| A Cottage by the Sea |
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 I listen and hear the Silence
I listen and see the Silence I listen and taste the Silence I listen and smell the Silence I listen and embrace the Silence Twylah Nitsch  Photo by Jack Mohr Fly away, fly away fire to your native home,
You have leapt freee of the cage Your wings are plug back in the wind of God. Leave behind the stagnant and marshy waters Hurry, hurry, hurry, O bird, to the source of life! Rumi  BY JANE KENYON
Let the light of late afternoon shine through chinks in the barn, moving up the bales as the sun moves down. Let the cricket take up chafing as a woman takes up her needles and her yarn. Let evening come. Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned in long grass. Let the stars appear and the moon disclose her silver horn. Let the fox go back to its sandy den. Let the wind die down. Let the shed go black inside. Let evening come. To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop in the oats, to air in the lung let evening come. Let it come, as it will, and don’t  James Russell Lowell - 1819-1891 And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays: Whether we look, or whether we listen, We hear life murmur, or see it glisten; Every clod feels a stir of might, An instinct within it that reaches and towers, And, groping blindly above it for light, Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers; The flush of life may well be seen Thrilling back over hills and valleys; The cowslip startles in meadows green, The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice, And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean To be some happy creature's palace; The little bird sits at his door in the sun, Atilt like a blossom among the leaves, And lets his illumined being o'errun With the deluge of summer it receives; His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings, And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings; He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,-- In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best? Now is the high-tide of the year, And whatever of life hath ebbed away Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer, Into every bare inlet and creek and bay; Now the heart is so full that a drop over-fills it, We are happy now because God wills it; No matter how barren the past may have been, 'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green; We sit in the warm shade and feel right well How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell; We may shut our eyes, but we cannot help knowing That skies are clear and grass is growing; The breeze comes whispering in our ear, That dandelions are blossoming near, That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing, That the river is bluer than the sky, That the robin is plastering his house hard by; And if the breeze kept the good news back, For other couriers we should not lack; We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,-- And hark! how clear bold chanticleer, Warmed with the new wine of the year, Tells all in his lusty crowing!  “Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability – and that it may take a very long time. And so I think it is with you; your ideas mature gradually—let them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste. Don’t try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow. Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give Our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.” Patient Trust Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ excerpted from Hearts on Fire  Somewhere a black bear has just risen from sleep and is staring down the mountain. All night in the brisk and shallow restlessness of early spring I think of her, her four black fists flicking the gravel, her tongue like a red fire touching the grass, the cold water. There is only one question: how to love this world. I think of her rising like a black and leafy ledge to sharpen her claws against the silence of the trees. Whatever else my life is with its poems and its music and its glass cities, it is also this dazzling darkness coming down the mountain, breathing and tasting; all day I think of her -— her white teeth, her wordlessness, her perfect love.  A Prayer for the Word Rabbi Harold S. Kushner
Let the sun come down and wash away the ancient grudges, the bitter hatreds held and nurtured over generations. Let the rain wash away the memory of the hurt, the neglect. Then let the sun come out and fill the sky with rainbows. Let the warmth of the sun heal us wherever we are broken. Let it burn away the fog so that so that we can see each other clearly. So that we can see beyond labels, beyond accents, gender or skin color. Let the warmth and brightness of the sun melt our selfishness, So that we can share the joys and feel the sorrows of our neighbors. And let the light of the sun be so strong that we will see all people as our neighbors. Let the earth nourished by rain, bring forth flowers to surround us with beauty. And let the mountains teach our hearts to reach upward to heaven. Amen  Our true nature is stillness,
The Source from which we come. . . . . The deep listening of pure contemplation Is the path to stillness. All words disappear into It, And all creation awakens to the delight of Just Being. —Thomas Keating, “Stillness”  Priceless Gifts
By Anna Swir (1909 - 1984) English version by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan www.Poetry-Chaikhana.com An empty day without events. And that is why it grew immense as space. And suddenly happiness of being entered me. I heard in my heartbeat the birth of time and each instant of life one after the other came rushing in like priceless gifts. In this passing moment
By Hogen Bays (Contemporary) posted in www.poetry-chaikhana.com "In the presence of Sangha, in the light of Dharma, in oneness with Buddha -- may my path to complete enlightenment benefit everyone!" In this passing moment karma ripens and all things come to be. I vow to choose what is: If there is cost, I choose to pay. If there is need, I choose to give. If there is pain, I choose to feel. If there is sorrow, I choose to grieve. When burning -- I choose heat. When calm -- I choose peace. When starving -- I choose hunger. When happy -- I choose joy. Whom I encounter, I choose to meet. What I shoulder, I choose to bear. When it is my death, I choose to die. Where this takes me, I choose to go. Being with what is -- I respond to what is. This life is as real as a dream; the one who knows it cannot be found; and, truth is not a thing -- Therefore I vow to choose THIS dharma entrance gate! May all Buddhas and Wise Ones help me live this vow. |