Tag: mystery

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

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and what the soul is, also
I believe I will never quite know.
Though I play at the edges of knowing,
truly I know
our part is not knowing,
but looking, and touching, and loving,
which is the way I walked on,
softly,
through the pale-pink morning light.

— Mary Oliver, from “Bone” in New and Selected Poems vol. Il (Beacon Press, April 15, 2007)

Notes:

  • DK Photo: 6:04 a.m. April 1, 2024 at where else, Cove Island Park. Don’t miss more photos from the magnificent BIG PINK morning walk on April 1st here.
  • Quote Source: PetaltexturedSkies

Truth

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Culture replaces authentic feeling with words. As an example of this, imagine an infant lying in its cradle and the window is open, and into the room comes something, marvelous, mysterious, glittering, shedding light of many colors, movement, sound, a transformative hierophany of integrated perception. The child is enthralled, and then the mother comes into the room and says to the child, “That’s a bird, baby, that’s a bird.” Instantly the complex wave of the angel, peacock, iridescent, transformative mystery is collapsed into the word. All mystery is gone, the child learns this is a bird, this is a bird, and by the time we’re five or six years old all the mystery of reality has been carefully tiled over with words. “This is a bird, this is a house, this is the sky,” and we seal ourselves in within a linguistic shell of disempowered perception.

~ Terence McKenna, Ordinary Language, Visible Language and Virtual Reality 

Notes: Quote via cobotis. Photo: Ahmed via Eyeem via Newthom.com

Miracle. All of it.

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apple-fall-night

1.

Through the night
the apples
outside my window
one by one let go
their branches and
drop to the lawn.
I can’t see, but hear
the stem-snap, the plummet
through leaves, then
the final thump against the ground.
Sometimes two at once, or one
right after another.
During long moments of silence
I wait
and wonder about the bruised bodies,
the terror of diving through air, and
think I’ll go tomorrow
to find the newly fallen, but they
all look alike lying there
dewsoaked, disappearing before me.

2.
I lie beneath my window listening
to the sound of apples dropping in
the yard, a syncopated code I long to know,
which continues even as I sleep, and dream I know
the meaning of what I hear, each dull
thud of unseen apple-
body, the earth
falling to earth
once and forever, over
and over.

~ Li-Young Lee, “Falling: The Code” from Rose

Notes:

  • Source: Photo: MilaMai Photography – Why do stars and apples fall?  Li-Young Lee Poem: Thank you Beth @ Alive on All Channels.
  • Inspired by Albert Einstein’s quote: “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
  • Related Posts: Miracle. All of it.

Running. And, slow sailing to a quiet dance.

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drum-drumline
It’s a coincidence. (Again?)
It’s synchronicity. (Do you believe that?)
You made it up, you’re delusional. (Not yet, don’t think so, not just yet.)
It’s a sign, a message. It’s G – – . (Oh, boy.)

5:45 am. I round the corner to Cove Island – low tide.  The sulfur released from the exposed mud fills the lungs – gas, pungent smelling salts.

I inhale.

Geese float silently in the shadows.

I run.

I’m around the loop and back, 1/4 mile from the entrance.  GPS flashes 4.1 miles in. I don’t glance at the time, that’s been a year now, I’ve conceded. “Matured.”  Over 25 years of daily tracking of body weight and notating work-outs, first in a log book, then Excel spreadsheets and now Google Sheets.  And also, now, on a parallel path on a digital step tracker which automatically feeds volumes of data into machines and is charted and graphed and spliced into pieces – all of which I never look at.  The logging, the tracking, the effort, I mean Really! WHO CARES?

Yet, the tension pulls at both ends, a medieval body rack tearing the limbs from the torso. Wired to Do, whipped by a Mind that makes you Do and strapped to a Body that can no longer Do. And, the Head swims in rip currents.

Continue reading “Running. And, slow sailing to a quiet dance.” →

Running. With a Black-Winged Bird.

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crow

Sunday morning, early, 5:40 am.  Out the door.

Temperature: 78° F.  Humidity? 1 zillion, and climbing. Visibility? Fair. Mist rises from the earth, still absorbing the 3 am deluge – one very large compost pile.  It’s August in the Connecticut rainforest, and I run.  This should be corrected, I used to run. Now I lean forward and move my feet hoping not to take a header.  I’m 1/2 mile in, all exposed body parts glisten with a high sheen…and the rest are feelin’ Heavy.  I flip my music player to Counting Crows and The Rain King.  Yes, if you’ve followed along with me on this blog, this song and its reference would be a repeat. You get old, you repeat sh*t. That’s how it goes.

….When I think of heaven, (Deliver me in a black-winged bird) I think of flying…

I triple click the up volume arrow, Rain King is boomin’ into the earbuds.  The tech gremlin pipes in a warning: “Sir, you can sustain ear damage at high volumes.” Honey, no worries, there’s ain’t nothing up there will be damaged.

I round the corner and approach a steep incline. You’re Usain Bolt. You’re a Kenyan. You’re in Rio. You’re amazing!

I take off. Continue reading “Running. With a Black-Winged Bird.” →