THE WORLD IN HARMONY

On November 19, 2010, NBC aired a very special movie, "Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World," which was inspired by His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales and produced by by Stuart and Julie Bergman Sender.  A trailer of the movie can be viewed by clicking on HARMONY and the movie itself can be seen in its entirety by going to the NBC archives video.

I have been so moved by this movie and its message that I want to recommend it to all who visit this site on a regular basis.  Lest you have any doubt, this is not a movie about Prince Charles.  It is a movie about how we can return to sustainable environmental practices that will preserve the earth for our children, grandchildren, and future generations.  Feeling passionately about this subject, I could write about it endlessly, but I think it's best to let the movie speak for itself.  I hope you will not only enjoy it, but conclude in the end, as I did, that we must all do more to protect the fragile resources that we have been allowed to use for our limited years on earth.

To give you a flavor of some of the topics discussed in the film, I am setting forth a few quotes from Prince Charles, as well as some relevant quotes from other thinkers such as Einstein, Gandhi, E.F. Schumacher, and Stephen Jay Gould.  May you find the same inspiration that I have found.

Remember that our children and grandchildren will not ask what our generation said, but what it did.  Let us give an answer, then, of which we can be proud.

* * *  

We have lost something very precious.  That is an understanding of our interconnectedness with nature and a world beyond the material.

* * * 

Carrying on as if, fundamentally, it is "business as usual" is no longer an option.  We cannot solve the problems of the 21st Century with 20th Century solutions.

* * * 

Visionary people have a vital role to play in helping the world to find the strength needed to address its problems. 

 HRH The Prince of Wales 

Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them.

Einstein 

The best friend on earth of man is the tree.  When we use the tree respectfully and economically, we have one of the greatest resources on earth.

Frank Lloyd Wright

We still have to learn how to live peacefully, not only with our fellow men but also with nature and, above all, with those Higher Powers which have made nature and have made us.

E.F. Schumacher

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.

Gandhi 

Our world has enough for each person's need, but not for his greed.

Gandhi

Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the people of the earth.  Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it.

Chief Seattle

Human consciousness arose but a minute before midnight on the geological clock.  Yet we mayflies try to bend an ancient world to our purposes, ignorant perhaps of the messages buried in its long history.  Let us hope that we are still in the early morning of our April day.

Stephen Jay Gould

For those who are interested in pursuing these ideas further, Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World is also available in book form (see header photo) and can be purchased from either Amazon or the Harmony movie website.

A JOYFUL AND PEACEFUL WEEK TO EVERYONE!

THANKSGIVING EVERY DAY

As we enter this week of Thanksgiving, I want to thank all of my friends in the blogging community for enriching my life daily.  You have been, and continue to be, great sources of inspiration, education, and joy.  More importantly, you have proven yourselves to be true friends — fellow pilgrims on this magical and mysterious journey we call life.

My offering today is very simple:  some abstract photos taken during the past few weeks, some pertinent observations of others about unexpected beauty, and, finally, a lovely poem by Anne Sexton about everyday blessings.  Enjoy.

One of the most important — and most neglected — elements in the beginning of the interior life is the ability to respond to reality, to see the value and the beauty in ordinary things, to come alive to the splendor that is all around us.

Thomas Merton 

Everything is life is speaking, is audible, is communicating, in spite of its apparent silence.

Hazrat Inayat Khan 

 For lack of attention, a thousand forms of loveliness elude us every day.

Evelyn Underhill

                                 No more words.  In the name of this place we
                                 drink in with our breathing, stay quiet like a flower,
                                 So the nightbirds will start singing.

Rumi

If you love it enough, anything will talk with you.

George Washington Carver 

The moment one gives close attention to anything . . . it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.

Henry Miller 

Take, for example, a pencil, ashtray, anything, and holding it before you in both hands, regard it for a while.  Forgetting its use and name, yet continuing to regard it, ask yourself seriously, "What is it?" . . . Its dimension of wonder opens; for the mystery of the being of that thing is identical with the mystery of the being of the universe, and yourself.

Joseph Campbell 

                                                 WELCOME MORNING

                                   There is joy

                                   in all:

                                   in the hair I brush each morning,

                                   in the Cannon towel, newly washed,

                                   that I rub my body with each morning,

                                   in the chapel of eggs I cook

                                   each morning,

                                   the spoon and the chair

                                   that cry "hello there, Anne"

                                   each morning,

                                   in the godhead of the table

                                   that I set my silver, plate, cup upon

                                   each morning.

                                   All this is God,

                                   right here in my pea-green house

                                   each morning

                                   and I mean,

                                   though often forget,

                                   to give thanks,

                                   to faint down by the kitchen table

                                   in prayer of rejoicing

                                   as the holy birds at the kitchen window

                                   peck into their marriage of seeds.

                                  So while I think of it,

                                  let me paint a thank-you on my palm

                                  for this God, this laughter of the morning,

                                  lest it go unspoken.

