States of the atmosphere pass into us as water through the meshes of a sieve, and storms occur in us before they break upon the world without, creating restless sensations.
―Julian Hawthorne, “Absolute Evil”
connectedness
Quote for Today: Oli Anderson
The first step to empathy and compassion is realising the similarities between yourself and those that are suffering; the first step to forgiveness is realising that we’re all human and we all share the same capacity for fallibility and foible; the first step to growth is to recognise the value of things that are outside your current mental frameworks so that you can grow into them.
―Oli Anderson, Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness
US Ambassador joins Faisal Mosque Interfaith Prayer, Talks © US Embassy Pakistan with CCLicense
Quote for Today: Jonathan Sacks
The extraordinary thing we now know, thanks to Crick and Watson’s discovery of DNA and the decoding of the human and other genomes, is that all life, everything, all the three million species of life and plant life-all have the same source. We all come from a single source. Everything that lives has its genetic code written in the same alphabet. Unity creates diversity. So don’t think of one God, one truth, one way. Think of one God creating this extraordinary number of ways, the 6,800 languages that are actually spoken. Don’t think there’s only one language within which we can speak to God.
—Jonathan Sacks, “Enriched by Difference”, from On Being with Krista Tippett
Please read the entire interview here.
Public Domain Image via Pixabay
Quote for Today: Edward Hirsch
Rhythm creates a pattern of yearning and expectation, of recurrence and difference. It is related to the pulse, the heartbeat, the way we breathe. It takes us into ourselves; it takes us out of ourselves. It differentiates us; it unites us to the cosmos.
Quote for Today: Rabindranath Tagore
The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures.
It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.
It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth
and of death, in ebb and in flow.
I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.
―Rabindranath Tagore,“Stream of Life”
Public Domain Image via publicdomainpictures.net
Quote for Today: Wendell Berry
If we are looking for insurance against want and oppression, we will find it only in our neighbors’ prosperity and goodwill and, beyond that, in the good health of our worldly places, our homelands. If we were sincerely looking for a place of safety, for real security and success, then we would begin to turn to our communities – and not the communities simply of our human neighbors but also of the water, earth, and air, the plants and animals, all the creatures with whom our local life is shared.
―Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays
Image: Mindfulness © Darrygh O Connor with CCLicense
Quote for Today: Akira Kurosawa
People today have forgotten they’re really just a part of nature. Yet, they destroy the nature on which our lives depend. They always think they can make something better. Especially scientists. They may be smart, but most don’t understand the heart of nature. They only invent things that, in the end, make people unhappy. Yet they’re so proud of their inventions. What’s worse, most people are, too. They view them as if they were miracles. They worship them. They don’t know it, but they’re losing nature. They don’t see that they’re going to perish. The most important things for human beings are clean air and clean water.
–Akira Kurosawa, Yume
Public Domain Image via pexels.com
Quote for Today: Mary Elizabeth Frye
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.
Image: Light’s Promise, Katherine McDaniel 2016
In loving memory of Lisa Sasabuki, 2000-2016, dear sweet cat and gentle spirit. I’ll never hear the wind in the leaves quite the same way. Ack and chirp over the rainbow bridge to your dear brother Nick. We love you so much.
Quote for Today: Bill Plotkin
Soul has been demoted to a new-age spiritual fantasy or a missionary’s booty, and nature has been treated, at best, as a postcard or a vacation backdrop or, more commonly, as a hardware store or refuse heap. Too many of us lack intimacy with the natural world and with our souls, and consequently we are doing untold damage to both.
Image © epSos.de with CCLicense
Quote for Today: Epes Sargent
The human soul is like a bird that is born in a cage. Nothing can deprive it of its natural longings, or obliterate the mysterious remembrance of its heritage.