Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.
The Journey by Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice -- though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. "Mend my life!" each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voice behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do -- determined to save the only life that you could save.
The Worm's Waking by Rumi
This is How a Human Being Can Change: There’s a worm addicted to eating grape leaves. Suddenly, he wakes up, call it grace, whatever, something wakes him, and he’s no longer a worm. He’s the entire vineyard, and the orchard too, the fruit, the trunks, a growing wisdom and joy that doesn’t need to devour.”
Gratitude by Melody Beattie
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. It turns problems into gifts, failures into successes, the unexpected into perfect timing and mistakes into important events. It can turn an existence into a real life, and disconnected situations into important and beneficial lessons. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.
May I Stay Forever in the Stream by Mary Oliver
Sometimes the desire to be lost again, as long ago, comes over me like a vapor. With growth into adulthood, responsibilities claimed me, so many heavy coats. I didn’t choose them, I don’t fault them, but it took time to reject them. Now in the spring I kneel, I put my face into the packets of violets, the dampness, the freshness, the sense of ever-ness. Something is wrong, I know it, if I don’t keep my attention on eternity. May I be the tiniest nail in the house of the universe, tiny but useful. May I stay forever in the stream. May I look down upon the windflower and the bull thistle and the coreopsis with the greatest respect.
Diamonds by Ingrid Goff-Maidoff
What if recognizing diamonds was enough to make them yours and that you saw them now everywhere? On the sunlit ocean; in the moonless sky, the winter fields and the tips of branches after rain; in smiling faces, the brook, the lake, the stream; the kitchen stove, stairs, puddles; ice; clouds; anywhere life glimmers and light glints, kisses, belly laughs; bubbly flight of fancy; feathers, teeth, words, breath... Diamonds, diamonds, all diamonds. Would you see then in truth the very richness that you are?
Love by Daphne Rose Kingma
We thank you now for Love, the great, the miraculous gift. For Love in the body that comforts, For Love in the emotional body that delights and frustrates and instructs, For the Love of our sacred circle of friends, For Love in the Spirit beyond all walls and wounds, bounds and ends. Love, we thank you for Love, Love that stirs and soothes us, Love that gathers us into all joy and delivers us from all brokenness. Love that hears the soundless language, Love that imagines and dreams, that can conquer all and willingly surrenders everything. Love that brought us into our lives and Love that will carry us home.
Hokusai Says
Hokusai says look carefully. He says pay attention, notice. He says keep looking, stay curious. He says there is no end to seeing. He says look forward to getting old. He says keep changing, you just get more who you really are. He says get stuck, accept it, repeat yourself as long as it is interesting. He says keep doing what you love. He says keep praying. He says everyone of us is a child, everyone of us is ancient, everyone of us has a body. He says everyone of us is frightened. He says everyone of us has to find a way to live with fear. He says everything is alive– shells, buildings, people, fish, mountains, trees, wood is alive. Water is alive. Everything has its own life. Everything lives inside us. He says live with the world inside you. He says it doesn’t matter if you draw, or write books. It doesn’t matter if you saw wood, or catch fish. It doesn’t matter if you sit at home and stare at the ants on your veranda or the shadows of the trees and grasses in your garden. It matters that you care. It matters that you feel. It matters that you notice. It matters that life lives through you. Contentment is life living through you. Joy is life living through you. Satisfaction and strength is life living through you. He says don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid. Love, feel, let life take you by the hand. Let life live through you.
A Settlement by Mary Oliver
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.
Candlelight Yoga May you always see the light that is within you. May you continue to be present in all you do. May your days never burden you. May each new dawn find you awake and alert, approaching each new day with dreams, possibilities, and promises. May you discover many ways to bring healing to your world. May tonight and every night find you blessed, sheltered and protected. May the light within you always calm, console and renew you. May you be filled with loving-kindness, held in loving kindness. May you be happy and healthy and free from inner and outer harm. May you care for yourself joyfully. And when you look into your heart, May your eyes always have the kindness And the reverence of candlelight.