                                  The Joy that isn't shared, I've heard,

                                  dies young.

                                  Anne Sexton

Notes on photographs:  (1) detail from abandoned Chevrolet tow truck; (2) mooring line and reflections from dock in marina; (3) patina of old metal strip found in boatyard; (4) sailboat rudder and keg; (5) sunrise on Tred Avon River; (6) stern of old work boat; (7) water reflection of boat workshop; (8) water reflection of machinery and sailboat masts: (9) detail from abandoned Chevrolet tow truck; (10) collage of some of my other abstract photos created by my blogging friend, Neighbor, over at Temporary Reality .

HAPPY THANKSGIVING
TO 
EVERYONE!

NOVEMBER REFLECTIONS

Perhaps it is trite to say this, but nature is, indeed, an amazing artist!  If you have any doubt, just look at the interplay of color, form, and reflections in this little scene that I discovered near my home late one afternoon earlier in the week.  For one blissful and surreal moment, I felt that I was standing in the middle of a Monet painting.

Amazingly, this scene was found next to a well-traveled bridge on the upper headwaters of the Tred Avon River.  Cars were crossing the bridge incessantly while I stood on the riverbank, but no one seemed to notice the miracle of light that was occurring not more than fifty feet from the road.  Strange, isn't it?  The magic can be so close, yet most people are too busy to notice it.

After discovering this lovely scene by happenstance, I decided to take a more disciplined approach to my photography this week.  More specifically, I made sure that, camera in hand, I was near some body of tranquil water during the hour just after sunrise and the hour just before sunset, the two hours of day when the light is usually at its best, especially in mid-November.  A few of the photos taken this week are set forth below, paired with some relevant thoughts about the role that nature plays in the preservation of our sanity.

Some of these photos are representational, while others are abstract.  Each image, however, reflects that beauty than can be discovered on rivers, lakes, and ponds during the luminous days of autumn.  Enjoy!

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.

John Muir 

I'll tell you how the sun rose a ribbon at a time.

Emily Dickinson 

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.

Desiderata

Civilization has fallen out of touch with night. With lights, we drive the holiness and the beauty of night back to the forests and the seas; the little villages, the crossroads even, will have none of it.  Are modern folk, perhaps, afraid of the night?  Do they fear the vast serenity, the mystery of infinite space, the austerity of stars?

Henry Beston,
"The Outermost House" 

There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night . . .

Rachel Carson 

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

Lao Tzu 

Each moment of the year has its own beauty . . . a picture which was never before and shall never be seen again.

Emerson 

I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.

e.e. cummings 

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.

Walt Whitman 

We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in.  For it can be a means of assuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope.

Wallace Stegner 

When despair for the world grows in me, and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be — I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.  I come into the peace of wild things . . .

Wendell Berry 

If the only prayer you said in your life was, "thank you," that would suffice.

Meister Eckhart


Peace to everyone and thank you! 

THE ANSWER AT 3:00 A.M.

Small Room in Hermitage Near Assisi

Where St. Francis and His Followers Often Dined and Meditated

Here is a small confession from one who aspires to move through life with the calm equanimity of a Zen master.  In recent weeks, I have allowed events beyond my control to send me into a small tailspin of despair.  It began with the unexpected death of a childhood friend whom I loved dearly, and it picked up steam with a back injury, a troublesome vitreous detachment in my right eye, an insane political season, and a number of ensuing questions in the pathetically self-centered category of "what the hell is happening to this world and my life?"

I recognize, of course, that absolutely nothing is happening in my life that has not happened before or which will not continue to happen for as long a mankind has a foothold on this fragile earth.  Everything is constantly changing and the cycle of life and death continues in ways both large and small.  The changes are increasingly personal, however, and this is why I found myself awake at three o'clock this morning, pondering the question of what I can do, other than become frustrated, angry, depressed, or all of the above.

The practical answers from Buddhism are always wise and helpful — just let go of the craving to possess that which is transitory, which is to say anything and everything.  The answers of Zen provide similar guidance — just remain detached, suspend all judgment, and allow everything to pass like water flowing over a rock. This is all great advice, undoubtedly, but at three o'clock this morning, I needed something more, something that would allow me to take a more active role in the world without trying to control things beyond my control.  It was at that point that my mind shifted to a framed prayer that has remained on a wall above my desk for almost twenty years. It is the incomparably beautiful prayer that is well known and widely attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi.  

A Simple Prayer

                               Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

                               Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

                               Where there is injury, pardon;

                               Where there is discord, unity;

                               Where there is doubt, faith;

                               Where there is error, truth;

                               Where there is despair, hope;

                               Where there is sadness, joy;

                               Where there is darkness, light.

                               O Divine Master, grant that 

                                  I may not so much seek

                               To be consoled as  to console;

                               To be understood as to understand;

                               To be loved as to love.

