the transparent air

Like wind - In it, with it, of it. Of it just like a sail, so light and strong that, even when it is bent flat, it gathers all the power of the wind without hampering its course.

Like light - In light, lit through by light, transformed into light. Like the lens which disappears in the light it focuses.

Like wind. Like light.

Just this - on these expanses, on these heights.
- Dag Hammarskjöld



"How strange and wonderful is our home, our earth, with its swirling vaporous atmosphere, its flowing and frozen liquids, its trembling plants, its creeping, crawling, climbing creatures, the croaking things with wings that hang on rocks and soar through fog, the furry grass, the scaly seas. To see our world as a space traveler might see it, for the first time, through Venusian eyes or Martian antennae, how utterly rich and wild it would seem, how far beyond the power of the craziest, spaced-out, acid-headed imagination, even a god's, even God's, to conjure up from nothing.

Yet some among us have the nerve, the insolence, the brass, the gall to whine about the limitations of our earthbound fate and yearn for some more perfect world beyond the sky. We are none of us good enough for the sweet earth we have, and yet we dream of heaven."
- Edward Abbey
Appalachian Wilderness



"Who made me?" asks the child.
"God," comes the ready answer. That's that. Finished. The quest is over. But the parent, the teacher or the priest who reply may have had no direct experience of that God, yet most act as if they have. Few individuals are honest enough to admit both to the child and to themselves that they just don't know. Or that God might be just an abstract idea which has been passed down from generation to generation. There may not have been one person in the long line of believers who had actually experienced "God" face to face, but the very fact that the belief has a long tradition gives added weight to the idea as a truth."
- Yatri
Unknown Man



"Freedom means being able to choose how we respond to things. When wisdom is not well developed, it can be easily obscured by the provocations of others. In such cases we may as well be animals or robots. If there is no space between an insulting stimulus and its immediate conditioned response - anger - then we are in fact under the control of others. Mindfulness opens up such a space, and when wisdom is there to fill it one is capable of responding with forbearance. It's not that anger is repressed; anger never arises in the first place."
- Andrew Olendzki



"Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between the stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight. The capacity to create ourselves, based upon this freedom, is inseparable from consciousness or self-awareness."
- Rollo May



"Our feelings, like the artist's paints and brush, are ways of communicating and sharing something meaningful from us to the world. Our feelings not only take into consideration the other person but are in a real sense partially formed by the feelings of the other person present. We feel in a magnetic field. A sensitive person learns, often without being conscious of doing so, to pick up the feelings of the persons around him, as a violin string resonates to the vibration of every other musical string in the room, although in such infinitesimally small degrees that it may not be detectable to the ear."
- Rollo May



"Today is an ephemeral ghost. A strange amazing day that comes only once every four years. For the rest of the time it does not exist.
In mundane terms, it marks a leap in time, when the calendar is adjusted to make up for extra seconds accumulated over the preceding three years due to the rotation of the earth. A day of temporal tune up.
But this day holds another secret - it contains one of those truly rare moments of delightful transience and light uncertainty that only exist on the razors edge of things, along a buzzing plane of quantum probability.
A day of unlocked potential."
- Vera Nazarian
The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration



"There are some good things to be said about walking. Walking takes longer, for example, than any other known form of locomotion except crawling. Thus it stretches time and prolongs life. Life is already too short to waste on speed. I have a friend who's always in a hurry; he never gets anywhere. Walking makes the world much bigger and thus more interesting. You have time to observe the details. The utopian technologists foresee a future for us in which distance is annihilated and anyone can transport himself anywhere, instantly. Big deal, Buckminster. To be everywhere at once is to be nowhere forever, if you ask me."
- Edward Abbey



The Poems of Our Climate
I
Clear water in a brilliant bowl,
pink and white carnations. The light
in the room more like a snowy air,
reflecting snow. A newly-fallen snow
at the end of winter when afternoons return.
Pink and white carnations - one desires
so much more than that. The day itself
is simplified: a bowl of white,
cold, a cold porcelain, low and round,
with nothing more than the carnations there.

