Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29

“This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.” 
~ John Muir
 

MINDFUL

Everyday
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for —
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world —
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant —
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these —
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

~ Mary Oliver

“People think they understand things because they become familiar with them. This is only superficial knowledge. It is the knowledge of the astronomer who knows the names of the stars, the botanist who knows the classification of the leaves and flowers, the artist who knows the aesthetics of green and red. This is not to know nature itself- the earth and sky, green and red. Astronomer, botanist, and artist have done no more than grasp impressions and interpret them, each within the vault of his own mind. The more involved they become with the activity of the intellect, the more they set themselves apart and the more difficult it becomes to live naturally.”

~ Masanobu Fukuoka, The One-Straw Revolution
 

"The art of healing comes from nature, not from the physician. Therefore the physician must start from nature, with an open mind." 
~ Paracelsus
 

"Where you are not conscious, there can obviously be no freedom. Through the analysis of the unconscious, you increase the amount of freedom" 

~ C.G. Jung (1953)

“Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?”


~ Rumi

“It’s dark because you are trying too hard. 
Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. 
Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. 
Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.
I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a humorless little prig. 

Lightly, lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me.
So throw away your baggage and go forward. 
There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, 
trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. 
That’s why you must walk so lightly. 
Lightly my darling...”

~ Aldous Huxley, Island

"Know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself."

~ Chief Seattle, 1854

"A ritual is the enactment of a myth. And, by participating in the ritual, you are participating in the myth. And since myth is a projection of the depth wisdom of the psyche, by participating in a ritual, participating in the myth, you are being, as it were, put in accord with that wisdom, which is the wisdom that is inherent within you anyhow. Your consciousness is being re-minded of the wisdom of your own life.

"I think ritual is terribly important."

~ Joseph Campbell, The Wisdom of Joseph Campbell, New Dimensions Radio Interview with Michael Toms

"We must be willing to get rid of 

the life we’ve planned, so as to have

the life that is waiting for us.

 

The old skin has to be shed

before the new one can come.

If we fix on the old, we get stuck.

 

When we hang onto any form,

we are in danger of putrefaction.

 

Hell is life drying up.

 

The Hoarder,

the one in us that wants to keep,

to hold on, must be killed.

 

If we are hanging onto the form now,

we’re not going to have the form next.

 

You can’t make an omelet

without breaking eggs.

 

Destruction before creation.”

 

~ Joseph Campbell