God, help us to live slowly,
To move simply,
To look softly,
To allow emptiness,
To let the heart create for us.
Amen
Prayer by Michael Leunig
Coming Home by Fred Lamotte
When times are dark
the way becomes clear.
Trust in your breath.
Rest in your heart.
Bow to the stranger.
This is the gospel of astonishment.
If we are completely lost
we come home
to each other.
The old threads are unraveling by Julia Myers
Get your needles ready.
We are stitching a new quilt
of humanity.
Bring your old t-shirts,
worn out jeans, scarves,
antique gowns, aprons,
old pockets of plenty
who have held Earth’s treasures,
stones, feathers, leaves,
love notes on paper.
Each stitch
A mindful meditation.
Each piece of material
A story.
The more color the better,
so call in the tribes.
Threads of browns, whites,
reds, oranges
Women from all nations
start stitching.
Let’s recycle the hate, the abuse,
the fear, the judgment.
Turn it over, wash it clean,
ring it out to dry.
It’s a revolution
of recycled wears.
Threads of greens, blues, purples
Colorful threads
of peace, kindness,
respect, compassion
are being stitched
from one continent to the next
over forests, oceans, mountains.
The work is hard
Your fingers may bleed.
But each cloth stitched together
Brings together a community.
A world, our future world
Under one colorful quilt.
The new quilt of humanity
Edge of Wonder -The Wildness of Being
We arrive into
this world as
energy, same as
stars, wildlife,
wind and ocean.
Messy, raw, and
continuously
perfect in our
chaos. Release the
need to control,
and instead
surrender to your
own natural
rhythm, as
expansive,
accepting and open
to new
circumstances and
situations as air
itself. That is how
you’ll thrive.
— Victoria Erickson
The Summer Day by Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Who is This? : poem by Rabindranath Tagore
I came out alone on my way to my tryst.
But who is this that follows me in the silent dark?
I move aside to avoid his presence but I escape him not.
He makes the dust rise from the earth with his swagger;
he adds his loud voice to every word I utter.
He is my own small self, my lord, he knows no shame:
but I am ashamed to come to your door in his presence.
The Power Of A Tear by Howard Simon
Pounds of pain punctured my progress
Tons of trouble terminated my tranquility
Swarms of stress subtracted my substance
My heart exploded like a thousand thunders
My mind melted and my spirit splintered
Hanging by a thread destined to burst
Continue reading “The Power Of A Tear by Howard Simon”
Eternal Love by Thomas Vaughan Jones
No love can last forever;
No love remains sublime.
But sometimes there’s a moment
in the canopy of time.
A fleeting, precious moment
when all the world stands still;
That subtle special second
that only love can fill.
Love poem by Pablo Neruba
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you simply, without problems or pride
I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.
My Heart’s In The Highlands by Robert Burns
Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,
The birth-place of Valour, the country of Worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.
My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart’s in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
A-chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart’s in the Highlands wherever I go.
Farewell to the mountains high covered with snow;
Farewell to the straths and green valleys below;
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods;
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.
My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart’s in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
A-chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart’s in the Highlands wherever I go.
Continue reading “My Heart’s In The Highlands by Robert Burns”