For the Sleepwalkers 

Tonight  I want to say something wonderful for the sleepwalkers who have so much faith in their legs, so much faith in the invisible    arrow carved into the carpet, the worn path that leads to the stairs instead of the window, the gaping doorway instead of the seamless mirror.    I love the way that sleepwalkers are willing to step out of their bodies into the night, to raise their arms and welcome the darkness,    palming the blank spaces, touching everything. Always they return home safely, like blind men who know it is morning by feeling shadows. And always they wake up as themselves again. That's why I want to say something astonishing like:  Our hearts are leaving our bodies. Our hearts are thirsty black handkerchiefs flying through the trees at night, soaking up the darkest beams of moonlight, the music    of owls, the motion of wind-torn branches. And now our hearts are thick black fists flying back to the glove of our chests. We have to learn to trust our hearts like that. We have to learn the desperate faith of sleep- walkers who rise out of their calm beds and walk through the skin of another life. We have to drink the stupefying cup of darkness and wake up to ourselves, nourished and surprised.    ~ Edward Hirsch ~

under the bench

 

 What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.
- Jane Goodall

 

 You who let yourselves feel: enter the breathing
that is more than your own.
Let it brush your cheeks
as it divides and rejoins behind you.

Blessed ones, whole ones,
you where the heart begins:
you are the bow that shoots the arrows
and you are the target.

Fear not a pain. Let its weight fall back
into the earth;
for heavy are the mountains, heavy the seas.

The trees you planted in childhood have grown
too heavy. You cannot bring them along.
Give yourselves to the air, to what you cannot hold.

—— Rainer Maria Rilke, from “Sonnets to Orpheus” as translated by Joanna Macy

 Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace.
- The Buddha

 

"We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us."

~Joseph Campbell

“My dear,
In the midst of strife, I found there was, within me, an invincible love.
In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile.
In the midst of chaos, I found there was within me, an invincible calm.
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me, there lay, an invincible summer. And, that makes me happy.
For it says, that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger…”
~ Albert Camus

 “Giving ourselves over to the act of art-making is one way we find this moment of eternity, or even better, how we allow the moment to find us.”

--- Christine Valters Paintner, PhD

 

 People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life.  I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. - Joseph Campbell

 All that is sweet, delightful, and amiable in this world, in the serenity of the air, the
fineness of seasons, the joy of light, the melody of sounds, the beauty of colors, the
fragrancy of smells, the splendor of precious stones, is nothing else but Heaven
breaking through the veil of this world.
- William Law