“Throughout my whole life,” he noted later, “during every minute of it, the world has been gradually lighting up and blazing before my eyes until it has come to surround me, entirely lit up from within.” Annie Dillard, For the Time Being Email this post
Earth is so thick with divine possibility that it is a wonder we can walk anywhere without cracking our shins on altars. Mostly he just pays attention to the things he sees: trees, fields, warblers, light. As he does, they become doors to other things: grief, love, amazement, blessing. This kind of blessing prayer is [...]
Hart The light of the heart is blue. It is a blue chamber, it never ends, a summer night stretched into dawn through which a deer bounds. ghostly, calm, turning to regard you as you stand on the road. And then departs, having been held only lightly by the eye. Everything natural to us must [...]
The silence must be immense where you are living right now, immense enough to allow such tumult of sound and motion. And if you think that in the ocean’s vastness there exists not only the present moment but reverberations of primordial harmonies, then you can be patient and trust the great and indelible solitude at [...]
We live in all we seek. The hidden shows up in too-plain sight. It lives captive on the face of the obvious – the people, events, and things of the day – to which we as sophisticated children have long since become oblivious. What a hideout: Holiness lies spread and borne over the surface of [...]
And I shall not weep from despair but simply because I shall be happy in my tears, I shall steep my soul in my emotion. I love the sticky leaves in spring, the blue sky – that’s all it is. It’s not a matter of intellect or logic, it’s loving with one’s insides, with one’s [...]
I’ve mentioned my father before, the physicist-poet whose influence looms large over me (as does my mother’s). Well, in a single gesture this week, Dad reminded me yet again of the craggy peaks of his intellect; he read my post about light and responded with an email in which he shared a passage from Paradise [...]
Toward the Solstice, 1977 The thirtieth of November. Snow is starting to fall. A peculiar silence is spreading Over the fields, the maple grove. It is the thirtieth of May, Rain pours on ancient bushes, runs Down the youngest blade of grass. I am trying to hold in one steady glance All the parts of [...]
I measure my own strength against the weight of the questions i carry and find the questions heavier than ever this year, although my heart is wider. – Alison Luterman I’ve been reading poetry lately – Once, by Meghan O’Rourke, The Largest Possible Life, by Alison Luterman, and enoughwater, by Maya Stein. It’s all ringing [...]
Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has its purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from. – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (from the lovely Roots of She) Email this post
