gentle – Live & Learn

Lightly Child, Lightly

November 4, 2021 by Live & Learn 15 Comments

What is it
about this twilight hour?
Even the sound
of a barely perceptible breeze
pierces the heart.

– Izumi Shikibu, (976 A.D. – 1030) from The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems

Notes:

Photo: DK – Moon @ Daybreak. 7:10 a.m. Wednesday, October 31, 2021. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.
Quote via Memory’s Landscape
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.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Aldous Huxley, Breeze, gentle, inspiration, Izumi Shikibu, light, lightly, Photography, twilight, Wind

Lightly Child, Lightly.

October 21, 2021 by Live & Learn 17 Comments

What I want is the other world in this world. What I want is the way up and the way down, the way in and the way out. What I want is the poem that rears up like a mythic creature from the dark place of origins, only to transform into the holy, unrepeatable faces of the living. What I want is the mythic wings still thrumming inside them.

— Joseph Fasano, from “Supernovae and Dark Stars: Some Notes on Universality in the Lyric Poem,” American Poet (no. 50, Spring/Summer 2016)

Notes:

Photo: DK – Moon @ Daybreak. 6:18 a.m. Wednesday, October 20, 2021. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.
Quote via Memory’s Landscape
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.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Aldous Huxley, Books, dark, gentle, Joseph Fasano, light, lightly, Photography, wings

Lightly Child, Lightly.

October 14, 2021 by Live & Learn 20 Comments

In Vienna there are shadows. The city is black and everything is done by rote. I want to be alone. I want to go to the Bohemian Forest. May, June, July, August, September, October. I must see new things and investigate them. I want to taste dark water and see crackling trees and wild winds. I want to gaze with astonishment at moldy garden fences, I want to experience them all, to hear young birch plantations and trembling leaves, to see light and sun, enjoy wet, green-blue valleys in the evening, sense goldfish glinting, see white clouds building up in the sky, to speak to flowers. I want to look intently at grasses and pink people, old venerable churches, to know what little cathedrals say, to run without stopping along curving meadowy slopes across vast plains, kiss the earth and smell soft warm marshland flowers. And then I shall shape things so beautifully: fields of colour…

— Egon Schiele, as quoted by Reinhard Steiner in Egon Schiele, 1890-1918: The Midnight Soul of the Artist.

Notes:

Photo: Angelika Horschlager, “we made no sound…and deep in the forest we get lost.” Taken in Lichtenau im Muhlkries (Austria)
Quote via The Vale of Soul-Making
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.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Aldous Huxley, Austria, Bohemian, Books, dawn, Egon Schiele, Forest, gentle, light, lightly, Photography, Sun, sunrise, twilight, vienna

Lightly Child, Lightly.

October 7, 2021 by Live & Learn 23 Comments

…And I should mention the light

which falls through the big windows this time of day

italicizing everything it touches…

— Billy Collins, from “Old Man Eating Alone in a Chinese Restaurant” in Ballistics: Poems (Picador; June 18, 2009)

Notes:

Photo: DK @ Daybreak . 6:30 am, October 7, 2021. 55° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.
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.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Aldous Huxley, Books, cove island park, dawn, gentle, light, lightly, Photography, stamford, Sun, sunrise, twilight

Bewilderment

September 26, 2021 by Live & Learn 16 Comments

Forget the critics. Read this book.

Richard Powers, Bewilderment: A Novel (W. W. Norton & Company, September 21, 2021)

NY Times Book Review: “In ‘Bewilderment,’ Richard Powers Smothers Nature With Piety.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Aldous Huxley, bewilderment, Books, dawn, gentle, light, lightly, Photography, richard powers, twilight

Lightly Child, Lightly.

September 23, 2021 by Live & Learn 29 Comments

The mind’s eye had two bafflements: coming out of the light and going into it.

— Richard Powers, Bewilderment: A Novel (W. W. Norton & Company, September 21, 2021)

Notes:

NY Times Book Review: “In ‘Bewilderment,’ Richard Powers Smothers Nature With Piety.
Photo: DK @ Daybreak. 6:10 to 6:46 am, September 22, 2021. 72° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.
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.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Aldous Huxley, Books, dawn, gentle, light, lightly, Photography, richard powers, twilight

Lightly Child, Lightly.

September 16, 2021 by Live & Learn 28 Comments

Soft the dove-hued shadows mingle,
Color fades, sound droops to sleep.
Life and motion melt to darkness
Swaying murmurs far and deep.
But the night moth’s languid flitting
Stirs the air invisibly:
Oh, the hour of wordless longing;
I in all, and all in me.

Twilight—tranquil, brooding twilight,
Course through me, serene and smooth;
Quiet, languid, fragrant twilight,
Flood all depths, all sorrows soothe,
Every sense in dark and cooling
Self-forgetfulness immerse,—
Grant that I may taste extinction
In the dreaming universe.

— Fyodor Tyutchev, from Twilight; (Translated by Avrahm Yarmolinsky). Written in 1835.

Notes:

Photo: DK @ Twilight. 5:45 am, September 12, 2021. 67° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. (Yes, this shot is the dawn side of Twilight, not in alignment with this beautiful poem)
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.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Aldous Huxley, dawn, Fyodor Tyutchev, gentle, Happiness, light, lightly, twilight

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

July 15, 2019 by Live & Learn 12 Comments

Softest of mornings, hello.
And what will you do today, I wonder,
to my heart?

