Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,even in the leafless winter,even in the ashy city.I am thinking nowof grief, and of getting past it; I feel my bootstrying to leave the ground,I feel my heartpumping hard. I want to think again of dangerous and noble things.I want to be light and frolicsome.I want to…
“Because of the dog’s joyfulness, our own is increased. It is no small gift. It is not the least reason why we should honor as well as love the dog of our own life, and the dog down the street, and all the dogs not yet born. What would the world be like without music…
August of another summer, and once againI am drinking the sunand the lilies again are spread across the water.I know now what they want is to touch each other. — Mary Oliver, The Pond As we head into the dog days of summer, I find myself with a good dog to share walks with. Puppy…
“Mortality makes it impossible to ignore the absurdity of living solely for the future.” ― Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals “We’ve been granted the mental capacities to make almost infinitely ambitious plans, yet practically no time at all to put them into action.” ― Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management…
“Certainly there is within each of us a self that is neither a child, nor a servant of the hours. It is a third self, occasional in some of us, tyrant in others. This self is out of love with the ordinary; it is out of love with time. It has a hunger for eternity.”…
“We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.” — Charles Bukowski There is a Persian lime tree growing in a large pot on the sunny deck behind my…
Have I lived enough?Have I loved enough?Have I considered Right Action enough, have I come to any conclusion?Have I experienced happiness with sufficient gratitude?Have I endured loneliness with grace? I say this, or perhaps I’m just thinking it.Actually, I probably think too much. Then I step out into the garden,where the gardener, who is said…
I go down to the shore in the morningand depending on the hour the wavesare rolling in or moving out,and I say, oh, I am miserable,what shall—what should I do? And the sea saysin its lovely voice:Excuse me, I have work to do. — Mary Oliver The ocean is indifferent to our schemes and stumbles….
And consider, always, every day, the determinationof the grass to grow despite the unending obstacles.— Mary Oliver, Evidence We are change agents, creating new iterations of ourselves with every action. But so is everyone and everything else, which makes change exponential and complicated. There are some things we simply can’t control. One moment we’re celebrating…
And we died of the future, of calling and mission only we could keep, leaping into every favorite season; sinking into roots, dreams, and books. — Li-Young Lee, First World “I am losing precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I…