II
Say even that this complete simplicity
stripped one of all one's torments, concealed
the evilly compounded, vital I
and made it fresh in a world of white,
a world of clear water, brilliant-edged,
still one would want more, one would need more,
more than a world of white and snowy scents.

III
There would still remain the never-resting mind,
so that one would want to escape, come back
to what had been so long composed.
The imperfect is our paradise.
Note that, in this bitterness, delight,
since the imperfect is so hot in us,
lies in flawed words and stubborn sounds.
- Wallace Stevens



"I cannot help you understand. In the realm of the ultimate, each person must figure out things for themselves. Remember that. Teachers who offer you the ultimate answers do not possess the ultimate answers, for if they did, they would know that the ultimate answers cannot be given, they can only be received."
- Tom Robbins
Jitterbug Perfume

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"Everything is a teacher. When we talk about the dharma we're talking about the phenomenal universe, but we're also talking about the teachings. The word dharma means teaching. But we likely don't see it as teaching. That takes a certain degree of maturity. For years I studied with my teacher and then he transmitted to me, and I came and started this Monastery. Questions would come up, problems would come up, and I would either go visit with him, do sesshin with him, or call him up and we'd talk. So, even though I was finished with my training, I was still learning from him. Then came a point when he died, and I didn't have him to turn to anymore. But it didn't mean the teachings stopped. When a question came up, I would hear Roshi. Or something would appear before me that was a manifestation of Roshi's teaching. In addition to that, I turned to my own students to help me solve the problems that I would have normally gone to my teacher for. So my students became my teacher, just like all things became my teacher. It continues that way."
- John Daido Loori



"At Ryoan-ji in Kyoto there is a famous rock garden; wherever in it a person stands, one of the fifteen rocks cannot be seen. The garden reminds that always something unknowable is present, just beyond what can be perceived or comprehended - and that something is as much part of the real as any other stone amid the raked gravel."
- Jane Hirshfield



Look
The moon thumbs through the book of the night.
Finds a lake on which nothing's printed.
Draws a straight line. That's all it can do.
That's enough.
A thick line. Right to you.
Look!
- Rolf Jacobsen
translated by Robert Hedin



Moon
Open the book of evening to the page
where the moon, always the moon, appears

between two clouds, moving so slowly that hours
will seem to have passed before you reach the next page

where the moon, now brighter, lowers a path
to lead you away from what you have known

into those places where what you had wished for happens,
its lone syllable like a sentence poised

at the edge of sense, waiting for you to say its name
once more as you lift your eyes from the page

and close the book, still feeling what it was like
to dwell in that light, that sudden paradise of sound.
- Mark Strand



"There is a beginning. There is no beginning of that beginning. There is no beginning of that no beginning of beginning. There is something. There is nothing. There is something before the beginning of something and nothing, and something before that. Suddenly there is something and nothing. But between something and nothing, I still don't really know which is something and which is nothing. Now, I've just said something, but I don't really know whether I've said anything or not."
- Chuang Tzu



"The beauty of the world is the mouth of a labyrinth. The unwary individual who on entering takes a few steps is soon unable to find the opening. Worn out, with nothing to eat or drink, in the dark, separated from his dear ones, and from everything he loves and is accustomed to, he walks on without knowing anything or hoping anything, incapable even of discovering whether he is really going forward or merely turning round on the same spot. But this affliction is as nothing compared with the danger threatening him. For if he does not lose courage, if he goes on walking, it is absolutely certain that he will finally arrive at the center of the labyrinth. And there God is waiting to eat him. Later he will go out again, but he will be changed, he will have become different, after being eaten and digested by God. Afterward he will stay near the entrance so that he can gently push all those who come near into the opening."
- Simone Weil
Waiting for God



River
A delicate fuzz of fog
like mold, or moss,
all across the river
in this early light.
Another day, I might
have still been sleeping.

