
It is the vision of far off things
seen for the silence they hold.
It is the heart after years
of secret conversing
speaking out loud in the clear air.
It is Moses in the desert
fallen to his knees before the lit bush.
It is the man throwing away his shoes
as if to enter heaven
and finding himself astonished,
opened at last,
fallen in love with solid ground.
Listen
This is central to a couple papers I am working on while I take my break from actively blogging this week. Silence is the space where things happen for us.
Silence is rich. It is dark and viscous and it flows on waves of nothingness. Silence begs to be filled and filled it must be. It is lonely and demanding and chill to the touch but it tastes smooth like the breeze. Silence is an opulent black pearl and one of the rarest gems on Earth.
There is a simple profoundness that can be found in the absence of sound. The emptiness that silence provides often gives rise to thought–the deep kind. The sort that give birth to leaps of logic and flights of the imagination. Silence is the canvas on which beautiful art can be created. It sits and waits patiently.
Silence isn’t in a hurry. It doesn’t need to explain itself or impress anyone or anything. It just is. It is the essence of cool.
I love silence. I crave it even. It is sorely needed in this…
View original post 361 more words
What day is it?
I am back online I think. It has been a hectic few days getting home and catching up in various ways with everyone here. It feels like hump day and a little humour is in order. I love these ads by Geico.
Shepherd
I have a three-week break and will head home for a couple of weeks on Monday, so will be offline for a couple of days. It is a longer sabbath than normal, but it will be a long day on Monday. The wanderer is going from thought country and will find his way home as William Stafford suggested in this poem. We are each shepherded home in some fashion, at some time.
According to the silence, winter has arrived—
a special kind of winter. I, its inventor,
watch it freeze in calendars and stare
out of clocks. I do not feel its cold.
Across a certain farm evening crows go flying,
intervals of the sky that I have seen before,
the bearing of a river. I advance, a wanderer
out of thought country, that serious quiet place,
Till according to the silence all the light is gone
and according to the dark all wanderers are home.
Life means
This is a little in the day, but here is a wonderful poem about the need to create hope and divine spirits with our children.
Let us
seed hopes
in the minds of children to fly like birds
Let us
kindle divine spirits
in the hearts of children to glow the world like sun
Life means to love and to live in every moment of time
……………………………advocatemmmohan
Related articles
- Mother like (advocatemmmohanaksharaalu.wordpress.com)
- One Day Peace (aksharaalu.wordpress.com)
- I am your time (advocatemmmohanaksharaalu.wordpress.com)
- Dew (advocatemmmohanaksharaalu.wordpress.com)
Emily Dickinson
This post reminded me of cumulative effect within nature. When we look at the waterfall. we do not see the drops which make it up. When we look at the drops, we do not yet see the waterfall.
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 