The world is new every morning, this is the gift of the divine, and all are born anew to each day. 
The Baal Shem Tov

We don't have a right to ask whether we're going to succeed or not. The only question we have a right to ask is what's the right thing to do? What does this earth require of us if we want to continue to live on it?

- Wendell Berry

From the Treesisters

The New Song

by W. S. Merwin

For some time I thought there was time
and that there would always be time
for what I had a mind to do
and what I could imagine
going back to and finding it
as I had found it the first time
but by this time I do not know
what I thought when I thought back then
there is no time yet it grows less
there is the sound of rain at night
arriving unknown in the leaves
once without before or after
then I hear the thrush waking
at daybreak singing the new song.

"If you are depressed you are living in the past.

 If you are anxious you are living in the future.

 If you are at peace you are living in the present."

 -Lao Tzu

Klee said, "Art should be like a holiday: something to give a man the opportunity to see things differently and to change his point of view."

Silentium - Poem by Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev

Be silent, hide away and let
your thoughts and longings rise and set
in the deep places of your heart.
Let dreams move silentlly as stars,
in wonder more than you can tell.
Let them fulfill you - and be still.

Sunday mandala

A band of blue jays
squawking - the wren flees and peeks -
Sunday peace returns.

And now we enter,
winter holiday season
games and food, oh my!

In Praise of the Earth

Let us bless
The imagination of the Earth.
That knew early the patience
To harness the mind of time,
Waited for the seas to warm,
Ready to welcome the emergence
Of things dreaming of voyaging
Among the stillness of land.
 

And how light knew to nurse
The growth until the face of the Earth
Brightened beneath a vision of color.
 

When the ages of ice came
And sealed the Earth inside
An endless coma of cold,
The heart of the Earth held hope,
Storing fragments of memory,
Ready for the return of the sun.
 

Let us thank the Earth
That offers ground for home
And holds our feet firm
To walk in space open
To infinite galaxies.
 

Let us salute the silence
And certainty of mountains:
Their sublime stillness,
Their dream-filled hearts.
 

The wonder of a garden
Trusting the first warmth of spring
Until its black infinity of cells
Becomes charged with dream;
Then the silent, slow nurture
Of the seed's self, coaxing it
To trust the act of death.
 

The humility of the Earth
That transfigures all
That has fallen
Of outlived growth.
 

The kindness of the Earth,
Opening to receive
Our worn forms
Into the final stillness.
 

Let us ask forgiveness of the Earth
For all our sins against her:
For our violence and poisonings
Of her beauty.
 

Let us remember within us
The ancient clay,
Holding the memory of seasons,
The passion of the wind,
The fluency of water,
The warmth of fire,
The quiver-touch of the sun
And shadowed sureness of the moon.
 

That we may awaken,
To live to the full
The dream of the Earth
Who chose us to emerge
And incarnate its hidden night
In mind, spirit, and light.
 

- John O'Donohue 

From To Bless the Space Between Us

Unfortunate Location

In the front yard there are three big white pines, older than any-
thing in the neighborhood except the stones. Magnificent trees that
toss their heads in the wind like the spirited black horses of a troika.
It’s hard to know what to do, tall dark trees on the south side of the
house, an unfortunate location, blocking the winter sun. Dark and
damp. Moss grows on the roof, the porch timbers rot and surely
the roots have reached the old bluestone foundation. At night, in
the wind, a tree could stumble and fall killing us in our beds. The
needles fall year after year making an acid soil where no grass grows
We rake the fallen debris, nothing to be done, we stand around with
sticks in our hands. Wonderful trees.
by Louis Jenkins 

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

by Wendell Berry

Friends

 How far friends are! They forget you,
most days. They have to, I know; but still,
it’s lonely just being far and a friend.
I put my hand out—this chair, this table—
So near: touch, that’s how to live.
Call up a friend? All right, but the phone
itself is what loves you, warm on your ear,
on your hand. Or, you lift a pen
to write—it’s not that far person
but this familiar pen that comforts.
Near things: Friend, here’s my hand.

by William Stafford

Creature to Creature

Almost too late to walk in the woods, but I did,
anyway. And stepping aside for a moment
from the shadowy path to enter
darker shadow, a favorite circle of fir trees,
received a gift from the dusk:
a small owl, not affrighted, merely
moving deliberately
to a branch a few feet
further from me, looked
full at me—a long regard,
steady, acknowledging, unbiased.

by Denise Levertov 

"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it." (Rumi)

“The earth has disappeared beneath my feet,
It fled from all my ecstasy,
Now like a singing air creature
I feel the Rose
Keep opening.”
~ Hafiz

Full Moon Mandala