What a pity. How the stars
and seas and rivers
in their fragile lace of fog
go on without us
morning after morning,
year after year.
And we disappear.
- Pat Schneider
Another River: New and Selected Poems



I asked the river
About its destination
And came out lucky:
It babbled about nothing
And never came to a point
- Gyosen



"Transience is the most general phenomenon of the cosmos. Change is the only changeless reality. Seasons, livelihoods, personal relationships - all of these will change. Our experiences in life are transient and relative. Only death is certain, completing the cycle of life that begins with birth. By meditating upon this truth, we recognize that we, too, are manifestations of transience.
When we understand this teaching deeply, we become humble and sincere. We treasure each moment and endeavor to do our best. We feel less stress and become more accepting of the diverse phenomena of life. If something good happens we can feel the joy and be thankful. But we know that the conditions for the situation will not last forever, and we do not become attached to the feeling.
We will simply consider every moment and every experience as a blessing."
- Ilchi Lee



"Everyone tries to make his life a work of art. We want love to last and we know that it does not last; even if, by some miracle, it were to last a whole lifetime, it would still be incomplete. Perhaps, in this insatiable need for perpetuation, we should better understand human suffering, if we knew that it was eternal. It appears that great minds are, sometimes, less horrified by suffering than by the fact that it does not endure. In default of inexhaustible happiness, eternal suffering would at least give us a destiny. But we do not even have that consolation, and our worst agonies come to an end one day. One morning, after many dark nights of despair, an irrepressible longing to live will announce to us the fact that all is finished and that suffering has no more meaning than happiness."
- Albert Camus
The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt


<°))))><


VIII
The annals say: when the monks of Clonmacnoise
Were all at prayers inside the oratory
A ship appeared above them in the air.

The anchor dragged along behind so deep
It hooked itself into the altar rails
And then, as the big hull rocked to a standstill,

A crewman shinned and grappled down the rope
And struggled to release it. But in vain.
'This man can't bear our life here and will drown,'

The abbot said, 'unless we help him.' So
They did, the freed ship sailed, and the man climbed back
Out of the marvellous as he had known it.
- Seamus Heaney
From Lightenings



"It's all a show, a deception. Your urges scream and bluster at you; they cajole; they coax; they threaten; but they really carry no stick at all. You give in out of habit. You give in because you never really bother to look beyond the threat. It is all empty back there. There is only one way to learn this lesson, though. The words on this page won't do it. But look within and watch the stuff coming up - restlessness, anxiety, impatience, pain - just watch it come up and don't get involved. Much to your surprise, it will simply go away. It rises, it passes away. As simple as that. There is another word for self-discipline. It is patience."
- Henepola Gunaratana
Mindfulness in Plain English



A Settlement
Look, it's spring. And last year's loose dust has turned
into this soft willingness. The wind-flowers have come
up trembling, slowly the brackens are up-lifting their
curvaceous and pale bodies. The thrushes have come
home, none less than filled with mystery, sorrow,
happiness, music, ambition.

And I am walking out into all of this with nowhere to
go and no task undertaken but to turn the pages of
this beautiful world over and over, in the world of my mind.

Therefore, dark past,
I'm about to do it.
I'm about to forgive you

for everything.
- Mary Oliver
What Do We Know
Poems and Prose Poems



"Pausing is the doorway to awakening.

We pause not only with our body but also with our mind. And sometimes we can be attentive and sometimes we cannot, but that is all right, for the next moment always brings us the fresh possibility to pause and be present again. There are no steps to follow, there is no enlightenment to work toward - there is only the simplicity of relaxing into this very moment that is complete in itself. This naked moment is the only guide that we need to relax our mind. We need to trust this : in the midst of our daily life activities, the possibility to slow down, to stop, and then to appreciate naturally unfolds. For a fleeting moment we pause and note the sunlight on the sheets as we make the bed, note the warm sun on our cup as we sip tea, or note the fading light on the curtain as we enter the room. And we let out a breath or sigh. Pausing."
- Elizabeth Searle Lamb



"There is tremendous power in unearthing, in recognizing distracted, scattered mind, the mind which would rather be anywhere but here, and spending some time there, with that mind. Rather than being an anonymous voice from the dark bossing you around, scattered mind is someone you can sit down and hang out with."
- Jusan Ed Brown



If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
- Jack Gilbert
from A Brief For The Defense
Refusing Heaven



Allegiances
It is time for all the heroes to go home
if they have any, time for all of us common ones
to locate ourselves by the real things
we live by.

