Joanna Macy: The Most Remarkable Feature

The most remarkable feature of this historical moment on Earth is not that we are on the way to destroying the world—we’ve actually been on the way for quite a while. It is that we are beginning to wake up, as from a millennia-long sleep, to a whole new relationship to our world, to ourselves and each other.

- Joanna Macy 

 

Tara Brach: Holding Ourselves With Kindness

The intimacy that arises in listening and speaking truth is only possible if we can open to the vulnerability of our own hearts. Breathing in, contacting the life that is right here, is our first step. Once we have held ourselves with kindness, we can touch others in a vital and healing way.

― Tara Brach, True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

Joseph Goldstein:The Human Heart

On the deepest level, problems such as war and starvation 

are not solved by economics and politics alone. 

Their source is prejudice and fear in the human heart — 

and their solution also lies in the human heart.

― Joseph Goldstein, The Path of Insight Meditation

 

Mary Oliver: Mindful

Mindful

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant -
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

- Mary Oliver

 

Naomi Shihab Nye: Before You Know Kindness

Photo of Kuan Yin by Molly

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,

You must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

- Naomi Shihab Nye

Gary Snyder: I Am Still In Love

Range after range of mountains.
Year after year after year.
I am still in love.
 

― Gary Snyder

 

Gary Snyder: Find Your Place

Find your place on the planet. 

Dig in, and take responsibility from there.
 

― Gary Snyder

 

Connection to the Sacred

It is for each of us to reclaim the connection to the sacred 

within creation in our own way.
 

- Llewellyn Vaughan-lee

 

John O'Donohue: Beannacht

Photo by Molly

For Robin Williams, for my brother, for all those who have suffered so greatly 

and for those they leave behind. May we open and heal our hearts. 

May we discover peace, belonging, connection, compassion and love.

Peace & blessings ~ Molly

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Beannacht 

On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.

And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The grey window
And the ghost of loss
Gets into you,
May a flock of colours,
Indigo, red, green
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
In the currach of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.

 – John O’Donohue

Einstein: The World Is a Dangerous Place

The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, 

but because of those who look on and do nothing.

 

- Albert Einstein 

 

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Tag, we are all it! Blessings to all...

Molly