STARTING HERE, STARTING NOW

Now that the holidays are over, my wife and I are headed to coastal South Carolina, where the temperatures are a little more conducive to outdoor activities during the winter months.  Before departing, however, I want to post a few memorable quotes that have caught my attention in recent days.  The first two quotes are from Henry Miller and Thoreau, respectively, and the third is a poem by William Stafford.  The common theme in these quotes is the importance of surrendering to the beauty and mystery of the present moment — this day, this hour, this moment, NOW.  As Henry Miller states in the opening quote, we tamper with the universe at our own peril. 

When you put your mind to such a simple, innocent thing, for example, as making a water color, you lose some of the anguish which derives from being a member of a world gone mad.  Whether you paint flowers, stars, horses or angels you acquire respect and admiration for all the elements which go to make up our universe.  You don't call flowers friends, stars enemies, or horses Communists, and angels Fascists.  You accept them for what they are and you praise God that they are what they are.  You desist from improving the world or even yourself.  You learn to see not what your want to see but what is.  And what is is usually a thousand times better than what might be or ought to be.

If we could stop tampering with the universe we might find it a better world than we think it to be.  After all, we've only occupied it a few hundred million years, which is to say that we are just beginning to get acquainted with it.  And if we continue another billion years there is nothing to assure us that we will eventually know it. In the beginning as in the end, it remains a mystery.  And the mystery exists or thrives in every smallest part of the universe. It has nothing to do with size or distance, with grandeur or remoteness.  Everything hinges upon how you look at things.

Henry Miller 
"The Angel Is My Watermark"
Stand Still Like the Hummingbird

Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the present.  He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing of life in remembering the past.  Unless our philosophy hears the cock crow in every barnyard within our horizon, it is belated.  That sound commonly reminds us that we are growing rusty and antique in our employments and habits of thoughts. His philosophy comes down to a more recent time than ours.  There is something suggested by it that is a newer testament, — the gospel according to this moment.  He has not fallen astern; he has got up early and kept up early, and to be where he is is to be in season, in the foremost rank of time.  It is an expression of the health and soundness of Nature, a brag for all the world, — healthiness as a spring burst forth, a new fountain of the Muses, to celebrate this last instant of time.

Thoreau
Walking 




You Reading This, Be Ready


Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened 
sound from outside fills the air?


Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now?  Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?


When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day.  This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life —


What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?


William Stafford

Reed Life

PEACE AND JOY, HERE AND NOW!