Far to the north, or indeed in any direction,
strange mountains and creatures have always lurked -
elves, goblins, trolls, and spiders: - we
encounter them in dread and wonder,

But once we have tasted far streams, touched the gold,
found some limit beyond the waterfall,
a season changes, and we come back, changed
but safe, quiet, grateful.

Suppose an insane wind holds all the hills
while strange beliefs whine at the traveler's ears,
we ordinary beings can cling to the earth and love
where we are, sturdy for common things.
- William Stafford
The Way It Is



"Living is not thinking. Thought is formed and guided by objective reality outside us. Living is the constant adjustment of thought to life and life to thought in such a way that we are always growing, always experiencing new things in the old and old things in the new. Thus life is always new."
- Thomas Merton



Here and There
Here and there nightfall
without fanfare
presses down, utterly
expected, not an omen in sight.
Here and there a husband
at the usual time
goes to bed with his wife
and doesn't dream of other women.
Occasionally a terrible sigh
is heard, the kind that is
theatrical, to be ignored.
Or a car backfires
and reminds us of a car
backfiring, not of a gunshot.
Here and there a man says
what he means and people hear him
and are not confused.
Here and there a missing teenage girl
comes home unscarred.
Sometimes dawn just brings another
day, full of minor
pleasures and small complaints.
And when the newspaper arrives
with the world,
people make kindling of it
and sit together while it burns.
- Stephen Dunn



"I have seen that it is not man who is impotent in the struggle against evil, but the power of evil that is impotent in the struggle against man. The powerlessness of kindness, of senseless kindness, is the secret of its immortality. It can never be conquered. The more stupid, the more senseless, the more helpless it may seem, the vaster it is. Evil is impotent before it. The prophets, religious teachers, reformers, social and political leaders are impotent before it. This dumb, blind love is man's meaning. Human history is not the battle of good struggling to overcome evil. It is a battle fought by a great evil, struggling to crush a small kernel of human kindness. But if what is human in human beings has not been destroyed even now, then evil will never conquer."
- Vasily Grossman
Life and Fate


><((((º>


"While I was sitting one night with a poet friend watching a great opera performed in a tent under arc lights, the poet took my arm and pointed silently. Far up, blundering out of the night, a huge Cecropia moth swept past from light to light over the posturings of the actors. "He doesn't know," my friend whispered excitedly. "He's passing through an alien universe brightly lit but invisible to him. He's in another play; he doesn't see us. He doesn't know. Maybe it's happening right now to us."
- Loren Eiseley



"Perhaps a creature of so much ingenuity and deep memory is almost bound to grow alienated from his world, his fellows, and the objects around him. He suffers from a nostalgia for which there is no remedy upon earth except as it is to be found in the enlightenment of the spirit - some ability to have a perceptive rather than an exploitive relationship with his fellow creatures."
- Loren Eiseley



"And as you sit on the hillside, or lie prone under the trees of the forest, or sprawl wet-legged on the shingly beach of a mountain stream, the great door, that does not look like a door, opens."
- Stephen Graham



"For the time being the highest peak, for the time being the deepest ocean; for the time being a crazy mind, for the time being a Buddha body; for the time being a Zen Master, for the time being an ordinary person; for the time being earth and sky . . . Since there is nothing but this moment, 'for the time being' is all the time there is."
- Dogen
Norman Fischer



Sustained
1
To come to
in the middle
of a vibrato -
an "is" -
that some soprano's
struggling
to sustain.

