Friday, March 28, 2014

Come to the Orchard in Spring



Come to the orchard in Spring.
There is light and wine, and sweethearts
in the pomegranate flowers.

If you do not come, these do not matter.
If you do come, these do not matter.





Rumi
Photo:  Peter Bowers






Monday, March 24, 2014

A Morning Offering



I bless the night that nourished my heart
To set the ghosts of longing free
Into the flow and figure of dream
That went to harvest from the dark
Bread for the hunger no one sees.

All that is eternal in me
Welcomes the wonder of this day,
The field of brightness it creates
Offering time for each thing
To arise and illuminate.

I place on the alter of dawn:
The quiet loyalty of breath,
The tent of thought where I shelter,
Waves of desire I am shore to 
And all beauty drawn to the eye.

May my mind come alive today
To the invisible geography
That invites me to new frontiers,
To break the dead shell of yesterdays,
To risk being disturbed and changed.

May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And waste my heart on fear no more.





John O'Donohue
Photo:  Peter Bowers






Saturday, March 15, 2014

my medicine




When the wind blows
that is my medicine

When it rains
that is my medicine

When it hails
that is my medicine

When it becomes clear after a storm
that is my medicine





Holy Woman Poem
Photo:  Peter Bowers






Thursday, March 13, 2014

being lived


And yet, though we strain against the deadening grip
of daily necessity,
I sense there is this mystery:

All life is being lived.  

Who is living it then?

Is it the things themselves,
or something waiting 
inside them,
like an unplayed melody
in a flute?

Is it winds blowing over the waters?

Is it the branches that signal to each other?

Is it flowers
interweaving their fragrances,
or streets 
as they wind through time...





Rainer Maria Rilke








Wednesday, March 12, 2014

singing




I  believe in all that has never yet been spoken.
I want to free what waits within me
so that what no one has dared to wish for
may for once spring clear
without my contriving.
If this is arrogant, God, forgive me,
but this is what I need to say.
May what I do flow from me like a river,
no forcing and no holding back,
the way it is with children.

Then in these swelling and ebbing currents,
these deepening tides moving out, returning, 
I will sing you as no one ever has,
streaming through widening channels
into the open sea.





Rainer Maria Rilke
Photo:  Peter Bowers






Monday, March 10, 2014

First hand


At some point you will have put down the words down.

Put the maps down.

Close the sacred books.

Look up.

Stop being enthralled by the journeys

of your spiritual heroes

At some point, you will have to get up,

open your door and walk out into the 

sunlight of your Being and feel its light and 

its warmth on your own skin.

Firsthand.

No longer satisfied by catching a glimpse of it

through the windows of another's experience;

but stand in its full and glorious light,

naked and vulnerable and

in holy surrender with the story of your life

with all its twists and turns and tortured tales

lying pink and belly-up under the dome

of the disinterested sky:




with thanks to: