April 2010 (Vol. XXIII, No. 4)

Anne Strader

"Is there enough Silence for the Word to be heard?"

Springtime Greetings, dear friends! Although at a casual glance the landscape may still look a bit barren, we know things are stirring and soon we will see signs of new growth. That welcome first sighting of green grass...the earliest tiny spring flowers, sometimes peeping through a lingering snow...a little more light each day...fat buds popping out on the trees -- all these signs tell us that much has been gestating in darkness, deep within the earth, unseen during the bleak winter days. And what of the depths within our human souls? Like our earth, we, too, have fallow times when it may seem nothing is happening; but something, some new insight or idea, the seed of a new awareness may be trying to break through into consciousness. In the silence, let us tend our own inner gardens, that we may find springtime signs of new life within ourselves: blessing to us and our world.

Springtime in your soul

John O'Donohue | April 2010 (Vol. XXIII, No. 4)

Spring is a youthful season coming forth in a rush of life and promise, hope and possibility. At the heart of spring, there is a great inner longing when desire and memory stir toward each other. Consequently, springtime in your soul is a wonderful time to undertake some new adventures, some new project, or to make some important changes in your life; there the rhythm, the energy, and the hidden light of your own clay work with you. You are in the flow of your own growth and potential.

~ from ANAM CARA by John O'Donohue

The tiny petal of a tiny flower

Helen Steiner Rice | April 2010 (Vol. XXIII, No. 4)

The tiny petal
of a tiny flower
that grew from a tiny pod . . .

Is the miracle
and the mystery
of all creation and God!

~ Helen Steiner Rice, with thanks to Martina Roach

The whole of Creation is but one sacred temple

Gregory of Nyssa | April 2010 (Vol. XXIII, No. 4)

The whole of Creation is but one sacred temple of the One who created it.

~ Gregory of Nyssa

One's relationship to nature

William H. Shore and Al Gore | April 2010 (Vol. XXIII, No. 4)

One's relationship to nature is a deeply personal experience. To some it's best represented by a walk in the park, or along the river, or under a summer night's sky. To others it reaches its pinnacle in the study of a smell, a sound, the sight of a bird's egg, a gray whale, or lodgepole pine. And while all of nature is laid out before us to appreciate, not all is understood, known, or even knowable. But about human nature we do know at least one thing, which is that it embodies an irrepressible and infinite ability to create, to express, to give, and to share.

~ Al Gore in THE NATURE OF NATURE by William H. Shore

All around me the precious quiet of evening

Paula Worpswede and Eric Torgersen | April 2010 (Vol. XXIII, No. 4)

All around me the precious quiet of evening and the pungent smell of hay in the air. Above me the starry sky. Such a sweet inner peace fills me and gently takes possession of every fiber of my whole being and existence. And one surrenders to her, great Mother Nature, fully and completely and without reservation, and says with open arms, "Take me."

~ Paula Worpswede in DEAR FRIEND by Eric Torgersen

The old tree of eternal creative life lives with an open heart

Richard W. Bachtold | April 2010 (Vol. XXIII, No. 4)

The old tree of eternal creative life lives with an open heart, very deep roots, and many branches waiting to transform into new life.

~ Richard W. Bachtold

Nature invites us constantly to be what we are

Gretel Ehrlich | April 2010 (Vol. XXIII, No. 4)

Everything in nature invites us constantly to be what we are.

~ Gretel Ehrlich, The Solace of Open Spaces

I am leaf and I am wind

William Goyen | April 2010 (Vol. XXIII, No. 4)

I felt myself a steady, fixed point on the earth round which a whirling gathered and spun a center. Then it was that I seemed to be no one, to belong to no one, and suddenly beholding the russet light of the turning sumach tree in the pasture, I thought,

I am leaf and I am wind and I am light. Something in the world likes faces and leaves and rivers and woods and wind together and makes of them a string of medallions with all our faces on them, worn forever round our necks, kin.

~ from THE HOUSE OF BREATH by William Goyen

Nature is never spent

Gerard Manly Hopkins | April 2010 (Vol. XXIII, No. 4)

Nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness
in deep down things;
And though the last
lights off the
black West went
Oh, morning,
at the brown brink
eastward, springs . . .
Because the Holy Ghost
over the bent
world broods
with warm breast
and with ah!
bright wings.

~ from GOD'S GRANDEUR by Gerard Manly Hopkins

Touch the Earth

Henry Beston | April 2010 (Vol. XXIII, No. 4)

Touch the Earth, love the Earth, honor the Earth, her plains, her hills, her valleys, and her seas. Rest your spirit in her solitary places.

~ Henry Beston

Barnaby just walked, looking at the river or the woods

Jean Houston | April 2010 (Vol. XXIII, No. 4)

Barnaby was what I call "heart smart." While other dogs accompanied me in our intellectual journeys and listened while ideas came in, Barnaby just walked and walked with me, looking at the river or the woods and feeling deep feelings. Rarely have I had a walking companion who could just be silent, not having to make a talking point or a barking commentary. With Barnaby, one barked in silence in which much of a more contemplative nature was communicated -- peace, simplicity, the glory of the natural world, the presence of God.

~ from MYSTICAL DOGS by Jean Houston

The spiritual properties of the world are subtle

June Singer | April 2010 (Vol. XXIII, No. 4)

The spiritual properties of the world are subtle . . . The whole earth breathes the divine spirit. When you know this it informs everything you do, every word you say, every act.

~ by June Singer

When one flower blooms

April 2010 (Vol. XXIII, No. 4)

When one flower blooms
it is spring everywhere.

~ Zen saying

When one flower blooms

April 2010 (Vol. XXIII, No. 4)

When one flower blooms
it is spring everywhere.

~ Zen saying

There will be something growing like a flower

Thomas Wolfe | April 2010 (Vol. XXIII, No. 4)

All things belonging to the earth will never change—the leaf, the blade, the flower, the wind that cries and sleeps and wakes again, the trees whose stiff whose arms clash and tremble in the dark . . . all things proceeding from the earth to seasons, all things that lapse and change and come again upon the earth—these things will always be the same, for they come up from the earth that never changes, they go back into the earth that lasts forever. Only the earth endures, but it endures forever . . . Under the pavements trembling like a pulse, under the buildings trembling like a cry, under the waste of time, under the hoof of the beast above the broken bones of cities, there will be something growing like a flower, something bursting from the earth again, forever deathless, faithful coming into life again like April.

~ from YOU CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN by Thomas Wolfe, quoted in An Almanac for the Soul by Marv and Nancy Hiles