So Much Happiness by Naomi Shihab Nye
It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness. With sadness there is something to rub against, a wound to tend with lotion and cloth. When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up, something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change. But happiness floats. It doesn't need you to hold it down. It doesn't need anything. Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing, and disappears when it wants to. You are happy either way. Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house and now live over a quarry of noise and dust cannot make you unhappy. Everything has a life of its own, it too could wake up filled with possibilities of coffee cake and ripe peaches, and love even the floor which needs to be swept, the soiled linens and scratched records….. Since there is no place large enough to contain so much happiness, you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you into everything you touch. You are not responsible. You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it, and in that way, be known.
Dreams by Mark Strand
Trying to recall the plot And characters we dreamed, What life was like Before the morning came, We are seldom satisfied, And even then There is no way of knowing If what we know is true. Something nameless Hums us into sleep, Withdraws, and leaves us in A place that seems Always vaguely familiar. Perhaps it is because We take the props And fixtures of our days With us into the dark, Assuring ourselves We are still alive. And yet Nothing here is certain; Landscapes merge With one another, houses Are never where they should be, Doors and windows Sometimes open out To other doors and windows, Even the person Who seems most like ourselves Cannot be counted on, For there have been Too many times when he, Like everything else, has done The unexpected. And as the night wears on, The dim allegory of ourselves Unfolds, and we Feel dreamed by someone else, A sleeping counterpart, Who gathers in The darkness of his person Shades of the real world. Nothing is clear; We are not ever sure If the life we live there Belongs to us. Each night it is the same; Just when we’re on the verge Of catching on, A sense of our remoteness Closes in, and the world So lately seen Gradually fades from sight. We wake to find the sleeper Is ourselves And the dreamt-of is someone who did Something we can’t quite put Our finger on, But which involved a life We are always, we feel, About to discover.
Beannacht by John O'Donohue
On the day when The weight deadens On your shoulders And you stumble, May the clay dance To balance you. And when your eyes Freeze behind The grey window And the ghost of loss Gets into you, May a flock of colours, Indigo, red, green And azure blue, Come to awaken in you A meadow of delight. When the canvas frays In the currach of thought And a stain of ocean Blackens beneath you, May there come across the waters A path of yellow moonlight To bring you safely home. May the nourishment of the earth be yours, May the clarity of light be yours, May the fluency of the ocean be yours, May the protection of the ancestors be yours. And so may a slow Wind work these words Of love around you, An invisible cloak To mind your life. ~John O'Donohue
Break Your Heart No Longer by Swami Krupalu
Break your heart no longer. Every time you judge yourself you break your own heart. You stop feeding on the love which is the wellspring of your vitality. The time has come. Your time. To live, to celebrate, and to see the goodness that you are. You, my child, are divine. You are pure. You are sublimely free. You are God in disguise, and you are always perfectly safe. Do not fight the dark, just turn on the light, and breathe into the goodness that you are.
Change by Kathleen Raine
Change Said the sun to the moon, You cannot stay. Change Says the moon to the waters, All is flowing. Change Says the fields to the grass, Seed-time and harvest, Chaff and grain. You must change, Said the worm to the bud, Though not to a rose, Petals fade That wings may rise Borne on the wind. You are changing said death to the maiden, your wan face To memory, to beauty. Are you ready to change? Says the thought to the heart, to let her pass All your life long For the unknown, the unborn In the alchemy Of the world's dream? You will change, says the stars to the sun, Says the night to the stars.
Mind Wanting More by Holly J. Hughes
Only a beige slat of sun above the horizon, like a shade pulled not quite down. Otherwise, clouds. Sea rippled here and there. Birds reluctant to fly. The mind wants a shaft of sun to stir the grey porridge of clouds, an osprey to stitch sea to sky with its barred wings, some dramatic music: a symphony, perhaps a Chinese gong.
But the mind always wants more than it has-- one more bright day of sun, one more clear night in bed with the moon; one more hour to get the words right; one more chance for the heart in hiding to emerge from its thicket in dried grasses—as if this quiet day with its tentative light weren't enough, as if joy weren't strewn all around.
