Hang on to your hat.
Hang on to your hope.
And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.
Hang on to your hope.
And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.
As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time. I shall get up Sunday morning and wind the clock, as a contribution to order and steadfastness.
- E. B. White
- E. B. White
i am a museum full of art
but you had your eyes shut
- rupi kaur
but you had your eyes shut
- rupi kaur
for you to see beauty here
does not mean
there is beauty in me
it means there is beauty rooted
so deep within you
you can't help but
see it everywhere
-- rupi kaur
does not mean
there is beauty in me
it means there is beauty rooted
so deep within you
you can't help but
see it everywhere
-- rupi kaur
loneliness is a sign you are in desperate need of yourself
- rupi kaur
- rupi kaur
Dear water, clear water, playful in all your streams,
as you dash or loiter through life who does not love
to sit beside you, to hear you and see you,
pure being, perfect in music and movement?
- W. H. Auden, Streams
as you dash or loiter through life who does not love
to sit beside you, to hear you and see you,
pure being, perfect in music and movement?
- W. H. Auden, Streams
When I'm at peace I let everything go
I wake by the east window long after sunrise
viewed without passion everything is fine
seasonal glories hold true for man
the Tao fills the world the formed the formless
our thoughts are in the ever-changing wind and clouds
not troubled by wealth content in poverty
the person who reaches this is truly noble
- Ch'eng Hao
I wake by the east window long after sunrise
viewed without passion everything is fine
seasonal glories hold true for man
the Tao fills the world the formed the formless
our thoughts are in the ever-changing wind and clouds
not troubled by wealth content in poverty
the person who reaches this is truly noble
- Ch'eng Hao
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- We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world.
- Robert M. Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
- Robert M. Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all.
- Robert M. Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
- Robert M. Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.
- Robert M. Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
- Robert M. Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling.
- Robert M. Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance |
The real cycle you're working on is a cycle called yourself.
- Robert M. Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance |
My life has risen layered too
each day each year in turn has left
its fossil life and sediments
evidence of lived and unloved hours
the tedium the anguish yes the joy
that some heart-deep vitality
keeps pressing upward
toward the day I die.
- Parker J. Palmer, Grand Canyon
each day each year in turn has left
its fossil life and sediments
evidence of lived and unloved hours
the tedium the anguish yes the joy
that some heart-deep vitality
keeps pressing upward
toward the day I die.
- Parker J. Palmer, Grand Canyon
they set my aunt's house on fire
i cried the way women on tv do
folding at the middle
like a five pound note.
i called the boy who used to love me
tried to ‘okay’ my voice
i said hello
he said warsan, what’s wrong, what’s happened?
i’ve been praying,
and these are what my prayers look like;
dear god
i come from two countries
one is thirsty
the other is on fire
both need water.
later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?
it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.
“what they did yesterday afternoon” by Warsan Shire
i cried the way women on tv do
folding at the middle
like a five pound note.
i called the boy who used to love me
tried to ‘okay’ my voice
i said hello
he said warsan, what’s wrong, what’s happened?
i’ve been praying,
and these are what my prayers look like;
dear god
i come from two countries
one is thirsty
the other is on fire
both need water.
later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?
it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.
“what they did yesterday afternoon” by Warsan Shire
Letters swallow themselves in seconds.
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.
So much of any year is flammable,
lists of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days,
so little is a stone.
Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers.
Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,
only the things I didn’t do
crackle after the blazing dies.
Naomi Shihab Nye, Burning the Old Year
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.
So much of any year is flammable,
lists of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days,
so little is a stone.
Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers.
Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,
only the things I didn’t do
crackle after the blazing dies.
Naomi Shihab Nye, Burning the Old Year
A dead man leaves an old coat
Like a chrysalis
When the butterfly has flown.
Many times I have died,
And many times been born again,
Even in this life.
My path is strewn with garments.
Do not grieve over a coat.
Believe I have outgrown it.
- Ruth Dallas, A Coat
Like a chrysalis
When the butterfly has flown.
Many times I have died,
And many times been born again,
Even in this life.
My path is strewn with garments.
Do not grieve over a coat.
Believe I have outgrown it.
- Ruth Dallas, A Coat
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
- Mary Oliver, Wild Geese
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
- Mary Oliver, Wild Geese
Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.
― Rumi
― Rumi
I dream of a quiet man
who explains nothing and defends
nothing, but only knows
where the rarest wildflowers
are blooming, and who goes,
and finds that he is smiling
not by his own will.
- Wendell Berry
who explains nothing and defends
nothing, but only knows
where the rarest wildflowers
are blooming, and who goes,
and finds that he is smiling
not by his own will.
