Thank you Rob @ The Hammock Papers (via Treadwells Bookshop)
Tag: quiet
Walking. With a Trifecta.
718 days. Almost consecutive. Like in a row. Morning walk @ Cove Island Park @ Daybreak.
Ritual is all we have. It’s what keeps us from the abyss.” It’s Jillian Horton’s thought from “We Are All Perfectly Fine,” and there’s zero doubt that she wrote it thinking of me.
Perfectly Fine? Definitely not.
I round the turn into the parking lot. It’s empty. I mean Empty. Not a single parked car. Not a single soul lurking around.
My park. My time. Mine.
I walk.
45° F with 10 mph winds blowing from the NW, keeping this Spring’s Here thing real.
Inhale.
Blossoms.
“…as if a rose were flung into the room, all hue and scent” (Szymborska).
And then, came the Trifecta.
(The first being here, alive, standing in this spot, at this moment.)
The second, Luna peaks out from behind the clouds. And drops her beam down on Long Island Sound.
And the third, at this exact moment, turning up randomly on my iTunes playlist of 3000+ odd tunes — My Anthem. Van Morrison, So Quiet in Here.
Where we can be what we want to be
Oh this must be what paradise is like
This must be what paradise is like
Baby it’s so quiet in here, so peaceful in here
So quiet in here, so peaceful in here
So quiet in here, so peaceful in here
So quiet in here, you can hear, it’s so quiet
I raise my camera, focus on the train of her gown, and take the shot.
I’m going to remember this.
Notes:
- DK Photo. Moonlight @ Daybreak. 5:15 am, April 23, 2022. 45° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. More photos from this morning here.
Sunday Morning
My spirituality has always been given to contemplation, even before anyone articulated for me exactly what “the contemplative” was. I was not raised in an overtly religious home; my spiritual formation now comes to me in memories—not creeds or doctrine, but the air we breathed, stories, myth, and a kind of attentiveness. From a young age, my siblings and I were allowed to travel deep into our interior worlds to become aware of ourselves, our loves, our beliefs. And still, my father demanded an unflinching awareness of our exterior worlds. Where is home from here? What was the waitress’s name? Where do we look when we’re walking? If a single phrase could be considered the mantra of our family, it would be Pay attention.
— Cole Arthur Riley, This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us (Convergent Books, February 22, 2022)
Lightly Child, Lightly
I have a favorite sound.
To be precise, it’s not a singular sound but a multitude.
Have you ever stood in the presence of a tree and listened to the wind pass through its leaves? The roots and body stand defiant and unmoved. But listen. The branches stretch out their tongues and whisper shhhhh.
Trees make symphonies without their trunks ever moving, almost as if the stillness of their centers amplifies their sound. The tree may appear still, but if you look closer, you’ll see that each leaf flails with breath. The tree may seem alone, but plow deep and you’ll unearth its secret gnarled roots—the grotesque and the beautiful—creeping in the soil, reaching toward the ancestors.
Thomas Merton said, “No writing on the solitary, meditative dimensions of life can say anything that has not already been said better by the wind in the pine trees.” I hold this close.
— Cole Arthur Riley, This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us (Convergent Books, February 22, 2022)
Notes:
- Photo: DK @ Daybreak 6:54 am August 29, 2021.
- 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.”
Lightly Child, Lightly
But I also say this:
that light is an invitation to happiness,
and that happiness, when it’s done right,
is a kind of holiness, palpable and redemptive.
~ Mary Oliver, from “Poppies” in New and Selected Poems, Volume One.
Notes:
- Photo: DK @ Daybreak. Daybreak. 5:45 am, March 8, 2022. 38° F, feels like 27° F, winds up to 40 mph. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. . More pictures from this morning here.
- Poem from Make Believe Boutique.
- 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.”