Home by Warsam Shire
no one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark you only run for the border when you see the whole city running as well your neighbors running faster than you breath bloody in their throats the boy you went to school with is holding a gun bigger than his body you only leave home when home won’t let you stay. no one leaves home unless home chases you fire under feet hot blood in your belly it’s not something you ever thought of doing until the blade burnt threats into your neck and even then you carried the anthem under your breath only tearing up your passport in an airport sobbing as each mouthful of paper made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back. how do the words the dirty looks roll off your backs maybe because the blow is softer than a limb torn off or the insults are easier to swallow than rubble i want to go home, but home is the mouth of a shark home is the barrel of the gun and no one would leave home unless home chased you to the shore unless home told you to quicken your legs leave your clothes behind crawl through the desert wade through the oceans drown save be hunger beg forget pride your survival is more important no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear saying — leave, run away from me now i dont know what i’ve become but i know that anywhere is safer than here
Hope is a Thing with Feathers by Emily Dickinson
Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all, And sweetest in the gale is heard; And sore must be the storm That could abash the little bird That kept so many warm. I've heard it in the chillest land And on the strangest sea; Yet, never, in extremity, It asked a crumb of me.
A Blessing by John O'Donahue
May you listen to your longing to be free. May the frames of your belonging be large enough for the dreams of your soul. May you arise each day with a voice of blessing whispering in your heart that something good is going to happen to you. May you find a harmony between your soul and your life. May the mansion of your soul never become a haunted place. May you know the eternal longing which lives at the heart of time. May there be kindness in your gaze when you look within. May you never place walls between the light and yourself. May your angel free you from the prisons of guilt, fear, disappointment, and despair. May you allow the wild beauty of the invisible world to gather you, mind you, and embrace you in belonging.
The Eyes of Rumi by John Mundahl
I met a saint at Walmart once. I was standing in line waiting to check out. An elderly woman was behind the register. “You should be home,” I thought, “Not standing on your feet all day.” But then I watched her greet everyone: Man or woman, Adult or child, Young or old, Clean or dirty, Crabby or kind, Rushed or patient, Angry or calm, Black or white, Tattoos, Spiked hair, Mohawks, Or bald... None of it mattered to her. She truly greeted each person with eyes of love, Including me. I never forgot her. And I still see her face On long days when I need a blessing.
Awakening Now by Dana Faulds
Why wait for your awakening? The moment your eyes are open, seize the day. Would you hold back when the Beloved beckons? Would you deliver your litany of sins like a child’s collection of sea shells, prized and labeled? “No, I can’t step across the threshold,” you say, eyes downcast. “I’m not worthy” I’m afraid, and my motives aren’t pure. I’m not perfect, and surely I haven’t practiced nearly enough. My meditation isn’t deep, and my prayers are sometimes insincere. I still chew my fingernails, and the refrigerator isn’t clean.” Do you value your reasons for staying small more than the light shining through the open door? Forgive yourself. Forgive yourself. Now is the only time you have to be whole. Now is the sole moment that exists to live in the light of your true Self. Perfection is not a prerequisite for anything but pain. Please, oh please, don’t continue to believe in your disbelief, your stories of separation and failure. This is the day of your awakening.
My Soul Tells Me by Mark Nepo
My soul tells me, we were all broken from the same nameless heart, and every living thing wakes with a piece of that original heart aching its way into blossom. This is why we know each other below our strangeness, why when we fall, we lift each other, or when in pain, we hold each other, why when sudden with joy, we dance together. Life is the many pieces of that great heart loving itself back together. ~ Mark Nepo
The Four Heavenly Fountains by Suzy Kassem
Laugh, I tell you And you will turn back The hands of time. Smile, I tell you And you will reflect The face of the divine. Sing, I tell you And all the angels will sing with you! Cry, I tell you And the reflections found in your pool of tears - Will remind you of the lessons of today and yesterday To guide you through the fears of tomorrow.
Today by Mary Oliver
Today I’m flying low and I’m not saying a word I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep. The world goes on as it must, the bees in the garden rumbling a little, the fish leaping, the gnats getting eaten. And so forth. But I’m taking the day off. Quiet as a feather. I hardly move though really I’m traveling a terrific distance. Stillness. One of the doors into the temple.
Leaving Early by Leanne O'Sullivan
My Love, tonight Fionnuala is your nurse. You’ll hear her voice sing-song around the ward lifting a wing at the shore of your darkness. I heard that, in another life, she too journeyed through a storm, a kind of curse, with the ocean rising darkly around her, fierce with cold, and no resting place, only the frozen rocks that tore her feet, the light on her shoulders. And no cure there but to wait it out. If, while I’m gone, your fever comes down -- if the small, salt-laden shapes of her song appear to you as a first glimmer of earth-light, follow the sweet, hopeful voice of that landing. She will keep you safe beneath her wing.
