Ceaselessly Being Written - Wendell Berry

We arrive here in this world having forgotten where we came from,
though something of a memory seems to remain: a whisper, a
distant shine like that of a house window at night on the far side
of the valley, perhaps what some have called "the inner light," to
guide us when finally we have been jolted awake.  And so we 
don't come from nothing.  But once here we don't know where we
are.  At first I learned the world as a book written, completed the
day before my birth, not to be changed by another pen stroke. 
And then I saw that some I know were departing from it, never
to return, and new strangers were arriving.  The newcomers, if
they stayed, would learn more of less of where they were.  And
then, in time, they too would depart, taking with them the sum
of all they had learned, leaving behind them maybe a few who
would remember them, and then the rememberers too would go 
and be gone.  I see in this order of things, nothing to complain
about.  I have been here long enough to watch the whole turn of 
the wheel.  I see that we are passing through this world like a
river of water flowing through a river of earth.  A far cry from a
written book, the world - to extend my desperate metaphor - is
a book ceaselessly being written, and not in a human language.
This too has not been submitted to our judgment, and it is not
for us to regret.  To give thanks seems truly to be the right
response, for as we come and go we learn something of love,
the gift and the giving of it, if we accept it...

That is the heart speaking in the heart's language, and out of
a mystery so vast that order and chance may be reconciled
within it.  Because, for all we surely know, we come into our
times and places as much at random as leaves falling...

Wendell Berry

from How it Went - Thirteen more stories of
the Port William membership

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

~

Photo -Mystic Meandering

 

Delightful Distractions - Fred LaMotte

Honor the slight distractions
that keep you sane.
These are not distractions.
These are the essentials.
A titmouse at the thistle feeder.
Wing-beat of geese
navigating by the moon.
A glistening spider's web
in the withering hyssop.
Exultation of a turquoise moth
who will only live until sunrise.
The motionless explosion of a rose.
Are you not redeemed by the sure
sweet vision of particulars?

What else is faith?
The baby's ancient gaze
from a supermarket shopping cart.
Elegant cracks in a hand-made tea bowl.
Two dragonflies dancing at the edge
of a spring-fed forest pond.
Fragrance of honeysuckle
on a broken fence.
Sound of a horse's tail
swatting flies on a summer morning.
These are not distractions.
These are every flame-tipped thing
conspiring in a ceaseless revelation
to whisper yes, you are here.
The splendor of Sri Yantra
seen in the camellia blossom
that fell in the night by your back door,
its empyrean petals, choir upon choir.
The crown of an infant against your cheek.
Bamboo wind chimes in an empty temple.
Whisper of waves dissolving on sand.
The silence between raindrops.
This breath.

Fred LaMotte
Uradiance

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

~

My personal delights:

Crickets chirping their chorus in the quiet of night.
The sound of rain hitting the elephant ear leaves of
 a zucchini plant in the garden.

Sitting in the open window late at night
breathing in the silence, as the cool night air
brushes my face.
The early morning echo of the birds wake-up call,
or their haunting goodnight song.
Sunlight through glassware... :)

What are some of your delights?