from my heart to yours
podcasts, books, meditations, songs and poems
to support & soften the darker days
“you have traveled too fast over false ground;
now your soul has come, to take you back.
take refuge in your senses, open up
to all the small miracles you rushed through.
become inclined to watch the way
of rain when it falls slow and free.
imitate the habit of twilight,
taking time to open the well of color
that fostered the brightness of day.
draw alongside the silence of stone
until its calmness can claim you.
be excessively gentle with yourself.
— john odonahue
“when you go out into the woods, and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. and some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. and you look at the tree and you allow it. you see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. and you don’t get all emotional about it. you just allow it. you appreciate the tree. the minute you get near humans, you lose all that. and you are constantly saying ‘you are too this, or I’m too this.’ that judgment mind comes in. and so I practice turning people into trees. which means appreciating them just the way they are.”
— Ram Dass
“Death is a favor to us,
But our scales have lost the balance.
The impermanence of the body
should give us great clarity, deepening the wonder in our senses and eyes
of this mysterious existence we share
and are surely just traveling through.
If I were in the tavern tonight,
Hafiz would call for drinks
and as the master poured, I would be reminded
that all I know of life and myself is that
we are just a midair flight of golden wine
between His pitcher and His cup.
If I were in the tavern tonight,
I would buy freely for everyone in this world
because our marriage with the cruel beauty
of time and space cannot endure very long.
death is a favor to us,
but our minds have lost their balance.
the miraculous existence and impermanence of form
always makes the illumined ones laugh and sing.
— hafiz