• coffee life,  coffee shops,  fountain pens,  journal,  Mary Oliver,  quotes,  writing/reading

    The Beginning of Devotion

    October 20, 2020
    Upstream by Mary Oliver

    “Teach the children. We don’t matter so much, but the children do. Show them daisies and the pale hepatica. Teach them the taste of sassafras and wintergreen. The lives of the blue sailors, mallow, sunbursts, the moccasin flowers. And the frisky ones–inkberry, lamb’s quarters, blueberries. And the aromatic ones–rosemary, oregano. Give them peppermint to put in their pockets as they go to school. Give them the fields and the woods and the possibility of the world salvaged from the lords of profit. Stand them in the stream, head them upstream, rejoice as they learn to love this green space they live in, its sticks and leaves and then the silent, beautiful blossoms. Attention is the beginning of devotion.” 

    Mary Oliver

    I bought a new used book which arrived on Saturday. It’s title is Upstream by Mary Oliver and a series of essays. So far I’m liking it and relate to her spiritual connectedness to nature. So, fair warning you may see a few quotes from the book.

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  • bees,  flowers,  insects,  Mary Oliver,  Plants,  poems,  prayer

    My Way of Praying

    August 11, 2020
    The pink rose displayings beauty and accepting a very tiny visitor

    How I go to the woods

    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.” 

    Mary Oliver
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  • clouds,  landscape,  Mary Oliver,  natural areas,  poems,  trees

    Among the Trees

    April 29, 2020
    From a walk at the Arapaho Bend Nature Area

    when I am among the trees,
    especially the willows and the honey locust,
    equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
    they give off such hints of gladness.
    I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

    I am so distant from the hope of myself,
    in which I have goodness, and discernment,
    and never hurry through the world
    but walk slowly, and bow often.

    Around me the trees stir in their leaves
    and call out, “Stay awhile.”
    The light flows from their branches.

    And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
    “and you too have come
    into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
    with light, and to shine.”

    Mary Oliver, When I Am Among the Trees
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  • Candid Portraits,  Documentary/Street,  lifestyles,  People/Portraits,  poems,  quotes,  snow

    Happy Valentines Day

    February 14, 2020
    Light snow is falling while students wait for bus on a cold February morning

    “When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
    I was a bride married to amazement.
    I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

    When it is over, I don’t want to wonder
    if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
    I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
    or full of argument.

    I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.”
    Mary Oliver

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