• landscape,  quotes,  silence,  sunsets,  trees

    Silence is the stuff of life…

    March 11, 2025

    I am constantly surrounded by noise: TV, texts, the internet, music, meaningless small talk, my thinking. All of it blocks my consciousness, my ability to hear the ME that exists beneath the cacophony. I am my consciousness, my awareness of my circumstance, my presence in every moment. So I cultivate silence every morning. I sit in it, bask in it, wrap it around myself, and hear and feel me. Then, wherever the day takes me, the people I meet are the beneficiaries of my having taken that time – they get the real me, not someone shaped and altered by the noise around me. Silence is the stuff of life.

    Richard Wagamese, Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations
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  • quotes

    I like the morning hours

    February 24, 2025
    Sunrise over Lee Lake

    Watching the morning break, I realize again that darkness doesn’t kill the light—it defines it.

    Richard Wagamese

    I have been a morning person all of my life. Both my parents were also early risers. Working rotating shifts while in the service was not easy for me. I have had only one job where I worked four ten hour evening shifts so that I didn’t have to commute five days a week. Now in my later years of life my Circadian rhythm is still in cycle with sunrise and sunset. I am not a night person. I like the morning hours.

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  • clouds,  landscape,  natural areas,  quotes,  reflections,  sunrises

    Loving Energy

    February 11, 2025
    January sunrise in 2006 – Arapaho Bend Natural Area

    The elders say that Creator is perfect loving energy. Within the realm of perfect love there is no judgment. If there is no judgment then there can be no failure. In turn, if failure does not exist, there is no unworthiness. We are all one energy. We are worthy and we always were. We never have to qualify. And ceremony was born to allow us to remember that.

    Richard Wagamese

    It is bitter cold here in Colorado, down in the single digits. I won’t complain because other parts of the country are colder. My hands and feet are cold, which seems to be the normal these days. I was supposed to meet my classmates for our monthly luncheon but cancelled that idea. I think I’d rather make a peanut butter and jelly (apricot) sandwich, place it in a paper bag then reminisce of the old days in the cafeteria where we would trade sandwiches. Remember? That will be my ceremony for today. Stay warm and safe!!

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  • leaves,  quotes,  silence

    Knowing When to Say Nothing

    October 8, 2024
    Fall colors while waiting at the bus stop this morning.

    There is such a powerful eloquence in silence. True genius is knowing when to say nothing, to allow the experience, the moment itself, to carry the message, to say what needs to be said. Words are less important, less effective than feeling. When you can sit in perfect silence with someone, you truly know how to communicate.

    Richard Wagamese, Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations

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  • desert,  landscape,  quotes

    Eventually…

    September 19, 2024
    Predawn on Perata Trail, Arizona – 2013

    “Life sometimes is hard. There are challenges. There are difficulties. There is pain. As a younger man I sought to avoid them and only ever caused myself more of the same. These days I choose to face life head on—and I have become a comet. I arc across the sky of my life and the harder times are the friction that lets the worn and tired bits drop away. It’s a good way to travel; eventually I will wear away all resistance until all there is left of me is light. I can live towards that end.”

    Richard Wagamese, Embers
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  • clouds,  landscape,  quotes

    We need mystery…

    September 17, 2024

    “We need mystery. Creator in her wisdom knew this. Mystery fills us with awe and wonder. They are the foundations of humility, and humility is the foundation of all learning. So we do not seek to unravel this. We honour it by letting it be that way forever.” (The quote of a grandmother explaining The Great Mystery of the universe to her grandson.)

    Richard Wagamese, Indian Horse
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  • clouds,  landscape,  poems

    One story at a time…

    September 15, 2024

    All that we are is story. From the moment we are born to the time we continue on our spirit journey, we are involved in the creation of the story of our time here. It is what we arrive with. It is all we leave behind. We are not the things we accumulate. We are not the things we deem important. We are story. All of us. What comes to matter then is the creation of the best possible story we can while we’re here; you, me, us, together. When we can do that and we take the time to share those stories with each other, we get bigger inside, we see each other, we recognize our kinship – we change the world, one story at a time…

    Richard Wagamese
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