• coffee life,  fountain pens,  journal,  musings,  quotes,  writing/reading

    Follow in Their Footsteps

    January 17, 2024

    “And at some point, I thought, well, I’ve been really lucky to see many, many places. Now, the great adventure is the inner world, now that I’ve spent a lot of time gathering emotions, impressions, and experiences. Now, I just want to sit still for years on end, really, charting that inner landscape because I think anybody who travels knows that you’re not really doing so in order to move around—you’re traveling in order to be moved. And really what you’re seeing is not just the Grand Canyon or the Great Wall but some moods or intimations or places inside yourself that you never ordinarily see when you’re sleepwalking through your daily life. I thought, there’s this great undiscovered terrain that Henry David Thoreau and Thomas Merton and Emily Dickinson fearlessly investigated, and I want to follow in their footsteps.”

    Pico Iyer

    I do not remember being encouraged to read when I was younger, although I probably was. I know I recoiled at reading assignments in school and writing those frightening book reports. But now I find it fascinating how much I enjoy and want to read. Not sure if this is because I have more time to read, I’ve found subjects I’m interested in, or found authors who seem to put into words what I can’t. It’s most likely all the above but primarily because I find this inward journey exciting. And, words within books help me along this path of discovery. I find words become seeds which take root over time, transforming us in becoming who we were created to be. It is a gift to read and be inspired to write my own words as I follow along in their footsteps.

    And today we celebrate my dad’s 95th birthday. I also want to follow in his footsteps. What a gift!

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  • clouds,  landscape,  Meister Eckhart,  poems,  sunrises,  writing/reading

    Darkness & Light

    August 23, 2023
    Sunrise taken August 10, 2023

    When people ask me what they should do,
    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.

    Meister Eckhart’s Book of Darkness & Light

    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.

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  • clouds,  landscape,  natural areas,  Pineridge Natural Area,  quotes,  sunrises

    Those Edges

    May 14, 2023
    Storm clouds over Pineridge Natural Area

    The most interesting parts of the natural world are the edges, places where ocean meets land, meadow meets forest, timberline touches the heights.

    Galen Rowell

    I have been interested in horizons for many years and never really thought of them as edges, where a sky of clouds or stars meets the land, water, forests, prairie and those lovely song birds. Maybe the edges are the most interesting thing for me in my horizons. Could it be that is what the birds are singing about, those edges?

    This morning we have no visible edges on the horizon. Nor are there any dramatic clouds as we had yesterday afternoon in the above image. Instead a fine mist and low clouds sits over Pineridge Natural Area, while the city is shrouded in mystery. Even without the sight of those edges we know of there existence and if we are courageous enough, venture towards them. What discoveries will we find? And those song birds continue to sing reminding us there are edges to discover, maybe even urging us on.

    Happy Mother’s Day!

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  • fog,  landscape,  Plants,  quotes,  snow,  trees

    Look with open eyes

    April 15, 2023

    “Zen is less the study of doctrine than a set of tools for discovering what can be known when the world is looked at with open eyes.”

    Jane Hirshfield, The Heart of Haiku

    I was surprised to see the dusting of snow and fog this morning. So I took the long-cut to the coffee shop via Stuart Street to visit the cottonwood tree at the Fisher Nature Area Trail. If you look closely you will see a red tailed hawk in the top of the cottonwood. Fog has burned off as blue sky and sunshine make their appearance. Have a wonderful Saturday and look with open eyes!

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  • prayer,  quotes,  Thomas Merton

    the gift of silence, … and solitude

    March 14, 2023
    A quiet cloudless predawn sky at Dixon Reservoir

    When I am liberated by silence,
    when I am no longer involved in the
    measurement of life,
    but in the living of it,

    I can discover a form of prayer in which
    there is effectively, no distraction.

    My whole life becomes a prayer.
    My whole silence is full of prayer.

    The world of silence in which I am immersed
    contributes to my prayer.
    Let me seek, then, the gift of silence, … and solitude,
    where everything I touch is turned into prayer:

    where the sky is my prayer,
    the birds are my prayer,
    the wind in the trees is my prayer,
    for God is all in all.

    Thomas Merton

    Someone introduced me to the above prayer/poem by Thomas Merton this past Saturday. This prayer resonates with me because both silence and prayer have become a major part of my adult life. I am never the same after standing in the silence and solitude before a predawn sky over Dixon Reservoir. I’ve come to believe it is in the silence and solitude I’m more apt to hear the prayers within me that do transform me. And in that transformation I’ve come to ponder the question, What would our world be like if more people listened in the silence and solitude of prayer? Plus, silence and solitude are great teachers at listening. I’d venture to say the world needs more listeners than talkers.

    I began writing this post on Sunday afternoon and will schedule its posting for 7:00 am today, which is when they start my surgery. I’ll let you know how that all turns out later.

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  • National Parks,  quotes,  Yellowstone National Park

    You had to be there!!

    September 3, 2022

    “You can only appreciate nature by feeling and seeing it with the heart and the eyes of a child.”

    Michael Bassey Johnson

    I would not be able to look myself in the mirror if I visited Yellowstone National Park without a photograph of the lower and upper falls of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. I got both! Crowds were small at Artists Point due to the time of year. Without crowds I was able to just stand there watching, listening, experiencing the awe and wonder of it all. I took this photograph about 2:00 pm and that’s why the lighting is flat, but I also know any image would fail to express the experience. You had to be there!!! The waterfall captures most people’s attention but the canyon with those precipitous jagged cliffs and that yellow rock cause me stand speechless while listening to the sound of the waterfalls power echo in the canyon. I already wanna go back.

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