“You, too, can be carved anew by the depths of your devotion.”

~ Mary Oliver

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

“Walk on air against your better judgement.”

~ Seamus Heaney

“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says ‘Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.’”

~ Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

once a snowflake fell
on my brow and i loved it so much and i kissed
it and it was happy and called its cousins
and brothers and a web
of snow engulfed me then
i reached to love them all
and i squeezed them and they became
a spring rain and i stood perfectly
still and was a flower

~ nikki giovanni, winter poem

(i saw this poem on facebook and fell in love. isn’t it delightful! just like winter snowflakes.)

“Do not say, ‘It is morning,’ and dismiss it with a name of yesterday. See it for the first time as a newborn child that has no name.”

~ Rabindranath Tagore

“God, or the gods, are invisible, quite
understandable. But holiness is visible,
entirely.”

~ Mary Oliver, in “Leaves and Blossoms Along the Way”

i was just reading the sweet tribute mama gena wrote to her pup. my favorite lines were these, about people with dogs:

“They are people who have deliberately chosen to let unconditional love into their lives. They are people who want to be reminded daily that they are the most important thing in the world, and worthy of deep relentless adoration and affection.”

oh, did this resonate with me. when atlas came into my life, i didn’t believe i was worthy of love at all. and yet he loved me. fully & completely.

in every moment, he showed me that i was worthy of adoration & affection, simply because i was his person & i existed.

i mean, look at this photo! you know how atlas feels about photos & posing & dogs in costume. and yet he continues to adore me. though let the record reflect that i respected his deep dislike of costumes even though i did take advantage of his fondness for bandanas.

12 years later, i do love myself. fully & completely. the way he loved me all along. in the moments when i falter, there he is, ready (as always) to remind me.

the love of a dog is really something special. and the love of an old dog, oh my. so much slow true depth & richness.

it is so beautiful in the woods right now that all i can say is “look! look! look!!!”

fortunately, there are people who can express themselves much better than i can.

“Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love – that makes life and nature harmonise. The birds are consulting about their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay, and begin to strew the ground, that one’s very footsteps may not disturb the repose of earth and air, while they give us a scent that is a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit. Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.”

~ George Eliot, Letters to Miss Eliot

“my very soul is wedded to [autumn]”. is that not the most delightful sentiment? i echo it wholeheartedly.