Letters to a young poet ...

...I would like to beg you dear Sir/Madam, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

- Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903 -

Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

- David Wagner -

What do you love?

"In the end

we will conserve

only what we love.

We will love

only what we

understand.

We will understand

only what we are

Taught."

- Baba Dioum, Senegalese Poet

and Environmentalist, 1937 -

Tree/Jack

It's your softness, your gentle spirit
That leans me to you
You are a place of safety
A wise old soul.

I sit my spine touching yours
Drawn by your compassion
I fall into your tender clasp
Held so caringly.

You know what is felt
Beyond any need for an
Exchange of words
I talk to you like no other.

You are my special friend
A most precious gift
Always to be cherished
Never to be forgotten.

Never Give Up

No matter what is going on

Never Give Up

Develop the heart

Too much energy in your country

Is spent developing the mind

Instead of the heart.

Develop the heart

Be compassionate

Not just to your friends

But to everyone

Be compassionate.

Work for peace

In your heart and in the world

Work for peace

And I say it again

Never Give Up

No matter what is happening

No matter what is going on

Around you,

Never Give Up

- HH 14th Dalai Lama -

What I mean is ...

What I mean is,
we stood on the bank of the river
under the trees,
the pair of us,
and we promised the nothing
that was there,
the nothing that made us,
the nothing that was listening,
that we truly desired to go
beyond ourselves.

- Ali Smith -
Girl Meets Boy, p.159

It is said ...

It IS said that all that
you are seeking
is also seeking YOU,
that if you LIE still,
sit STILL,
it will find you.
It has been waiting for you
a long time.
Once it is here don't move away.
REST.
See what happens next.

- Clarissa Pinkola Estes -
Women who run with the wolves (p.148)

I Carry Your Heart

I carry your heart with me
(I carry it in my heart)
I am never without it
(Anywhere I go you go;
And whatever is done by me is your doing)
I fear no fate
(For you are my fate)
I want no world
(For beautiful, you are my world, my true)
And you are whatever a moon has always meant
And whatever a sun will always sing is you.
Here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(Here is the root of the root
And the bud of the bud
And the sky of the sky of a tree called Life;
Which grows higher than Soul can hope
Or mind can hide)
And this is the wonder that's keeping
The stars apart
I carry your heart
(I carry it in my heart).

- e.e.cummings -

All you need are hugs (I mean, all you need is love) ...

There's nothing you can do that can't be done.

Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.

Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game

It's easy.

All you need is love.

There's nothing you can make that can't be made.

No one you can save that can't be saved.

Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be in time

It's easy.

All you need is love.

There's nothing you can know that isn't known.

Nothing you can see that isn't shown.

Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.

It's easy.

- John Lennon -

What does it mean to be human and alive?

Industrial society does not have all the answers.
Of the 6,000 languages that existed in 1960,
today only 50% are being taught to children.
These languages do not belong to cultures that
are failed attempts at being modern.
They are not destined to fade away by natural law.
These languages represent unique facets of the human imagination.
They represent a legacy of humanities brilliance.
They are unique answers to the fundamental question:
What does it mean to be human and alive?
If human beings are the agents of cultural destruction,
we can also be the facilitators of cultural survival.

- Wade Davis -

The Uncertainty Principle

To decide or not to decide.

You don't know.
You can never be sure.
But you take the plunge anyway.
Sure is for people
Who don't LOVE enough!

Whatever You Fear, Do It Now ...

Taking the next step ...

Come to the edge, she said.

They said: We are afraid.

Come to the edge, she said.

They replied: We can’t, we will fall!

Come to the edge, she said.

And so they came.

And she pushed them,

And they flew.