Adrift by Mark Nepo
Everything is beautiful and I am so sad. This is how the heart makes a duet of wonder and grief. The light spraying through the lace of the fern is as delicate as the fibers of memory forming their web around the knot in my throat. The breeze makes the birds move from branch to branch as this ache makes me look for those I’ve lost in the next room, in the next song, in the laugh of the next stranger. In the very center, under it all, what we have that no one can take away and all that we’ve lost face each other. It is there that I’m adrift, feeling punctured by a holiness that exists inside everything. I am so sad and everything is beautiful.
In Memory of My Mother by Patrick Kavanagh
I do not think of you lying in the wet clay Of a Monaghan graveyard; I see You walking down a lane among the poplars On your way to the station, or happily Going to second Mass on a summer Sunday - You meet me and you say: 'Don't forget to see about the cattle' Among your earthiest words the angels stray. And I think of you walking along a headland Of green oats in June, So full of repose, so rich with life - And I see us meeting at the end of a town On a fair day by accident, after The bargains are all made and we can walk Together through the shops and stalls and markets Free in the oriental streets of thought. O you are not lying in the wet clay, For it is a harvest evening now and we Are piling up the ricks against the moonlight And you smile up at us - eternally.
The Unbroken by Rashani Rea
There is a brokenness out of which comes the unbroken, a shatteredness out of which blooms the unshatterable. There is a sorrow beyond all grief which leads to joy and a fragility out of whose depths emerges strength. There is a hollow space too vast for words through which we pass with each loss, out of whose darkness we are sanctioned into being. There is a cry deeper than all sound whose serrated edges cut the heart as we break open to the place inside which is unbreakable and whole while learning to sing.
For the Dying by John O'Donahue
May death come gently towards you, Leaving you time to make your way Through the cold embrace of fear To the place of inner tranquility. May death arrive only after a long life To find you at home among your own With every comfort and care you require. May your leave-taking be gracious, Enabling you to hold dignity Through awkwardness and illness. May you see the reflection Of your life's kindness and beauty In all the tears that fall for you. As your eyes focus on each face, May your soul take its imprint Drawing each image within As companions for the journey. May you find for each one you love A different locket of jewelled words To be worn around the heart To warm your absence. May someone who knows and loves The complex village of your heart Be there to echo you back to yourself And create a sure word-raft To carry you to the further shore. May your spirit feel The surge of true delight When the veil of the visible Is raised, and you glimpse again The living faces Of departed family and friends. May there be some beautiful surprise Waiting for you inside death, Something you never knew or felt, Which with one simple touch Absolves you of all loneliness and loss, As you quicken within the embrace For which your soul was eternally made. May your heart be speechless At the sight of the truth Of all your belief had hoped, Your heart breathless In the light and lightness Where each and every thing Is at last its true self Within that serene belonging That dwells beside us On the other side Of what we see.
School Prayer by Diane Ackerman
In the name of daybreak and the eyelids of morning and the wayfaring moon and the night when it departs,
I swear I will not dishonor my soul with hatred but offer myself humbly as a guardian of nature, as a healer of misery, as a messenger of wonder as an architect of peace.
In the name of the sun and its mirrors and the day that embraces it and the cloud veils drawn over it and the uttermost night and the male and the female and the plants bursting with seed and the crowning seasons of the firefly and the apple,
I will honor all life —wherever and in whatever form it may dwell—on Earth my home, and in the mansions of the stars.
Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye
Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness. How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road. You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth. Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread, only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say It is I you have been looking for, and then goes with you everywhere like a shadow or a friend.
Don't Go Back to Sleep by Rumi
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want. Don’t go back to sleep. People are going back and forth across the doorsill Where the two worlds touch. The door is round and open. Don’t go back to sleep. - Rumi
The Gardener by Mary Oliver
Have I lived enough? Have I loved enough? Have I considered Right Action enough, have I come to any conclusion? Have I experienced happiness with sufficient gratitude? Have I endured loneliness with grace?
