Notes:
- Photo: Wings, 2017 – by Clifton Henry (1999), USA (via Newthom)
- Inspired by: “Here is a secret…To fly at night in the snow is the best of all. Have a spin.” ~ Leif Enger, Virgil Wander
Monday Morning Wake-Up Call
November 12, 2018 by 28 Comments
Lightly Child, Lightly
November 7, 2018 by 31 Comments
I discovered that in the early part of the morning a mist hovered in the hollows of the estate and the grass was wet with dew. There was a smell in the air of bonfires, the land already preparing for autumn…The morning welcomed me and I felt lighter, more confident, walking with my head up, ready for anything.
– Claire Fuller, Bitter Orange (Tin House Books, October 9, 2018)
Notes:
- Photo: Ed Stockard.
- 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.”
Lightly Child, Lightly
November 1, 2018 by 13 Comments
And only the enlightened can recall their former lives;
for the rest of us, the memories of past existences
are but glints of light, twinges of longing, passing shadows,
disturbingly familiar, that are gone before they can be grasped,
like the passage of that silver bird on Dhaulagiri.
~ Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard
Notes:
- Photo: Marta Navarro (via Newthom). Quote via Alive on All Channels (Thank you Beth)
- 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.”
Lightly Child, Lightly
October 18, 2018 by 9 Comments
Some moments become enchanting with the addition of words,
others are completely killed if you try to describe them.
It’s the difference between a tiny bird flittering above your open palm
and a closed fist crushing wings.
Notes:
- Photo: Bill Leslie with Groovy Times. Quote via Your Eyes Blaze Out. Photo_wanderlog_Yllas via Your Eyes Blaze Out.
- 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.”
Monday Morning Wake-Up Call
July 23, 2018 by 21 Comments
It isn’t long after we arrive
that everyone starts pointing
and telling us where we need
to be and what we need to do
to get there. There’s no time
to really ask why. Soon, things
happen and we’re thrown off
course and now there’s all this
effort to win their approval. If
lucky, love will distract us more
than suffering. If blessed, we’re
broken of everyone’s plans and
regrets and thrown like a hooded
bird into a sea of light.
If trusting
the fall, we find our wings.
~ Mark Nepo, “Where We Need to Be” in The Way Under the Way: The Place of True Meeting
Notes: Photo: (via Your Eyes Blaze Out). Poem: Thank you Make Believe Boutique
It’s been a long day
May 2, 2018 by 18 Comments
Be like the bird, who
Halting in his flight
On limb too slight
Feels it give way beneath him,
Yet sings
Knowing he hath wings.
— Victor Hugo, “The Bird,” Twilight Songs (Les Chants du crépuscule), published in 1835.
Notes:
- Poem: Vale of Soul Making. Photo: Wojciech Paliwoda with Angel (via Your Eyes Blaze Out)
- Related Posts: It’s been a long day
Lightly Child, Lightly.
December 21, 2017 by 16 Comments
The thing is to relax and not fret about worldly things
but just let the wings open and be oneself quietly for a bit.
This never fails to renew strength.
~ Iris Murdoch, from a letter to Hal Lidderdale written c. July 1950 in Living on Paper: Letters from Iris Murdoch, 1934–1995
Notes:
- Photo: Czech Dance Information photo of Jarmila Jerabkova (via Hidden Sanctuary). Poem: Violent Waves of Emotion
- 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.”
5:00 PM Bell! Let them out!
June 30, 2017 by 6 Comments
One by one they opened the bird cages, and the sky filled with parakeets, canaries, lovebirds, and finches.
~ Isabel Allende, The House of Spirits: A Novel
Notes: Photo: Jim Bendon (Parakeets). Quote: Hidden Sanctuary
It’s been a long day
February 15, 2017 by 17 Comments
Such longing.
How large
the muscles in our shoulders must be
to lift our wings even a single time.
~ David Romtvedt, closing lines to “Dilemmas of the Angels: Flight,” Dilemmas of the Angels: Poems
Notes:
- Poetry: Thank you Memory’s Landscape. Photo: jteh via Your Eyes Blaze Out
- Related Posts: It’s been a long day
Lightly child, lightly.
December 29, 2016 by 12 Comments
But what about the ocean’s intensity that echoes our own,
the fever in cold weather, the soul’s descent?
What about the weight of the angels’ wings?
~ Etel Adnan, from Night
Notes:
- Photo: via mennyfox55 .
- Poem: Thank you the distance between two doors
- 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.”
