listen

... But if we listen to the child who lives in our soul, our eyes will grow bright.  If we do not lose contact with that child we will not lose contact with life.

PAULO COEHLHO, BY THE RIVER PIEDRA I SAT DOWN AND WEPT 

time flies

Sed fugit interea, fugit inreparabile tempus.*

VIRGIL, GEORGICS, II

*But time flies meanwhile, flies never to return. 

dreaming child

I learned what every dreaming child needs to know - that no horizon is so far you cannot get above it or beyond it.

BERYL MARKHAM, WEST WITH THE NIGHT 

listen to a pebble

If the birds forget their songs

                       listen to a pebble instead.

COOPER EDENS 

you of my heart

it may not always be so; and i say
that if your lips, which i have loved, should touch
another's, and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart, as mine in time not far away;
if on another's face your sweet hair lay
in such a silence as i know, or such
great writhing words as, uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;

if this should be, i say if this should be-
you of my heart, send me a little word;
that i may go unto him, and take his hands,
saying, Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall i turn my face, and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands.

e. e. cummings

somewhere i have never travelled

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

e. e. cummings

flash of a firefly

What is life: It is the flash of a firefly in the night.  It is the breath of a buffalo in the winter time; it is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.

CROWFOOT 

a dance

A good relationship has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules.  The partners do not need to hold on tightly, because they move confidently in the same pattern, intricate but gay and swift and free ... To touch heavily would be to arrest the pattern and freeze the movement, to check the endlessly changing beauty of its unfolding... they know they are partners moving to the same rhythm, creating a pattern together, and being invisibly nourished by it.

ANNE MORROW LINDBERGH, GIFT FROM THE SEA 

one step

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

LAO-TZU 

new experience

A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 

If

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs, and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting, too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good nor talk too wise;

If you can dream and not make dreams your master,

If you can think, and not make thoughts your aim,

If you can meet with triumph and disaster,

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings,

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings,

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone.

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings ... nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, 

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And ... which is more ... you'll be a Man, my son!

RUDYARD KIPLING

arrows

Your children are not your children.  They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.  They come through you but not from you,  And though they are with you yet belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,  For they have their own thoughts.  You may house their bodies but not their souls,  For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.  You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.  For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. 

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.  The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.  Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;  For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

KAHLIL GIBRAN, THE PROPHET 

clouds for breakfast

If tomorrow morning the sky falls

                                             have clouds for breakfast.

COOPER EDENS 

keep peace with your soul

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.  Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.  Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself....

Be yourself.  Especially, do not feign affection.  Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass. 

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.  Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.  But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.  Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. 

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.  You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.  And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul... 

MAX EHRMANN, DESIDERATA, 1927 

before we sleep

We pray for a calm and peaceful mind.  

May our speech be of service to others.

May our hearts be open, loving and filled with compassion.

YOGA SUTRA OF PATANJALI  (this was introduced to me by kookhee andersson and is now what we say at bedtime)