“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond them.” – Alan Watts Enjoying being alive is surely a worthy pursuit, but even Watts, in pointing this…
In the place that is my own place, whose earthI am shaped in and must bear, there is an old tree growing,a great sycamore that is a wondrous healer of itself.Fences have been tied to it, nails driven into it,hacks and whittles cut in it, the lightning has burned it.There is no year it has…
“However much I may be impressed by the difference between a star and the dark space around it, I must not forget that I can see the two only in relation to each other, and that this relation is inseparable.” – Alan Watts In the United States, we have this peaceful transfer of power every…
“I have learned, as a rule of thumb, never to ask whether you can do something. Say, instead, that you are doing it. Then fasten your seat belt. The most remarkable things follow.” – Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way The hard part about writing every day wasn’t starting, it was mentioning to people that I…
“We have somehow conned ourselves into the notion that this moment is ordinary. This now moment, in which I’m talking and you’re listening, is eternity.” – Alan Watts Well, we’ve reached it again. Now. Did you expect it to be more? Now.Such that it is. Our time; our only time.Make it shine. I thought about…
“My house stands in low land, with limited outlook, and on the skirt of the village. But I go with my friend to the shore of our little river, and with one stroke of the paddle I leave the village politics and personalities, yes, and the world of villages and personalities behind, and pass into…
“How quietly Ibegin again from this momentlooking at the clock, I start over So much time haspassed, and is equaledby whateversplit-second is present from thismoment this momentis the first”– Wendell Berry, Be Still In Haste Two weeks into the New Year. About as distracting a beginning to a New Year as I can ever recall….
“In times when we thought ourselves indolent, we have afterwards discovered that much was accomplished, and much was begun in us.“– Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays: Second Series, “Experience“ (and all subsequent quotes in this post) I got lost in the headlines for a bit before writing today. Getting spun up in politics and pandemics and…
“You boys going to get somewhere, or just going?” We didn’t understand his question, and it was a damned good question. – Jack Kerouac, On the Road I first visited Jack Kerouac’s grave in Lowell, Massachusetts when I was 20 years old. Once I knew where it was I’d stop in now and then to…
“Don’t call this world adorable, or useful, that’s not it.It’s frisky, and a theater for more than fair winds.”Mary Oliver, Where Does the Dance Begin, Where Does It End? When the world show you more than fair winds (this week surely did that), a sprinkling of Mary Oliver poetry soothes the soul. Don’t think I…
