“Happy Birthday Ethan…”
May 7, 2008 by myinneredge
Sunday was Ethan’s birthday. Hard to believe that he is three years old already!
Love that chocolate mousse cake!
…And my new toys…
“The divine mystery…”
May 5, 2008 by myinneredge
Love all Creation.
The whole of it and every grain of sand.
Love every leaf,
Every ray of God’s light.
Love the animals.
Love the plants.
Love everything.
If you love everything,
You will perceive
The divine mystery in things.
And once you have perceived it,
You will begin to comprehend it ceaselessly,
More and more every day.
And you will at last come to love the whole world,
With an abiding universal love.
“And be silent…”
May 4, 2008 by myinneredge
Observe the wonders as they occur
Around you. Don’t claim them.
Feel the artistry moving through,
And be silent.
“So infinitesimally scaled …”
May 2, 2008 by myinneredge
THE RAILWAY CHILDREN
When we climbed the slopes of the cutting
We were eye-level with the white cups
Of the telegraph poles and the sizzling wires.
Like lovely freehand they curved for miles
East and miles west beyond us, sagging
Under their burden of swallows.
We were small and thought we knew nothing
Worth knowing. We thought words travelled the wires
In the shiny pouches of raindrops,
Each one seeded full with the light
Of the sky, the gleam of the lines, and ourselves
So infinitesimally scaled
We could stream through the eye of a needle.
“Look carefully…”
May 1, 2008 by myinneredge
GATHA ON IMPERMANENCE
The day is now ended.
Our lives are shorter.
Now we look carefully.
What have we done?
…with all of our heart,
let us be diligent,
engaging in the practice.
Let us live deeply,
free from afflictions,
aware of impermanence
so that life does not
drift away without meaning.
“No going back…”
April 30, 2008 by myinneredge
Spring seems particularly spectacular this year!
APRIL IN MAINE
The days are cold and brown,
Brown fields, no sign of green,
Brown twigs, not even swelling,
And dirty snow in the woods.
But as the dark flows in
The tree frogs begin
Their shrill sweet singing,
And we lie on our beds
Through the ecstatic night,
Wide awake, cracked open.
There will be no going back.
“Now, and now, and now…”
April 29, 2008 by myinneredge
CAN YOU IMAGINE?
For example, what the trees do
not only in lightning storms
or the watery dark of a summer’s night
or under the white nets of winter
but now, and now, and now - whenever
we’re not looking. Surely you can’t imagine
they don’t dance, from the root up, wishing
to travel a little, not cramped so much as wanting
a better view, or more sun, or just as avidly
more shade - surely you can’t imagine they just
stand there loving every
minute of it, the birds or the emptiness, the dark rings
of the years slowly and without a sound
thickening, and nothing different unless the wind,
and then only in its own mood, comes
to visit, surely you can’t imagine
patience, and happiness, like that.
“Somewhat cloudy…”
April 27, 2008 by myinneredge
Sunday. Somewhat cloudy. A perfect afternoon to visit my Dad. All week he has been calling me about a hospital bill. “It’s $3,535.17 and I can’t find my check book.” I explain that I have his checkbook, that I pay all his bills and that his insurance will cover the most of it. After telling him this numerous times, I suggest that he write a note on the top of the statement…Hold bill for Sandy. Insurance will pay. Of course, he doesn’t.
At first, he’s a bit stand-offish. I give him a copy of his latest brokerage account statement and he scrutinizes it page by page. He insists that he’s never seen anything from this account before. I tell him that he has gotten statements for years. He is indignant…insistent..”I most certainly have NOT seen statements like this before! If I had, I would remember.” Right. After a while, I suggest that we go outside for some fresh air and I wheel him around the building. He loves it.
Later, my brother leaves me a message: “Just wondering if maybe you went out to see Dad today. I talked with him and he said he had a great visit with Uncle Dave. That he will be leaving tomorrow on a plane for Denver…”
On the way home, I stop at the Trestle. The valley fills with soft light. I hear a woodpecker and dogs barking. My life is good.
“Crazy with happiness…”
April 24, 2008 by myinneredge
YES! NO!
How necessary it is to have opinions! I think the
spotted trout
lilies are satisfied, standing a few inches above the
earth. I
think serenity is not something you just find in the
world,
like a plum tree, holding up its white petals.
The violets, along the river, are opening their blue
faces, like
small dark lanterns.
The green mosses, being so many, are as good as
brawny.
How important it is to walk along, not in haste but
slowly,
looking at everything and calling out
Yes! No! The
swan, for all his pomp, his robes of grass and
petals, wants
only to be allowed to live on the nameless pond.
The catbrier
is without fault. The water thrushes, down among
the sloppy
rocks, are going crazy with happiness. Imagination
is better
than a sharp instrument. To pay attention, this is
our endless
and proper work.
“Into our own sphere…”
April 23, 2008 by myinneredge
SOJOURNS IN THE PARALLEL WORLD
We live our lives of human passions,
cruelties, dreams, concepts,
crimes and the exercise of virtue
in and beside a world devoid
of our preoccupations, free
from apprehension–though affected,
certainly, by our actions. A world
parallel to our own though overlapping.
We call it “Nature”; only reluctantly
admitting ourselves to be “Nature” too.
Whenever we lose track of our own obsessions,
our self-concerns, because we drift for a minute,
an hour even, of pure (almost pure)
response to that insouciant life:
cloud, bird, fox, the flow of light, the dancing
pilgrimage of water, vast stillness
of spellbound ephemerae on a lit windowpane,
animal voices, mineral hum, wind
conversing with rain, ocean with rock, stuttering
of fire to coal–then something tethered
in us, hobbled like a donkey on its patch
of gnawed grass and thistles, breaks free.
No one discovers
just where we’ve been, when we’re caught up again
into our own sphere (where we must
return, indeed, to evolve our destinies)
–but we have changed, a little.
