The woman who cherished her suffering is dead. 

I am her descendant.

I love the scar tissue she handed on to me,

but I want to go from here with you

fighting the temptation to make a career of pain.

--Adrienne Rich

Why I Wake Early

Hello, sun in my face.

Hello, you who make the morning

and spread it over the fields

and into the faces of the tulips

and the nodding morning glories,

and into the windows of, even, the

miserable and crotchety–

best preacher that ever was,

dear star, that just happens

to be where you are in the universe

to keep us from ever-darkness,

to ease us with warm touching,

to hold us in the great hands of light–

good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day

in happiness, in kindness.

-- Mary Oliver

Counting blessings

I'm stringing together my gratitudes

like these unruly pre-schoolers I see

crossing the street in a snaking line,

tethered to each other by a strong

neon-green rope, protected from traffic

as they shout and strain to break away.

I count my blessings to keep them close: 

this body, this house, this one heart

creaking open to let in the spring sun

as I say thank you to the black-capped

flashes of chickadees at the feeder,

to sudden sleet, and stones half-buried

in our yard, having melted the snow

from around their mossy skin, each one

now somehow warmer to the touch.

--James Crews

 The practice of generosity is not as simple as it may sound. The idea is to be attuned to the motive—whatever it is—and to learn from our direct experience. Ajahn Chah said we begin doing away with selfishness through giving. Selfishness leads to a sense of discontent, and yet people tend to be selfish without realizing how it affects them. A selfish heart takes us in the direction of self and separation from happiness. On the other hand, a selfless heart is one of the most powerful tools we have for overcoming the suffering states of greed, hatred and delusion. We override self-absorbed impulses and replace them with concern for the welfare of other people.

As a spiritual practice, dāna is about learning from the giving and from the holding back—to see for ourselves which feels best, to learn the subtle attachments that cause us to hold back or to think only of ourselves, and to know the release of letting go.

In this world, monks, there are three things

[of value] for one who gives.

What are these three things?

Before giving, the mind of the giver is happy.

While giving the mind of the giver is made peaceful.

After having given, the mind of the giver is uplifted.

(A 3.6.37)

Excerpt from "There’s More to Giving Than We Think" by Gloria Taraniya Ambrosia, Insight Journal 2006

 @rosamund

I want to get the same slack that your racist uncle does, like instead of "oh he grew up that way, he's very traditional" can I get "oh, she just believes in a future that doesn't depend on white supremacy or the gender binary, it's fine."

 When someone encourages you, that person helps you over a threshold you might otherwise never have crossed on your own. There are times of great uncertainty in every life. Left alone at such a time, you feel dishevelment and confusion like gravity. When a friend comes with words of encouragement, a light and lightness visit you and you begin to find the stairs and the door out of the dark. The sense of encouragement you feel from the friend is not simply her words or gestures; it is rather her whole presence enfolding you and helping you find the concealed door. The encouraging presence manages to understand you and put herself in your shoes. There is no judgement but words of relief and release.

John O'Donohue, Excerpt from his book, Eternal Echoes

A cure against poisonous thought

Believe the world goes on 

and this bee bending

in honeysuckle just one

of a mighty nation, golden

beads thrumming

a long invisible thread.

In the green drift of an afternoon,

the body is not root but wick:

the press of light surrounds it.

--Annie Lighthart

Fireflies

Some insights come like lightning—

blinding and fierce—while others arrive

as firefly-flashes that brighten only

an inch or so of air around them.

Yet even these can gather power

over time, like the summer night

I woke and stood at the window 

to watch all that pulsing outside—

like thousands of prayers flaring up

above the houses, saying here 

and here and here, as I made my way

down the stairs using only the light 

of those small bodies to guide me.

—James Crews

The Valuable Time of Maturity

I counted my years and discovered that I have 

less time to live going forward than I have lived until now. 

I have more past than future. 

I feel like the boy who received a bowl of candies. 

The first ones, he ate ungracious, 

but when he realized there were only a few left, 

he began to taste them deeply. 

I do not have time to deal with mediocrity. 

I do not want to be in meetings where parade inflamed egos. 

I am bothered by the envious, who seek to discredit 

the most able, to usurp their places, 

coveting their seats, talent, achievements and luck. 

I do not have time for endless conversations, 

useless to discuss about the lives of others 

who are not part of mine. 

I do not have time to manage sensitivities of people 

who despite their chronological age, are immature. 

I cannot stand the result that generates 

from those struggling for power. 

People do not discuss content, only the labels. 