I say this, or perhaps I'm just thinking it. Actually I probably think too much.
Then I step out into the garden, where the gardener, who is said to be a simple man, is tending his children, the roses.
The Uses of Sorrow by Mary Oliver
(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)
Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.
Spring by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Nothing is so beautiful as Spring – When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush; Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing; The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
Peace is This Moment Without Judgment by Dorothy Hunt
Do you think peace requires an end to war? Or tigers eating only vegetables? Does peace require an absence from your boss, your spouse, yourself? … Do you think peace will come some other place than here? Some other time than Now? In some other heart than yours? Peace is this moment without judgment. That is all. This moment in the Heart-space where everything that is is welcome. Peace is this moment without thinking that it should be some other way, that you should feel some other thing, that your life should unfold according to your plans. Peace is this moment without judgment, this moment in the heart-space where everything that is is welcome.
Beannacht by John O'Donohue
On the day when The weight deadens On your shoulders And you stumble, May the clay dance To balance you. And when your eyes Freeze behind The grey window And the ghost of loss Gets into you, May a flock of colours, Indigo, red, green And azure blue, Come to awaken in you A meadow of delight. When the canvas frays In the currach of thought And a stain of ocean Blackens beneath you, May there come across the waters A path of yellow moonlight To bring you safely home. May the nourishment of the earth be yours, May the clarity of light be yours, May the fluency of the ocean be yours, May the protection of the ancestors be yours. And so may a slow Wind work these words Of love around you, An invisible cloak To mind your life.
Confusing Anger and Kindness by Rupi Kaur
“Every time you tell your daughter you yell at her out of love you teach her to confuse anger with kindness which seems like a good idea till she grows up to trust men who hurt her cause they look so much like you.”
Heavy by Mary Oliver
That time I thought I could not go any closer to grief without dying I went closer, and I did not die. Surely God had his hand in this, as well as friends. Still, I was bent, and my laughter, as the poet said, was nowhere to be found. Then said my friend Daniel, (brave even among lions), “It’s not the weight you carry but how you carry it – books, bricks, grief – it’s all in the way you embrace it, balance it, carry it when you cannot, and would not, put it down.” So I went practicing. Have you noticed? Have you heard the laughter that comes, now and again, out of my startled mouth? How I linger to admire, admire, admire the things of this world that are kind, and maybe also troubled – roses in the wind, the sea geese on the steep waves, a love to which there is no reply?
A Prayer in Spring by Robert Frost
Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day; And give us not to think so far away As the uncertain harvest; keep us here All simply in the springing of the year. Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white, Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night; And make us happy in the happy bees, The swarm dilating round the perfect trees. And make us happy in the darting bird That suddenly above the bees is heard, The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill, And off a blossom in mid air stands still. For this is love and nothing else is love, The which it is reserved for God above To sanctify to what far ends He will, But which it only needs that we fulfill.
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that, the passing there Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I marked the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.
The Isle of Innisfree by William Butler Yeats
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made: Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee; And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings; There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow, And evening full of the linnet's wings. I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart's core.
