Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life. The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray.

~ Lord Byron

I felt how important the simplest things were, like feeling proud, finding something funny, stretching yourself, retreating into yourself.

~ Banana Yoshimoto

Psalm

Lord, there are creatures in the understory,
snails with whorled backs and silver boots,
trails beetles weave in grass, black rivers
of ants, unbound ladybugs opening their wings,
spotted veils and flame, untamed choirs
of banjo-colored crickets and stained-glass cicadas.
Lord, how shall we count the snakes and frogs
and moths?  How shall we love the hidden
and small? Mushrooms beneath leaves
constructing their death domes in silence,
their silken gills and mycelial threads, cap scales
and patches, their warts and pores. And the buried
bulbs that will bloom in spring, pregnant with flower
and leaf, sing Prepare for My Radiance, Prepare
for the Pageantry of My Inevitable Surprise.
These are the queendoms, the spines and horns,
the clustered hearts beating beneath our feet. Lord
though the earth is locked in irons of ice and snow
there are angels in the undergrowth, praise them.
____
© Dorianne Laux.  All Rights Reserved.

Equinox fireworks,
saluting change of seasons.
early darkness falls.

Time of the Eleusinian mysteries

Plutarch who once wrote:

"because of those sacred and faithful promises given in the mysteries...we hold it firmly for an undoubted truth that our soul is incorruptible and immortal. Let us behave ourselves accordingly."

Up before the sun,
faint sound of wild geese calling,
above cricket's song.

Hedge across the street-
Fall of snowy clematis
Now a fizz of frizz

"Peregrinatio is also a unique type of pilgrimage many of the Celtic monks embarked upon, setting sail in a boat without rudder or oar, letting the currents of love carry them to the 'place of their resurrection.' It is a journey of trust and yielding."

"How do we enter into the space of disorientation and disintegration? The more we hold onto how we think things should be, the more suffering we will experience. When we are able to release our thoughts and expectations and enter into a reality much greater than us, the more we cultivate what the dark night comes to teach us."
 

Hope and fear are both phantoms
that arise from thinking of the self.
When we don’t see the self as self,
what do we have to fear?
- Lao Tzu

Breakfast enjoyed
In the fine company
Of morning glories.
- Basho

"[The Desert Mothers and Fathers] sought ‘hesychia’, which is the Greek word for stillness. It means more than silence or peacefulness. There is a sense in which the stillness is the deep, shimmering presence of the holy."

Eternity has nothing to do with time. Time is what shuts you out from eternity. Eternity is now.
- Joseph Campbell

My own belief is that the universe exists as a miracle and that we have been born here to witness and celebrate. We wonder at our purpose for living. Our purpose is to perceive the fantastic. Why have a universe if there is no audience?
- Ray Bradbury

The willingness to avail ourselves of the love, acceptance, and compassion Life offers us is how we learn to have love, acceptance, and compassion for others.
- Cheri Huber

The tree stands golden
after days of gray and rain
the setting sun gilds.