My time has become scarce to discuss labels, 

I want the essence, my soul is in a hurry… 

Not many candies in the bowl… 

I want to live close to human people, 

very human, who laugh of their own stumbles, 

and away from those turned smug and overconfident 

with their triumphs, 

away from those filled with self-importance, 

Who does not run away from their responsibilities .. 

Who defends human dignity. 

And who only want to walk on the side of truth 

and honesty. 

The essential is what makes 

life worthwhile. 

I want to surround myself with people, 

who knows how to touch the hearts of people …. 

People to whom the hard knocks of life, 

taught them to grow with softness in their soul. 

Yes …. I am in a hurry … to live with intensity, 

that only maturity can bring. 

I intend not to waste any part of the goodies 

I have left … 

I'm sure they will be more exquisite, 

that most of which so far I've eaten. 

My goal is to arrive to the end satisfied and in peace 

with my loved ones and my conscience. 

I hope that your goal is the same, 

because either way you will get there too .. 

--Mário de Andrade

 The Cryptonaturalist

@cryptonature

I can't understand the sky the way a vulture does. I can't know what a pond is the way a musk turtle knows. I will never comprehend a tree as a footpath like a squirrel can. But I will sense the presence of these unknowable perspectives like the sun on my face and I am grateful.

Practicing generosity is the intention to find release from attachment by giving freely of whatever you have of value. The form your generosity takes is up to you, as it can only come from your values and what you have to offer. What you have to give may be material in nature or it may be your time, energy, or wisdom. Practicing generosity eradicates the attachment that comes from feelings of scarcity and separateness.

--Phillip Moffitt

On Blueberry Picking

Mostly it consists of pretending 

not to pick them, since the wild bush--

more a tree really, thrives in plain 

view among scrub pines, along the road

that leads to the Truro sea. So when cars

near, we turn from the bush, busying

our hands in air, as if plucking a thread

of conversation started ages back--

which, between my mother and me,

must be the case. When a car gets far 

enough away, we resume our harvest:

hands and lips stained with what

the season tenders: the fat or compact

berries that will never be sweeter than

this moment. I say this in the present 

tense, as if the harvesting goes on.

I recall my mother doubled over

in laughter, midsummer, by that bush, 

and a man in a blue truck stopping.

I'm a doctor, he said. Are you ill?

Physicians are trained to see what's 

amiss, what they might fix. Bliss,

from a distance, can look like pain.

But it was bliss, I'm thinking now,

speeding past all those ghosts in flower.

--Andrea Cohen

Peonies

This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready

to break my heart

as the sun rises,

as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers

and they open —

pools of lace,

white and pink —

and all day the black ants climb over them,

boring their deep and mysterious holes

into the curls,

craving the sweet sap,

taking it away

to their dark, underground cities —

and all day

under the shifty wind,

as in a dance to the great wedding,

the flowers bend their bright bodies,

and tip their fragrance to the air,

and rise,

their red stems holding

all that dampness and recklessness

gladly and lightly,

and there it is again —

beauty the brave, the exemplary,

blazing open.

Do you love this world?

Do you cherish your humble and silky life?

Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?

Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden,

and softly,

and exclaiming of their dearness,

fill your arms with the white and pink flowers,

with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling,

their eagerness

to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are

nothing, forever?

-- Mary Oliver

How to walk an old dog

Give up your agenda: this 

is exploration, not exercise.

She can't hear you calling her on,

but then, you can't smell whatever

is so intriguing about that clump of grass,

so maybe just relax. Stop counting steps.

Don't even count birds, or minutes

or the things you have left to do

on your pressing and eternal list.

Move gently into the immeasurable.

Stop to greet children. Consider

that the most fascinating thing in the world

could be your neighbour's garbage can.

Observe without judgement

what is near to hand--even if what you see 

is the halt in her step, the way

her spine has begun to show. Walk

just long enough to remember

that love is not an antidote to death,

but loss is not the opposite of life.

--Lynn Ungar

The First Green of Spring

Out walking in the swamp picking cowslip, marsh marigold,

this sweet first green of spring. Now sautéed in a pan melting

to a deeper green than ever they were alive, this green, this life,

harbinger of things to come. Now we sit at the table munching

on this message from the dawn which says we and the world

are alive again today, and this is the world’s birthday. And

even though we know we are growing old, we are dying, we

will never be young again, we also know we’re still right here

now, today, and, my oh my! don’t these greens taste good.

-- David Budbill

From Moment to Moment: Poems of a Mountain Recluse.

 An ethical precept is a question to be held up to the light of circumstance, an inquiry rather than an answer. And the nature of this inquiry is not so much the dubious enterprise of trying to figure out the right thing to do as it is an offering of an unaided heart.

Lin Jensen

A Letter in Return

And how do you live?

