Blessing (Beannacht)

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.

And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

~ John O'Donohue ~
(Irish Poet)

Your Shape of Laughter

Let my words become like a skilled
Potter's hands,

Quieting,
Smoothing your life
With their knowledge,

Reaching into your tender core
And spreading you out
Like the morning

That leaps from the sun's amused wink
Onto hills, brows, and backs of so many
Beautiful laboring beasts.

God's duty is to make perfect
All your movements of mind, of limb,
And your ascending shape of laughter.

Watch the way my hands dance
With their diamond-edged brilliance

Cutting you open with music,
Reaching into your heart

And spilling the night sky-jar you carry
That is always full of giggling planets and stars.

My words are a divine potter's wheel.
If you stay near to me,
Please,Stay near to me -

And Hafiz will spin you into
Love.



(Hafiz-- Daniel Ladinsky Translation)

Don’t turn away
Keep your gaze on the bandaged place
That is where the light enters you

-Rumi

Untitled

Be empty of worrying
Think of who created thought
Why do you stay in prison
When the door is so wide open
Move outside the tangle of fear thinking
Live in silence
Flow down and down
Into always widening
Rings of being.

-Rumi

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness, you must travel where the
Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept
him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow
as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day
to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

[by Naomi Shihab Nye]

By: Nikki Giovanni

And if ever I touched a life I hope that life
knows that I know that touching
Was and still is and will always be The true revolution

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be cleaning you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
Because each has been sent
As a guide from beyond.

[RUMI, Translation by Coleman Barks]

Road not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth

Then took the other as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet, knowing how way leads onto way
I doubted if I should ever come back

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Some where ages and ages hence
Two roads diverged in a wood
And I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference

[Robert Frost ]

Longing for the angel

…
that one can contain
death, the whole of death, even before
life has begun, can hold it to one's heart
gently, and not refuse to go on living,
is inexpressible.

[Rilke]

Hokusai Says

Hokusai says
Look carefully.
He says pay attention, notice
He says keep looking, stay curious.
He says there is no end to seeing.

He says look forward to getting old.
He says keep changing,
you just get more who you really are.

He says get stuck, accept it, repeat yourself
as long as it's interesting.

He says keep doing what you love.

He says keep praying.
He says every one of us is a child,
every one of us is ancient,
every one of us has a body.

He says every one of us is frightened.
He says every one of us has to find a way
to live with fear.

He says everything is alive -
shells, buildings, people, fish,
mountains, trees.
Wood is alive.Water is alive.

Everything has its own life.

Everything lives inside us.
He says live with the world inside you.

He says it doesn't matter if you draw,
or write books. It doesn't matter
if you saw wood, or catch fish.

It doesn't matter if you sit at home
and stare at the ants on your verandah
or the shadows of the trees
and grasses in your garden.
It matters that you care.

It matters that you feel.

It matters that you notice.

It matters that life lives through you.

Contentment is life living through you.
Joy is life living through you.
Satisfaction and strength
are life living through you.
Peace is life living through you.

He says don't be afraid.
Don't be afraid.

Look, feel, let life take you by the hand.

Let life live through you.

Hokusai Says

[by Roger Keyes ]

Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

[by Derek Wolcott]

Ten Thousand Idiots

It is always a danger
To aspirants
On the
Path
When they begin
To believe and
Act
As if the ten thousand idiots
Who so long ruled
And livedInside
Have all packed their bags
And skipped town
Or
Died.

Hafez
Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

At the End of the Year

The particular mind of the ocean
Filling the coastline’s longing
With such brief harvest
Of elegant, vanishing waves
Is like the mind of time
Opening us shapes of days.

As this year draws to its end,
We give thanks for the gifts it brought
And how they became inlaid within
Where neither time nor tide can touch them.

The days when the veil lifted
And the soul could see delight;
When a quiver caressed the heart
In the sheer exuberance of being here.

Surprises that came awake
In forgotten corners of old fields
Where expectation seemed to have quenched.

The slow, brooding times
When all was awkward
And the wave in the mind
Pierced every sore with salt.

The darkened days that stopped
The confidence of the dawn.
Days when beloved faces shone brighter
With light from beyond themselves;
And from the granite of some secret sorrow
A stream of buried tears loosened.

We bless this year for all we learned,
For all we loved and lost
And for the quiet way it brought us
Nearer to our invisible destination.

[by John O’Donohue from To Bless the Space Between Us]

Blessing (BEANNACHT)

On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.

And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The gray window
And the ghost of loss
Gets into you,
May a flock of colors,
Indigo, red, green
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
In the curach* of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.

[for his mother Josie, John O’Donohue: to Bless the Space Between Us]

*Curach or Currach or Curagh: Gaelic (Irish) word for boat

The Subject Tonight Is Love

The subject tonight is love
and for tomorrow night as well
as a matter of fact
I know of no other topic
for us to discuss
until we all
die!

Hafiz-Daniel Ladinsky translation