An online journal sharing my interests in photography, nature, coffee life, journaling, fountain pens, spirituality and asking deep questions.
What is it about
mws
a cloudless sky that
holds my attention?
Maybe it’s the blue
that melts from dark
to baby blue.
Maybe it’s the mystery
surrounding me,
holding me present.
Maybe it’s the sacredness
of nature unfolding
its beauty before me.
When people ask me what they should do,
Meister Eckhart’s Book of Darkness & Light
I tell them this: Love others as much as
you love yourself. If you find
that you don’t love some people as
much as you love yourself, then this
is because you’ve not yet learned
to love yourself fully.
For what you do not love in others
you’ve not yet learned to love in yourself;
work on this and you’ll begin to discover
what it means to love as God loves.
I’m enjoying this third book by Jon M. Sweeney and Mark S Burrows, Meister Eckhart’s Book of Darkness & Light. I use it in much the same way I used their first two books, where I read a poem at a time and sit with it. I almost always find one word or a short line that resonates with me. I may write one of the poems or line or two in my journal because it helps me to retain it in my old memory banks. And, hopefully somehow these words will take seed and therefore potentially change the world, or at least change how I react to it. I would add to make a comment about he last line of this poem. I’ve read somewhere that if the God you know only loves the people you love, then maybe that God is too small. Because that group of people we can love is most likely a rather small group in relation to the population of this world.
Another morning and I wake with thirst
Mary Oliver
for the goodness I do not have. I walk
out to the pond and all the way God has
given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord,
I was never a quick scholar but sulked
and hunched over my books past the hour
and the bell; grant me, in your mercy,
a little more time. Love for the earth
and love for you are having such a long
conversation in my heart. Who knows what
will finally happen or where I will be sent,
yet already I have given a great many things
away, expecting to be told to pack nothing,
except the prayers which, with this thirst,
I am slowly learning.
The great Way is easy,
Tao Te Ching – Verse 53
yet people prefer the side paths.
Be aware when things are out of balance.
Stay centered within the Tao.
When rich speculators prosper
While farmers lose their land;
when government officials spend money
on weapons instead of cures;
when the upper class is extravagant and irresponsible
while the poor have nowhere to turn-
all this is robbery and chaos.
It is not in keeping with the Tao.
I believe poetry is very old.
Mary Oliver
It’s very sacred.
It wishes for a community.
It’s a community ritual, certainly.
And that’s why, when you write a poem,
you write it for anybody and everybody…
It’s a gift to yourself,
but it’s a gift to anybody who has a hunger for it.
Be still, my soul, and steadfast.
May Oliver, The Gift
Earth and heaven both are still watching
though time is draining from the clock
and your walk, that was confident and quick,
has become slow.
So, be slow if you must, but let
the heart still play its true part.
Love still as once you loved, deeply
and without patience. Let God and the world
know you are grateful.
That the gift has been given.
I’m beginning to accept aging as more of a constant companion than someone to avoid. Nor do I live in a fantasy that it will go away. Aging now walks with me every day and walk at that slower pace. Some days I feel the grief of losing that walk that was confident and quick in my life, as Mary says in her poem. Yet, in this season of my life I am grateful for the gift of the life which has been given. What a gift it is to slow down, be present to life, fully experience and enjoy it. So my simple prayer this morning is that I may love as never before. The world needs more love! Why not let a spark begin with me.
I began a crock pot of 15 bean soup this morning. Well there are more than 15 beans in it, which will be ready about 1:00 pm if you wanna come over. May you have a wonderful day, filled with a heart of gratitude!
In the late summer season of life, I found
mws
authors, guides, and teachers who have made me
aware of the gift of my wandering soul and spirit
within my own inner landscape.
With no knowledge of an inner landscape
I went seeking in the enticing outer landscape
yet this wandering soul and spirit of mine
was never satisfied, never fulfilled, always lost
Now in my winter season of life
my soul and spirit wander my inner landscape
seeking the Unknowable,
that source of life,
Whatever and
Whoever that may be.
I’ll end this with a thought from C.G. Jung, suggesting that our wandering has and is the thirst of our being for wholeness, expressed in medieval language: the union with God.