– Mary Oliver, from “Softest of Mornings” from Long Life: Essays and Other Writings

Notes: Poem (via litverve). Photo by nilay eren with (via Your Eyes Blaze Out)

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: awe, gentle, Gratitude, hurt, Inspirational, Love, Mary Oliver, Monday, morning, Poem, Poetry, soft

Where’s the church for things like this?

April 4, 2017 by Live & Learn 25 Comments

It’s hard to hurt things.
Isn’t it.
I’m afraid of spiders but I still scoop them cold
into my hands & let them free. Where’s the church
for things like this.

~ Talin Tahajian, from “No steeple,” published in Cosmonauts Avenue

Photo: Nicolai Græsdal with Spider. Quote: via bostonpoetryslam

Filed Under: Photography, Poetry, Quotes Tagged With: care, conservative, empathy, gentle, hurt, Inspirational, kill, Photography, Poem, Poetry, spider, Wildlife

Riding Metro North. With SkinnyPop.

March 4, 2017 by Live & Learn 41 Comments

train-car-jpg

Michael posted it. I chew on it.

“The older I grow, the more I listen to people who don’t talk much.” Germain G. Glidden.

Like a needle stuck in a rut, it churns.

The older I grow…The older I grow…The older I grow.

It’s Monday, an unexpected break, with two cancellations. I mosey cross-town to catch an early afternoon train.

The hallways in Grand Central, teeming in rush hour, stand empty, resting. The board flashes Track 106, departing in 30 minutes. 30 minutes. 30 minutes. 30 minutes.

The stomach growls. I circle the snack bar. Once. And then twice. And then back again. Snickers Bars. Doritos. Mixed Nuts. M&Ms. Papers. Magazines. Sodas chilling. An oversize bag of Jalapeno SkinnyPop. Bingo. I grab the bag and a Kit-Kat Bar. The tattooed counter man lifts his head from the NY Post, “Bag for this?”

I step into the last car, it’s dimly lit. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Inspire, Life, Photography, Quotes, Uncategorized Tagged With: age, Animals, commute, compassion, conservation, empathy, gentle, Inspirational, Middle Age, old, Photography

It may take God

February 14, 2017 by Live & Learn 22 Comments

Today, God, help me focus on a peaceful pace rather than a harried one.

I will keep moving forward gently, not frantically.

Help me let go of my need to be anxious, upset, and harried.

Help me replace it with a need to be at peace and in harmony.

~ Melody Beattie, from “Going Easy” in The Language of Letting Go

Photo: Alejandro García Restrepo via I Hear It in the Deep Heart’s Core

Filed Under: Inspire, Photography, Quotes Tagged With: Anxiety, anxious, calm, gentle, harmony, Inspirational, meditate, meditation, Melody Beattie, Peace, Photography, Psychology, Quotes, rush

Lightly child, lightly.

August 4, 2016 by Live & Learn 22 Comments

I would like to paint the way a bird sings.

~ Claude Monet

Notes:

Photo: Iva with enjoying the winter sun (via Your Eyes Blaze Out). Quote: Thank you Rob @ Hammock Papers
Prior “Lightly child, lightly” Posts? Connect here.
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.”

Filed Under: Inspire, Life, Photography, Poetry, Quotes Tagged With: Aldous Huxley, Artist, awareness, Bird, gentle, Gratitude, Inspirational, mastery, Miracle, monet, Photography, Quotes, sing, Success, Writer

all of a sudden in a supreme moment of light

January 17, 2016 by Live & Learn 14 Comments

Yesterday I had a beautiful letter from Eugénie about old age (she is in her seventies).

Ici la vie continue égale et monotone en surface, pleine d’éclairs, de sommets et de désepérance, dans les profondeurs. Nous sommes arrivés maintenant á un stade de vie si riche en apprehensions nouvelles intransmissibles aux autres âges de la vie – on se sent rempli á la fois de tant de douceur et de tant de désespoir – l’énigme de cette vie grandit, grandit, vous submerge et vous écrase, puis tout á coup en une lueur suprême on prend conscience due “sacré.”

“Here life goes on, even and monotonous on the surface, full of lightning, of summits and of despair, in its depths. We have now arrived at a stage in life so rich in new perceptions that cannot be transmitted to those at another stage – one feels at the same time full of so much gentleness and so much despair – the enigma of this life grows, grows, drowns one and crushes one, then all of a sudden in a supreme moment of light one becomes aware of the “sacred.”

~ May Sarton, March 3rd, Journal of Solitude

Notes:

Photograph: Michelina Wozniak via eikadan
Related posts: May Sarton

Filed Under: Inspire, Life, Photography, Quotes Tagged With: despair, gentle, Gratitude, Inspirational, journal, Life, light, May Sarton, Photography, Pyschology, Quotes, Sacred, Writing

Lightly child, lightly

September 10, 2015 by Live & Learn 13 Comments

In the morning
the light flickers—

every place it touches is unnamed.

I forget
my silk-spun dreams & losing heart.

I am open. I am soft.
I move into the silence

but I know I can’t stay.

— Michelle Tudor, This is Not the Place

Notes:

Photo: NoelleBuske – “Magia” (via Mennyfox55)
Poem: Michelle Tudor via couvertures de sérénité
Prior “Lightly child, lightly” Posts? Connect here.
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.”