Magdalene-The Seven Devils by Marie Howe
The first was that I was very busy. The second—I was different from you: whatever happened to you could not happen to me, not like that. The third—I worried. The fourth—envy, disguised as compassion. The fifth was that I refused to consider the quality of life of the aphid, The aphid disgusted me. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The mosquito too—its face. And the ant—its bifurcated body. Ok, the first was that I was so busy. The second that I might make the wrong choice, because I had decided to take that plane that day, that flight, before noon, so as to arrive early and, I shouldn’t have wanted that. The third was that if I walked past the certain place on the street the house would blow up. The fourth was that I was made of guts and blood with a thin layer of skin lightly thrown over the whole thing. The fifth was that the dead seemed more alive to me than the living The sixth—if I touched my right arm I had to touch my left arm, and if I touched the left arm a little harder than I’d first touched the right then I had to retouch the left and then touch the right again so it would be even. The seventh—I knew I was breathing the expelled breath of everything that was alive, and I couldn’t stand it. I wanted a sieve, a mask, a, I hate this word—cheesecloth-- to breath through that would trap it—whatever was inside everyone else that entered me when I breathed in. No. That was the first one. The second was that I was so busy. I had no time. How had this happened? How had our lives gotten like this? The third was that I couldn’t eat food if I really saw it—distinct, separate from me in a bowl or on a plate. Ok. The first was that. I could never get to the end of the list. The second was that the laundry was never finally done. The third was that no one knew me, although they thought they did. And that if people thought of me as little as I thought of them then what was love? The fourth was I didn’t belong to anyone. I wouldn’t allow myself to belong to anyone. The fifth was that I knew none of us could ever know what we didn’t know. The sixth was that I projected onto others what I myself was feeling. The seventh was the way my mother looked when she was dying, the sound she made—her mouth wrenched to the right and cupped open so as to take in as much air… the gurgling sound, so loud we had to speak louder to hear each other over it. And that I couldn’t stop hearing it—years later—grocery shopping, crossing the street-- No, not the sound—it was her body’s hunger finally evident—what our mother had hidden all her life. For months I dreamt of knucklebones and roots, the slabs of sidewalk pushed up like crooked teeth by what grew underneath. The underneath. ] That was the first devil. It was always with me And that I didn’t think you—if I told you—would understand any of this--
How I go to the woods by Mary Oliver
Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable. I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of praying, as you no doubt have yours. Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds, until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost unhearable sound of the roses singing. If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love you very much.
Mysteries, Yes by Mary Oliver
Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous to be understood. How grass can be nourishing in the mouths of the lambs How rivers and stones are forever in allegiance with gravity while we ourselves dream of rising. How two hands touch and the bonds will never be broken. How people come, from delight or the scars of damage, to the comfort of a poem. Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers. Let me keep company always with those who say "Look!" and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads.
The Guest House by Rumi
This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they're a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
Kindness by Naomi Shahib Nye
Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness. How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever. Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness, you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road. You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive. Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth. Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread, only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say it is I you have been looking for, and then goes with you everywhere like a shadow or a friend.
The Work by Wendell Berry
It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go we have come to our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings
The Peace of the Wild Things by Wendell Berry
When despair grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting for their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
The Hero Path by Joseph Campbell
We have not even to risk the adventure alone for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known ... we have only to follow the thread of the hero path. And where we had thought to find an abomination we shall find a God.
And where we had thought to slay another we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outwards we shall come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone we shall be with all the world.
To a Skylark by Percy Bysshe Shelly
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from Heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are bright'ning, Thou dost float and run; Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.
The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of Heaven, In the broad day-light Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight,
Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere, Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.
All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, As, when night is bare, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and Heaven is overflow'd.
What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.
Like a Poet hidden In the light of thought, Singing hymns unbidden, Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:
Like a high-born maiden In a palace-tower, Soothing her love-laden Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:
Like a glow-worm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aireal hue Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:
Like a rose embower'd In its own green leaves, By warm winds deflower'd, Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged thieves:
Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, Rain-awaken'd flowers, All that ever was Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.
Teach us, Sprite or Bird, What sweet thoughts are thine: I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.
Chorus Hymeneal, Or triumphal chant, Match'd with thine would be all But an empty vaunt, A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.
What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain? What fields, or waves, or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?
With thy clear keen joyance Languor cannot be: Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee: Thou lovest: but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.
Waking or asleep, Thou of death must deem Things more true and deep Than we mortals dream, Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?
We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
Yet if we could scorn Hate, and pride, and fear; If we were things born Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.
Better than all measures Of delightful sound, Better than all treasures That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!
Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow The world should listen then, as I am listening now
Love is more thicker than forget by e.e. cummings
love is more thicker than forget more thinner than recall more seldom than a wave is wet more frequent than to fail
it is most mad and moonly and less it shall unbe than all the sea which only is deeper than the sea
love is less always than to win less never than alive less bigger than the least begin less littler than forgive
it is most sane and sunly and more it cannot die than all the sky which only is higher than the sky
The Stolen Child by W.B. Yeats
Where dips the rocky highland Of Sleuth Wood in the lake, There lies a leafy island Where flapping herons wake The drowsy water rats; There we’ve hid our faery vats, Full of berrys And of reddest stolen cherries. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wave of moonlight glosses The dim gray sands with light, Far off by furthest Rosses We foot it all the night, Weaving olden dances Mingling hands and mingling glances Till the moon has taken flight; To and fro we leap And chase the frothy bubbles, While the world is full of troubles And anxious in its sleep. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wandering water gushes From the hills above Glen-Car, In pools among the rushes That scarce could bathe a star, We seek for slumbering trout And whispering in their ears Give them unquiet dreams; Leaning softly out From ferns that drop their tears Over the young streams. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
Away with us he’s going, The solemn-eyed: He’ll hear no more the lowing Of the calves on the warm hillside Or the kettle on the hob Sing peace into his breast, Or see the brown mice bob Round and round the oatmeal chest. For he comes, the human child, To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world’s more full of weeping than he can understand.