2
To be awake
is to discriminate
among birdcalls,
fruits, seeds,
"to work one's way,"
as they say,
"through."

3
Just now
breaking
into awareness
falling forward,
hurtling inland
in all innocence.
- Rae Armantrout



"The only thing I can recommend at this stage is a sense of humor, an ability to see things in their ridiculous and absurd dimensions, to laugh at others and at ourselves, a sense of irony regarding everything that calls out for parody in this world. In other words, I can only recommend perspective and distance."
- Václav Havel



The World Loved by Moonlight
You must try,
the voice said, to become colder.
I understood at once.
It is like the bodies of gods: cast in bronze,
braced in stone. Only something heartless
could bear the full weight.
- Jane Hirshfield



"Its source was a sentence written by Chekhov in a letter to a young writer: "If you want to move your reader, write more coldly." The advice is chilling, true, and rich, I think, and leads in many different directions of thought. This poem follows one of those directions: that if one were to imagine a world in which there were mythic, conscious deities, then those beings would have to be very cold, very detached, in order to bear seeing what they must see in the course of any given day. So much suffering, so much foolishness, so much anger. To be able to watch that at all - and even more, to play some active role in its continuance - would demand total heartlessness. It's the same lack of pity that Virgil demands of Dante as they tour the regions of Hell. Pity, the ghost-guide tells the poet, is forbidden. It is true for the contemporary writer as well, and for any seeker after truth. A certain detachment is needed to look the fullness of life eye to eye; yet that very detachment is what permits the viewer to feel things fully, to know them without blinking."
- Jane Hirshfield
inkwell



"Coincidence and chance and unsearchable causes will now and again make clouds that are undeniable fiery dragons, and potatoes that resemble eminent statesmen exactly and minutely in every feature, and rocks that are like eagles and lions. All this is nothing; it is when you get your set of odd shapes and find that they fit into one another, and at last that they are but parts of a large design; it is then that research grows interesting and indeed amazing, it is then that one queer form confirms the other, that the whole plan displayed justifies, corroborates, explains each separate piece."
- Arthur Machen



I look at my sloping fields now turning
green with the young grass of April. What must I do
to go free? I think I must put on
a deathlier knowledge, and prepare to die
rather than enter into the design of man's hate.
I will purge my mind of the airy claims
of church and state. I will serve the earth
and not pretend my life could better serve.
Another morning comes with its strange cure.
The earth is news. Though the river floods
and the spring is cold, my heart goes on,
faithful to a mystery in a cloud,
and the summer's garden continues its descent
through me, toward the ground.
- Wendell Berry
from The Morning's News


<°))))><


"How still earth stayed that night at first when you didn't breathe. I couldn't believe how carefully moonlight came."
- Kim Stafford
Letting You Go



Easter Exultet
Shake out your qualms.
Shake up your dreams.
Deepen your roots.
Extend your branches.
Trust deep water
and head for the open,
even if your vision
shipwrecks you.
Quit your addiction
to sneer and complain.
Open a lookout.
Dance on a brink.
Run with your wildfire.
You are closer to glory
leaping an abyss
than upholstering a rut.
Not dawdling.
Not doubting.
Intrepid all the way
walk toward clarity.
At every crossroad
be prepared
to bump into wonder.
Only love prevails.
En route to disaster
insist on canticles.
Lift your ineffable
out of the mundane.
Nothing perishes;
nothing survives;
everything transforms!
Honeymoon with Big Joy!
- James Broughton



"To get through this life and see it realistically poses a problem. There is a dark, evil, hopeless side to life that includes suffering, death, and ultimate oblivion as our earth falls into a dying sun. Nothing really matters.
On the other hand, the best side of our humanity finds us determined to make life as meaningful as possible now; to defy our fate. Everything matters. Everything.
It is easy to become immobilized between these two points of view - to see them both so clearly that one cannot decide what to be or do.
Laughter is what gives me forward motion at such intersections. We are the only creatures that both laugh and weep. I think it's because we are the only creatures that see the difference between the way things are and the way they might be. Tears bring relief. Laughter brings release. Some years ago I came across a phrase in Greek - asbestos gelos - unquenchable laughter. I traced it to Homer's Iliad, where it was used to describe the laughter of the gods. That's my kind of laughter. And he who laughs, lasts."
- Robert Fulghum