- Wendell Berry
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.
- Stanley Kunitz
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.
- Stanley Kunitz
All I could do
to be with you
and say
two words
and join hands
and
put in work
to feel part of
a whole picture
a moving puzzle
one body
moving into the future
and wondering
how I ever got along
without you.
Adam J. Maldonado, street poet
sep.13.14
to be with you
and say
two words
and join hands
and
put in work
to feel part of
a whole picture
a moving puzzle
one body
moving into the future
and wondering
how I ever got along
without you.
Adam J. Maldonado, street poet
sep.13.14
It is not “human genius” that makes us human, but an old love,
an old intelligence of the heart
we gather to us from the world,
from creatures, from the angels
of inspiration, from the dead -
an intelligence merely nonexistent
to those who do not have it, but
to those who have it more dear than life.
- Wendell Berry
an old intelligence of the heart
we gather to us from the world,
from creatures, from the angels
of inspiration, from the dead -
an intelligence merely nonexistent
to those who do not have it, but
to those who have it more dear than life.
- Wendell Berry
With passion pray.
With passion make love.
With passion eat and drink and dance and play.
Why look like a dead fish
in this ocean of God?
- Rumi
With passion make love.
With passion eat and drink and dance and play.
Why look like a dead fish
in this ocean of God?
- Rumi
If 'Plan A' isn't working, try the other 25 letters of the alphabet.
WHO ARE YOU?
I am a small poem
On a page with room
For another.
Share with me
This white field,
Wide as an acre
Of snow, clear
But for these tiny
Markings like the
Steps of a bird.
Come. Now.
This is the trough
Of the wave, the
Seconds after
Lightning, thin
Slice of silence
As music ends,
The freeze before
The melting. Hurry.
Lie down beside me.
Make angels. Make devils.
Make who you are.
- from the motion picture Words and Pictures
I am a small poem
On a page with room
For another.
Share with me
This white field,
Wide as an acre
Of snow, clear
But for these tiny
Markings like the
Steps of a bird.
Come. Now.
This is the trough
Of the wave, the
Seconds after
Lightning, thin
Slice of silence
As music ends,
The freeze before
The melting. Hurry.
Lie down beside me.
Make angels. Make devils.
Make who you are.
- from the motion picture Words and Pictures
You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And you are the one who'll decide where you'll go.
- Dr Seuss
- Dr Seuss
"This is what we will do -
we will go and put good things into the world and the trees and the flowers and the sky will be so happy."
we will go and put good things into the world and the trees and the flowers and the sky will be so happy."
... and then
it is like God's love or sorrow, including
at last all that had been left out.
- Wendell Berry
it is like God's love or sorrow, including
at last all that had been left out.
- Wendell Berry
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At least there is hope for a tree:
If it is cut down, it will sprout again,
and its new shoots will not fail.
Its roots may grow old in the ground
and its stump die in the soil,
yet at the scent of water it will bud
and put forth shoots like a plant.
Job 14:7-9
If it is cut down, it will sprout again,
and its new shoots will not fail.
Its roots may grow old in the ground
and its stump die in the soil,
yet at the scent of water it will bud
and put forth shoots like a plant.
Job 14:7-9
[a] small inlet of eternity
- Wendell Berry
- Wendell Berry
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The sweet sadness of completion. El fin siempre no es lo que nosotros hubimos esperado.
- Richard Skalstad
- Richard Skalstad
That music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning, yet long
untaught I did not hear,
But now the chorus I hear and am elated,
A tenor, strong, ascending with power and health, with glad notes
of daybreak I hear,
A soprano at intervals sailing buoyantly over the tops of immense
waves,
A transparent base shuddering lusciously under and through the
universe,
The triumphant tutti, the funeral wailings with sweet flutes and
violins, all of these I fill myself with,
I hear not the volumes of sound merely, I am moved by the
exquisite meanings,
I listen to the different voices winding in and out, striving,
contending with fiery vehemence to excel each other in
emotion;
I do not think the performers know themselves—but now I think I
begin to know them.
Walt Whitman, The Music All Around Me
untaught I did not hear,
But now the chorus I hear and am elated,
A tenor, strong, ascending with power and health, with glad notes
of daybreak I hear,
A soprano at intervals sailing buoyantly over the tops of immense
waves,
A transparent base shuddering lusciously under and through the
universe,
The triumphant tutti, the funeral wailings with sweet flutes and
violins, all of these I fill myself with,
I hear not the volumes of sound merely, I am moved by the
exquisite meanings,
I listen to the different voices winding in and out, striving,
contending with fiery vehemence to excel each other in
emotion;
I do not think the performers know themselves—but now I think I
begin to know them.