Miracles by Walt Whitman
Why, who makes much of a miracle? As to me I know of nothing else but miracles, Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan, Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky, Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water, Or stand under trees in the woods, Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love, Or sit at table at dinner with the rest, Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car, Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon, Or animals feeding in the fields, Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air, Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright, Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring; These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles, The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place. To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, Every cubic inch of space is a miracle, Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same, Every foot of the interior swarms with the same. To me the sea is a continual miracle, The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves--the ships with men in them, What stranger miracles are there?
For Your Birthday by John O'Donohue
Blessed be the mind that dreamed the day The blueprint of your life Would begin to glow on earth, Illuminating all the faces and voices That would arrive to invite Your soul to growth.
Praised be your father and mother, Who loved you before you were, And trusted to call you here With no idea who you would be.
Blessed be those who have loved you Into becoming who you were meant to be, Blessed be those who have crossed your life With dark gifts of hurt and loss That have helped to school your mind In the art of disappointment.
When desolation surrounded you, Blessed be those who looked for you And found you, their kind hands Urgent to open a blue window In the gray wall formed around you.
Blessed be the gifts you never notice, Your health, eyes to behold the world, Thoughts to countenance the unknown, Memory to harvest vanished days, Your heart to feel the world's waves, Your breath to breathe the nourishment Of distance made intimate by earth.
On this echoing-day of your birth, May you open the gift of solitude In order to receive your soul; Enter the generosity of silence To hear your hidden heart; Know the serenity of stillness To be enfolded anew By the miracle of your being.
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth
I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed- and gazed- but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.
Atman by Robert Goslin
When you have calmed the furies of the mind Forgotten greed and all ambitions snare: When you have banished all intruding thought And scotched the Ego lurking in its lair; When you have come to nothing and seek nought But less than nothing – in your earthly quest, You will be ALL at last – and more than nothing, For nothing will be more than all the rest.
Walk Slowly by Danna Faulds
It only takes a reminder to breathe, a moment to be still, and just like that, something in me settles, softens, makes space for imperfection. The harsh voice of judgment drops to a whisper and I remember again that life isn’t a relay race; that we will all cross the finish line; that waking up to life is what we were born for. As many times as I forget, catch myself charging forward without even knowing where I’m going, that many times I can make the choice to stop, to breathe and be, and walk slowly into the mystery.
Well of Grief by David Whyte
Those who will not slip beneath the still surface on the well of grief, turning down through its black water to the place we cannot breathe, will never know the source from which we drink, the secret water, cold and clear, nor find in the darkness glimmering, the small round coins, thrown by those who wished for something else
Eternity by William Blake
He who binds to himself a joy Does the winged life destroy He who kisses the joy as it flies Lives in eternity's sunrise
Saint Judas by James Arlington Wright
When I went out to kill myself, I caught A pack of hoodlums beating up a man. Running to spare his suffering, I forgot My name, my number, how my day began, How soldiers milled around the garden stone And sang amusing songs; how all that day Their javelins measured crowds; how I alone Bargained the proper coins, and slipped away.
Banished from heaven, I found this victim beaten, Stripped, kneed, and left to cry. Dropping my rope Aside, I ran, ignored the uniforms: Then I remembered bread my flesh had eaten, The kiss that ate my flesh. Flayed without hope, I held the man for nothing in my arms.
Appreciation by Cristy Ann Martine
When the world moves too fast and you lose yourself in the chaos introduce yourself to each color of the sunset. Reacquaint yourself with the earth beneath your feet. Thank the air around you with each breath you take. Find yourself in the appreciation of life.
