Quiet, Quiet, The Small Creatures Are Talking

“It was calculated that if you yell
for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days,
you will generate enough energy
to heat a cup of coffee.

Yet an ostrich has an eye bigger
than its brain and starfish have no
brains at all and the silky butterflies
taste with their feet.

So we have these choices: We can
yell and heat up. Or be still till our
eye perceives more than our brain.
Or spread like a star and give over
to the deep. Or open our pain till
we discover that the inside of the
heart is a kind of butterfly.
Then, we too can
taste with our feet.

To still all thought into a
seeing, to be carried by the
deep, to taste with our feet –
these are fates the saints
of all traditions fell into.

In here, the tongue is our
strongest muscle and
compassion
is its yoga.”

Mark Nepo, reduced to joy