With grief. With fear. With laughter.

With boredom. With glee. With contentment.

With fury. With hope.

With the firm conviction that no thing

cancels any other thing out.

Death does not cancel life.

Grief does not cancel joy.

Fear does not cancel conviction.

Nor any of those statements in reverse.

Make your heart a bowl

that is large enough to hold it all.

Imagine that you are the potter.

Stretch the clay. Cherish the turning wheel.

Accept that the bowl

is never going to be done.

- Lynn Ungar

 I used to believe that the only way I could change was if I had a peak experience, or a nevous breakthrough, or won a noisy battle with a relentless pattern. This emphasis on dramatic transition was a reflection of my dramatic early life, one where nothing ever seemed to happen subtly. But I was wrong. Some transitions do have to happen in the heart of intensity, but not all do. In fact, many cannot happen that way: the drama just intensifies the armor that surrounds the pattern. Instead, some patterns transform slowly, carefully, subtly over time. We unravel one thread, then another, then another, until the structure melts into the next way of being on our path. So much happens in the quiet within. So much.

--Jeff Brown

 ... [B]efore we are able to relax unwhole­some thoughts, they must be recognized as such. One characteristic of the unskilled mind, of course, is its inability clearly to dis­tinguish between wholesome and unwhole­some thoughts. Just as the unskilled mind has difficulty even knowing when it is absorbed in thought, it finds it hard to know when a thought is edifying or corrosive—or even the importance of this distinction. An apocryphal anecdote from the life of Sigmund Freud puts this difficulty in an amusing light. Freud sup­posedly asked one his patients if she were ever troubled by lustful thoughts. “No,” she re­plied, “I rather enjoy them.”

Excerpt from an article by Mark Muesse, "Taking Responsibility for Our Thoughts: Reflections on the Vitakkasaṇṭhāna Sutta," Insight Journal 2001

Storage

When I moved from one house to another

there were many things I had no room

for. What does one do? I rented a storage

space. And filled it. Years passed.

Occasionally I went there and looked in,

but nothing happened, not a single

twinge of the heart.

As I grew older the things I cared

about grew fewer, but were more

important. So one day I undid the lock

and called the trash man. He took

everything.

I felt like the little donkey when

his burden is finally lifted. Things!

Burn them, burn them! Make a beautiful

fire! More room in your heart for love,

for the trees! For the birds who own

nothing–the reason they can fly.

-- Mary Oliver

Buddha's Dogs

I'm at a day-long meditation retreat, eight hours of watching

my mind with my mind,

and I already fell asleep twice and nearly fell out of my chair,

and it's not even noon yet.

In the morning session, I learned to count my thoughts, ten in

one minute, and the longest

was to leave and go to San Anselmo and shop, then find an outdoor cafe and order a glass

of Sancerre, smoked trout with roasted potatoes and baby

carrots and a bowl of gazpacho.

But I stayed and learned to name my thoughts, so far they are:

wanting, wanting, wanting,

wanting, wanting, wanting, wanting, wanting, judgment,

sadness.  Don't identify with your

thoughts, the teacher says, you are not your personality, not your

ego-identification,

then he bangs the gong for lunch.  Whoever, whatever I am is

given instruction

in the walking meditation and the eating meditation and walks

outside with the other

meditators, and we wobble across the lake like The Night of the

Living Dead.

I meditate slowly, falling over a few times because I kept my

foot in the air too long,

towards a bench, sit slowly down, and slowly eat my sandwich,

noticing the bread,

(sourdough), noticing the taste, (tuna, sourdough), noticing

the smell, (sourdough, tuna),

thanking the sourdough, the tuna, the ocean, the boat, the

fisherman, the field, the grain,

the farmer, the Saran Wrap that kept this food fresh for this

body made of food and desire

and the hope of getting through the rest of this day without

dying of boredom.

Sun then cloud then sun.  I notice a maple leaf on my sandwich.

It seems awfully large.

Slowly brushing it away, I feel so sad I can hardly stand it, so I

name my thoughts; they are:

sadness about my mother, judgment about my father, wanting

the child I never had.

I notice I've been chasing the same thoughts like dogs around

the same park most of my life,

notice the leaf tumbling gold to the grass.  The gong sounds,

and back in the hall.

I decide to try lying down meditation, and let myself sleep.  The

Buddha in my dream is me,

surrounded by dogs wagging their tails, licking my hands.

I wake up

for the forgiveness meditation, the teacher saying, never put

anyone out of your heart,

and the heart opens and knows it won't last and will have to

open again and again,

chasing those dogs around and around in the sun then cloud

then sun.

--Susan Browne