Ode to Dirt by Sharon Olds
Dear dirt, I am sorry I slighted you, I thought that you were only the background for the leading characters—the plants and animals and human animals. It’s as if I had loved only the stars and not the sky which gave them space in which to shine. Subtle, various, sensitive, you are the skin of our terrain, you’re our democracy. When I understood I had never honored you as a living equal, I was ashamed of myself, as if I had not recognized a character who looked so different from me, but now I can see us all, made of the same basic materials-- cousins of that first exploding from nothing-- in our intricate equation together. O dirt, help us find ways to serve your life, you who have brought us forth, and fed us, and who at the end will take us in and rotate with us, and wobble, and orbit.
Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Glory be to God for dappled things – For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings; Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough; And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange; Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?) With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise him.
Reluctance by Robert Frost
Out through the fields and the woods And over the walls I have wended; I have climbed the hills of view And looked at the world, and descended; I have come by the highway home, And lo, it is ended.
The leaves are all dead on the ground, Save those that the oak is keeping To ravel them one by one And let them go scraping and creeping Out over the crusted snow, When others are sleeping.
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still, No longer blown hither and thither; The last lone aster is gone; The flowers of the witch hazel wither; The heart is still aching to seek, But the feet question ‘Whither?’
Ah, when to the heart of man Was it ever less than a treason To go with the drift of things, To yield with a grace to reason, And bow and accept the end Of a love or a season?
For Grief by John O'Donohue
When you lose someone you love, Your life becomes strange, The ground beneath you gets fragile, Your thoughts make your eyes unsure; And some dead echo drags your voice down Where words have no confidence. Your heart has grown heavy with loss; And though this loss has wounded others too, No one knows what has been taken from you When the silence of absence deepens. Flickers of guilt kindle regret For all that was left unsaid or undone. There are days when you wake up happy; Again inside the fullness of life, Until the moment breaks And you are thrown back Onto that black tide of loss. Days when you have your heart back, You are able to function well Until in the middle of work or encounter, Suddenly with no warning, You are ambushed by grief. It becomes hard to trust yourself. All you can depend on now is that Sorrow will remain faithful to itself. More than you, it knows its way And will find the right time To pull and pull the rope of grief Until that coiled hill of tears Has reduced to its last drop. Gradually, you will learn acquaintance With the invisible form of your departed, And when the work of grief is done, The wound of loss will heal And you will have learned To wean your eyes From that gap in the air And be able to enter the hearth In your soul where your loved one Has awaited your return All the time.
The Waking by Theodore Roethke
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know? I hear my being dance from ear to ear. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you? God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there, And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how? The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair; I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do To you and me, so take the lively air, And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know. What falls away is always. And is near. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I learn by going where I have to go.
Nature's First Green Is Gold by Robert Frost
Nature's first green is gold. Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf So Eden sank to grief. So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.
I Cannot Weep by Kathleen Raine
I cannot weep who When I turn to you in thought Behold a mystery so deep A world upheld upon a breath That comes in life and goes in death Troubling dark leaves upon a starry bow. Who dreams our lives I do not know Nor in what land it is we meet.
The Dead by Rupert Brooke
These hearts were woven of human joys and cares, Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth. The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs, And sunset, and the colours of the earth. These had seen movement, and heard music; known Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended; Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone; Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.
There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after, Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance, A width, a shining peace, under the night.
Requiem by Robert Louis Stephenson
UNDER the wide and starry sky Dig the grave and let me lie: Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you 'grave for me: Here he lies where he long'd to be; Home is the sailor, home from the sea, And the hunter home from the hill.
The Gift by William Stafford
Time wants to show you a different country. It's the one that your life conceals, the one waiting outside when curtains are drawn, the one Grandmother hinted at in her crochet design, the one almost found over at the edge of the music, after the sermon.
It's the way life is, and you have it, a few years given. You get killed now and then, violated in various ways. (And sometimes it's turn about.) You get tired of that. Long-suffering, you wait and pray, and maybe good things come- maybe the hurt slackens and you hardly feel it any more. You have a breath without pain. It is called happiness.
It's a balance, the taking and passing along, the composting of where you've been and how people and weather treated you. It's a country where you already are, bringing where you have been. Time offers this gift in its millions of ways, turning the world, moving the air, calling, every morning, "Here, take it, it's yours." -1992
