One human life is deeper than the ocean. Strange fishes and sea-monsters and mighty plants live in the rock-bed of our spirits. The whole of human history is an undiscovered continent deep in our souls. There are dolphins, plants that dream, magic birds inside us. The sky is inside us. The earth is in us.
Ben Okri, The Famished Road
Spirit, rehearse the journeys of the bodythat are to come, the motionsof the matter that held you.
Rise up in the smoke of palo santo.Fall to the earth in the falling rain.Sink in, sink down to the farthest roots.Mount slowly in the rising sapto the branches, the crown, the leaf-tips.Come down to earth as leaves in autumnto lie in the patient rot of winter.Rise again in spring’s green fountains.Drift in sunlight with the sacred pollento fall in blessing.All earth’s dusthas been life, held soul, is holy.
Ursula K. Le Guin, from So Far So Good
Human spirit is one of the most striking realizations of wildness. It is as eccentrically beautiful as an ice crystal, as liquidly life-generous as water, as inspired as air. Kerneled up within us all, an intimate wildness, sweet as a nut. To the rebel soul in everyone, then, the right to wear feathers, drink stars and ask for the moon. For us all, the growl of the primal salute. For us all, for Scaramouche and Feste, for the scamp, tramp and artist, for the furious adolescent, the traveling player and the pissed-off gypsy, for the bleeding woman, and for the man in a suit, his eyes kind and tired, gazing with sad envy at the hippie chick with the rucksack. For us all, every dawn, the lucky skies and the pipes. Anyone can hear them if they listen: our ears are sharp enough to it. Our strings are tuned to the same pitch as the Earth, our rhythms are as graceful and ineluctable as the four quartets of the moon. We are—every one of us—a force of nature, though sometimes it is necessary to relearn consciously what we have never forgotten; the truant art, the nomad heart. Choose your instrument, asking only: can you play it while walking?
Jay Griffiths, Wild: An Elemental Journey
... human spirit is one of the most striking realizations of wildness. It is as eccentrically beautiful as an ice crystal, as liquidly life-generous as water, as inspired as air. Kerneled up within us all, an intimate wildness, sweet as a nut. To the rebel soul in everyone, then, the right to wear feathers, drink stars and ask for the moon. For us all, the growl of the primal salute. For us all, for Scaramouche and Feste, for the scamp, tramp and artist, for the furious adolescent, the traveling player and the pissed-off gypsy, for the bleeding woman, and for the man in a suit, his eyes kind and tired, gazing with sad envy at the hippie chick with the rucksack. For us all, every dawn, the lucky skies and the pipes. Anyone can hear them if they listen: our ears are sharp enough to it. Our strings are tuned to the same pitch as the Earth, our rhythms are as graceful and ineluctable as the four quartets of the moon. We are—every one of us—a force of nature, though sometimes it is necessary to relearn consciously what we have never forgotten; the truant art, the nomad heart. Choose your instrument, asking only: can you play it while walking?
Jay Griffiths, Wild: An Elemental Journey
Stranger, you have reached a fabulous land—in winter, the abode of swans,magnolia buds and black leavessecretly feeding the earth—memory snaked into tree roots.
In spring, you will feel life changesbubble up in your blood like early wine,and your heart will be lighter thanthe flight of gossamer pollen.
Stranger, in summer, you will drink deeplyof a curious local wine,fortified with herbs cut with a silver knifewhen the moon was new.Who knows what freedomswill dazzle your path like fireflies?
And I promise you, in the fallyou will give up the search and know peacein the fragrance of apple wood burning.You will learn how to accept lovein all its masks, and the universewill sing here more sweetly than any other place.
Dolores Stewart Riccio(from The Nature of Things)
My friend Dolores passed away unexpectedly last weekend. and I am still trying to wrap my mind around her departure. A gifted author and a fine poet, she walked through this world cherishing its innate abundance and wildness, and she loved it fiercely. Lit from within, she blazed with life and passion, and somewhere beyond the here and the now, she is still alight. I have to remember that.
It is going to be one of those days, so I am starting it in the early hours with a small magic that uplifts my spirit, gladdens my heart, strengthens my resolve and makes me smile. Is there anything as enchanting, visually fetching and "happy making" as a fragrant cup of flower tea and goji berries?
A little Mozart is wafting through my headphones, and it completes the invocation nicely. No matter what the cancer clinic tosses my way today, I will be ready for it, just hope the painful stuff can be kept to a minimum. Wish me luck!