Friday, May 29, 2015

home




Whether drifting through life on a boat or 
climbing toward old age leading a horse, 
each day is a journey and the journey itself is home. 






Basho
Photo:  Peter Bowers












Friday, May 22, 2015

home


Treading along in this dreamlike, illusory realm,
Without looking for the traces I may have left;
A cuckoo's song beckons me to return home,
Hearing this, I tilt my head to see
Who has told me to turn back;
But do not ask me where I am going,
As I travel in this limitless world,
Where every step I take is my home.





Dogen
Photo:  Peter Bowers








Thursday, May 14, 2015

practice


Let silence be the art 
you practice.





 Rumi
Photo:  Peter Bowers





Wednesday, May 13, 2015

unfurling



“I don’t believe in an outside agent that creates the world, then walks away. But I feel very strongly there is an intelligence at work in every flower, in every blade of grass, in every cell of my body. And it is that intelligence that, I wouldn’t say created the universe. It is creating the universe. It’s an ongoing process.”




Eckhart Tolle
Photo:  Peter Bowers











nothing other than this



So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.




 Hermann Hesse
from Trees, Reflections and Poems







Tuesday, May 12, 2015

one breath


When my mother was dying
We made a agreement that when she passed
I would have to find her in new ways

She said,

You can find me in the wind
Or in the scent of a rose..

You will find me in the decisions you make…

Help each other

We are all children of the Gods
And we all share one language
And we all share one breath





Lisa Kristine
Photo:  Peter Bowers








the greatest of these


Though I speak with the tongues of angels,
If I have not love...
My words would resound with but a tinkling cymbal.

And though I have the gift of prophesy...
And understand all mysteries...
and all knowledge...

And though I have all faith
So that I could remove mountains,
If I have not love...
I am nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind;
Love tolerates all things,
Aspires to all things.
Love never dies.
While the prophecies shall be done away,
tongues shall be silenced,
knowledge shall fade...
thus then shall linger only
faith, hope, and love...
but the greatest of these...
is love.





1 Corinthians 13
Photo:  Peter Bowers







Monday, May 4, 2015

The Swan


This clumsy living that moves lumbering
as if in ropes through what is not done,
reminds us of the awkward way the swan walks.

And to die, which is the letting go
of the ground we stand on and cling to every day,
is like the swan, when he nervously lets himself down
into the water, which receives him gaily
and which flows joyfully under
and after him, wave after wave,
while the swan, unmoving and marvelously calm,
is pleased to be carried, each moment more fully grown,
more like a king, further and further on.






Rainer Maria Rilke 
Translated by Robert Bly
Photo:   Peter Bowers











Saturday, May 2, 2015

home


Be ordinary. 

Every place is a place of arrival,
every place is a true home for the practitioner.
There is nothing that is not deep and wonderful,
there is nothing that is not liberated.

The most noble person is the person who has nothing to do. 
The only thing you should avoid is thinking about what
you are going to do.

All you need to do is be an ordinary person,
be sovereign wherever you are and use 
that place as your seat of awakening.

You should live your lives in a very natural way. 
Do not put on airs. 
When it is necessary to walk, walk. 
When it is necessary to sit, sit.





Ramana Maharshi
Photo:  Peter Bowers
with thanks:  Love is Place





home


The act of trying to find the way home is what convinces us we are lost.
We’re not lost, we’re not alone, and we’ve never even left home.


Rumi