Category: Inspire

Lightly Child, Lightly.

Live & Learn18 Comments

Every leaf that falls
never stops falling. I once
thought that leaves were leaves.
Now I think they are feeling,
in search of a place—
someone’s hair, a park bench, a
finger. Isn’t that
like us, going from place to
place, looking to be alive?

— Victoria Chang, “Passage” in The Trees Witness Everything by Victoria Chang, published by Copper Canyon Press, 2022. (via Read a Little Poetry)

Notes:

  • Video: InnoRecords (via Pexels)
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

Exactly the scene at 2:42 a.m.

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Come outside, you laugh. You are
standing on the lawn holding
a bag of shit and the dog leash. You say
look, look at the moon. And I do.

— M. Soledad Caballero, from “When You Go Out to Walk the Dog” in “I Was a Bell“

Notes:

  • Poem Source: Read A Little Poetry
  • DK Photo: Waning Crescent Moon. 40% illumination. 62° F. 2:42 am. August 27, 2024. Darien, CT

Hello, sun in my face

Live & Learn41 Comments

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, Why I Wake Early

Sunrise photos from this morning. 6:20 to 6:40 am. August 24, 2024. Cove Island Park. More pictures from this morning: Twilight here. Sunrise here.

Lightly Child, Lightly.

Live & Learn19 Comments

Still, ritual is journey, atonement is real.
As you lay dying, I asked,
What is your biggest regret?
Every kindness withheld, you said.
Every flicker of pleasure denied, you said.
Look, you said, sunlight.

— Chris Abani, from “Ritual Is Journey” in “Sanctificum” (Copper Canyon Press; April 1, 2010)

Notes:

  1. Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.
  2. Poem Source from orpheuslament
  3. Chris Abani bio and portrait via Poetry Foundation

Lightly Child, Lightly.

Live & Learn15 Comments

how old am i?
today, i’m today.
i’m as old as whatever light touches me.

— Danez Smith, from “summer, somewhere“

Notes:

  1. And today, yes, yet another Time Lapse video with light progression that touched me — this despite near 100% cloud cover and light rain. 90 Minutes in 21 seconds (4:35 to 6:05 am). 64° F. August 8, 2024. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. More photos from this morning’s walk here.
  2. Poem Source from “More Than Ideas“
  3. Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.