My online journal where I share my interests in photography, nature, journaling, fountain pens, bicycling, coffee life, spirituality and the mystery of it all.
As Thoreau so well knew, and so painstakingly tried to show us, what a man most needs is not a knowledge of how to get more, but a knowledge of the most he can do without, and of how to get along without it.
Wendell Berry
I am learning that and how to simplify! I just don’t need all the stuff I have.
Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world,
Robin Wall Kimmerer
receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart.
There is One Holy Book, the sacred manuscript of nature, the only scripture which can enlighten the reader… All scriptures before nature’s manuscript are as little pools of water before the ocean.
Hazrat Inayat Khan
It is about 3:26 pm and I have not seen a cloud all day, just clear blue skies. They also turned on the fountain in the holding pond so I am listening to the bubbling of water and birds singing. The weather app says we are at 87 degrees and may reach 90 degrees. I rode the red steed to coffee this morning and found it most enjoyable. I saw a Great Blue Heron fishing for breakfast and two does grazing along the creek. I also see that it’s hot in Concord, Sterling Heights and North Berwick. Please stay cool and enjoy your weekend.
An organism that is too greedy and takes too much without giving anything in return destroys what it needs for life.
Peter Wohlleben, The Hidden Life of Trees
When I read this quote from Wohlleben I instantly thought of the organism as mankind. I doubt if this bee will take more nectar than is necessary. Which then lead to the question, “What would we learn if we were to read and study this book of nature?” It has been a warm sunny day. Spent some time in the park today and listened to the music made by wind and trees. I hope you had a good day!!
how I long to see
Basho
among the morning flowers
the face of God
May you have a wonderful weekend!!!!
There is a quiet light that shines in every heart. It draws no attention to itself though it is always secretly there. It is what illuminates our minds to see beauty, our desire to seek possibility and our hearts to love life. Without this subtle quickening our days would be empty and wearsome, and no horizon would ever awaken our longing. Our passion for life is quietly sustained from somewhere in us that is wedded to the energy and excitement of life. This shy inner light is what enables us to recognize and receive our very presence here as blessing. We enter the world as strangers who all at once become heirs of a harvesting of memory, spirit and dream that has long proceeded us and will now unfold nourish and sustain us. The gift of the world is our first blessing.
John O’Donohue, Benedictus
So I can’t save the world—
Because from The Unfolding by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
can’t save even myself,
can’t wrap my arms around
every frightened child, can’t
foster peace among nations,
can’t bring love to all who
feel unlovable.
So I practice opening my heart
right here in this room and being gentle
with my insufficiency. I practice
walking down the street heart first.
And if it is insufficient to share love,
I will practice loving anyway.
I want to converse about truth,
about trust. I want to invite compassion
into every interaction.
One willing heart can’t stop a war.
One willing heart can’t feed all the hungry.
And sometimes, daunted by a task too big,
I tell myself what’s the use of trying?
But today, the invitation is clear:
to be ridiculously courageous in love.
To open the heart like a lilac in May,
knowing freeze is possible
and opening anyway.
To take love seriously.
To give love wildly.
To race up to the world
as if I were a puppy,
adoring and unjaded,
stumbling on my own exuberance.
To feel the shock of indifference,
of anger, of cruelty, of fear,
and stay open. To love as if it matters,
as if the world depends on it.
It may be a product of getting older
Steven Charleston, Spirit Wheel
But sometimes I want to stop time.
I want to make the sunsets last just a little longer.
I want the quiet mornings to go on and on
The laughter at the dinner table
To stretch out into a whole evening
The beauty of the clouds as they race
Across the valley to never end.
It is not that I want to freeze reality, just slow it down.
I want life to move as slowly as I do.
For I have learned that life moves far too fast as it is.
It is a joy that endures but briefly
Made of moments that pass as quickly as hummingbirds.
Let me linger in the love I feel.
Let me see the light for as long as I can.
I stopped on my ride this evening because these daisies caught my eye. However, I was not the only one interested in the daisies as this bee busily flitted from flower to flower. So busy in fact, I never got a good infocus shot. Oh well. I watched and lingered and loved the moment.
I had coffee and a chocolate-chocolate chip muffin this morning at Cups. I sat outside, that way I could listen to traffic. One of the regular irregulars sat motionless on their massive web beside me. I was surprised how big this web was, it must have been three feet across. They totally ignored me as they were focused with food. I broke a bridge on Saturday morning so I had an appointment with the dentist this afternoon. They removed the bridge and put in a temporary until Sept 10th. I asked the dentist if I needed to avoid any bar fights. He said, “Not the ones I’ll win.” The only fights I’m guaranteed to win are the ones I don’t get into. Sorry, no landscape image today.
Gratitude is founded on the deep knowing that our very existence relies on the gifts of other beings.
Robin Wall Kimmerer
Latest news this morning shows the Alexander Mountain FIre to be held at 9,668 acres and is 74% contained. The Stone Canyon Fire is 100% contained. Grateful the skies are returning to their blue color! I found this bee enjoying their time on a sunflower the other afternoon at the CSU Experiment Garden. I really need to thank them more often for being the gift they are and not just as a photographer’s subject.