Walt Whitman, The Music All Around Me
Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.
- John Dunne, Catch a Falling Star
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.
- John Dunne, Catch a Falling Star
When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.
I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.
- Christina Rossetti, Song
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.
I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.
- Christina Rossetti, Song
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The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.
- Lily Tomlin
- Lily Tomlin
The north wind blows through trees,
Scattering leaves and raising dust.
The pine exists in solitude,
Its dark green color appearing fresh.
Soaring like a mountain by a deep river valley,
It is in winter that we see its spirit emerge.
Not yielding to frost and snow,
Its stature becomes more robust in old age.
Flying cranes always remain its best friends,
And bamboo and oak can be its neighbors.
Its life span is no mere one thousand springs,
Certainly surpassing ten thousand years.
- One of two folding screens by Suzuki Shōnen, 1900, on exhibit at the Honolulu Museum of Art
Scattering leaves and raising dust.
The pine exists in solitude,
Its dark green color appearing fresh.
Soaring like a mountain by a deep river valley,
It is in winter that we see its spirit emerge.
Not yielding to frost and snow,
Its stature becomes more robust in old age.
Flying cranes always remain its best friends,
And bamboo and oak can be its neighbors.
Its life span is no mere one thousand springs,
Certainly surpassing ten thousand years.
- One of two folding screens by Suzuki Shōnen, 1900, on exhibit at the Honolulu Museum of Art
Wanderlust: a strong desire or urge to wander and explore the world.
At the twilight, a moon appeared in the sky;
Then it landed on earth to look at me.
Like a hawk stealing a bird at the time of prey;
That moon stole me and rushed back into the sky.
I looked at myself, I did not see me anymore;
For in that moon, my body turned as fine as soul.
The nine spheres disappeared in that moon;
The ship of my existence drowned in that sea.
-Rumi
Divan, 649:1-3,5
Then it landed on earth to look at me.
Like a hawk stealing a bird at the time of prey;
That moon stole me and rushed back into the sky.
I looked at myself, I did not see me anymore;
For in that moon, my body turned as fine as soul.
The nine spheres disappeared in that moon;
The ship of my existence drowned in that sea.
-Rumi
Divan, 649:1-3,5
Cielos azules,
nubes de nácar,
limpios celajes
de oro y de grana;
campos floridos,
verdes montañas,
valles amenos,
cumbres lejanas;
ricos paisajes
de sombras vagas,
que misteriosos
pinceles trazan;
luces que vienen,
luces que pasan,
nidos que pían,
aves que cantan;
ángeles bellos
de blancas alas,
sueños de oro,
cuentos de hadas;
días risueños,
noches calladas
en que discurren
negros fantasmas;
ecos del aire,
voces del agua,
vagos perfumes
de esencia varia;
mucha alegría,
mucha esperanza,
pocas tristezas
y algunas lágrimas.
Esa, hijo mío,
flor de mi alma,
esa es tu vida,
esa es tu infancia.
-Jose Selgas y Carrasco
nubes de nácar,
limpios celajes
de oro y de grana;
campos floridos,
verdes montañas,
valles amenos,
cumbres lejanas;
ricos paisajes
de sombras vagas,
que misteriosos
pinceles trazan;
luces que vienen,
luces que pasan,
nidos que pían,
aves que cantan;
ángeles bellos
de blancas alas,
sueños de oro,
cuentos de hadas;
días risueños,
noches calladas
en que discurren
negros fantasmas;
ecos del aire,
voces del agua,
vagos perfumes
de esencia varia;
mucha alegría,
mucha esperanza,
pocas tristezas
y algunas lágrimas.
Esa, hijo mío,
flor de mi alma,
esa es tu vida,
esa es tu infancia.
-Jose Selgas y Carrasco
No better love than love with no object,
no more satisfying work than work with no purpose.
If you could give up tricks and cleverness,
that would be the cleverest trick!
- Rumi
no more satisfying work than work with no purpose.
If you could give up tricks and cleverness,
that would be the cleverest trick!
- Rumi
oh God i know
a garden is better than a cage
i know a palace
is better than a ruin
but i'm that owl in this world
who loves to live in the ruins of love
- Rumi
a garden is better than a cage
i know a palace
is better than a ruin
but i'm that owl in this world
who loves to live in the ruins of love
- Rumi
In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.
-Buddha
-Buddha
I shall pass through this world but once. Any good
therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can
show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me
not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this
way again.
- Mahatma Gandhi
therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can
show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me
not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this
way again.
- Mahatma Gandhi
When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
- William Shakespeare
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
- William Shakespeare