                               

                               For it is in the giving that we receive;

                               It is in the pardoning that we are pardoned;

                               It is in the dying that we are born to eternal life.

I acquired my hand-lettered copy of this prayer on my first visit to Assisi many years ago. Since that time, I have been blessed to find great wisdom in various religious and spiritual  traditions.  At no point, however, have I found a better blueprint for life than is found in the words of St. Francis.  My life, of course,  continues to fall woefully short of the noble ideas set forth in the prayer.  It continues to inspire me, however,  and I am convinced that it provides a path that can lead anyone — Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, atheist, or otherwise — beyond darkness and despair.

PEACE TO EVERYONE!

SOLITUDE AND STILLNESS

Since returning from my coast-to-coast walk across England in June, people have been asking me how it feels to get back to "reality."  Reality?  Here in the United States as we complete our first decade of the century?  Here in the mecca of crass materialism where ignorance is increasingly valued more than intelligence?  Here, where mendacity is the coin of the realm in both political and financial circles? Here, where a major senatorial candidate believes that scientists have cloned mice with fully functioning human brains; where another major senatorial candidate has been indicted on obscenity charges; and where still another major senatorial candidate has suggested that the United States deal with immigration from Mexico in the same way that East Germany dealt with the West Germany during the Soviet era (i.e., a Berlin Wall with electric fences, land mines, and armed guards instructed to shoot trespassers)?

I don't think so.  Call me old-fashioned, but this doesn't look like reality to me. Frankly, I found much more reality walking across England through places that have remained much the same for the past five hundred years, if not the past fifteen hundred years.  If I am to find reality in my own country, it will have to be in places of solitude, places of stillness where the heart can find solace and renew itself.  Oh how we need to get far from the madding crowd.  Then, perhaps, we can rediscover not only ourselves, but who we were before the advent of televisions, talking heads, cell phones, and, yes, computers.

Enough of my rant.  Just read what others have said about the rewards of solitude — how vital it is to sanity, how indispensable it is to creativity, how necessary it is to the growth of wisdom.  I begin with a quote from Thoughts on Solitude, a book by one of my spiritual heroes, Thomas Merton.  If something in this quote resonates with you, please check out Robert's recent posting, "The Friendly Communion of Silence", which appears on The Solitary Walker's other blog, "Turnstone."  That posting has more extensive quotes from Thoughts in Solitude.

I also want to recommend Ruth's excellent posting of today, "Horrors Transcended,"  which appears on her blog, "Synch-ro-ni-zing."  Included in this post are examples of three inspirational people who faced and overcame great social challenges during their lifetimes.

Vocation to Solitude — To deliver oneself up, to hand oneself over, entrust oneself completely to the silence of a wide landscape of woods and hills, or sea, or desert; to sit still while the sun comes up over that land and fills its silences with light.  To pray and work in the morning and to labor and rest in the afternoon, and to sit still again in meditation in the evening when night falls upon that land and when the silence fills itself with darkness and stars.  This is a true and special vocation.

Thomas Merton
Thoughts in Solitude

                                       

When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself.  When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world.

Eckhart Tolle

I said to my soul, be still, and wait . . . the faith and the hope and the love are all in the waiting . . . the darkness shall be the light and the stillness the dancing.

T.S. Eliot 

Our language has wisely sensed the two sides of being alone.  It has created the word loneliness to express the pain of being alone.  And it has created the word solitude to express the glory of being alone.

Paul Tillich

Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self.

Mary Sarton

In solitude, where we are least alone.

Lord Byron

Loneliness can be conquered only by those who can bear solitude.

Paul Tillich

What a commentary on civilization, when being alone is being suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it — like a secret vice.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people: that each protects the solitude of the other.

Rilke

Only in solitude do we find ourselves; and in finding ourselves, we find in ourselves all our brothers in solitude.

Miguel de Unamuno

Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.

Marcus Aurelius

AUTUMN WHISPERS

All things on earth point home in old October; sailors to sea, travelers to walls and fences, hunters to field and hollow and the long voice of the hounds, the lover to the love he has forsaken.

Thomas Wolfe

Nothing stirs the soul like autumn.  We awake from the nepenthean sleep of summer and witness something even more beautiful than we imagined —  more beautiful perhaps because we are forced the recognize the transient nature of what we love.  It is a time for reckoning,  a time to discard the frivolous and return to our essence, a time to prepare for the coming winter.  That is why, as Thomas Wolfe observed, all things point to home in late October.  Home is the place where our hearts find solace, the place where our authentic lives are rooted, the place where we will wait like the ancients for the reassurance of another spring.

Some of our finest poets have meditated on the implications of autumn for the human spirit.  What they have to say is much of what I feel during these closing days of October. What you take from these poems will depend upon where you are at this point in your own personal journey.  Enjoy.

                                    A certain day became a presence to me;

                                    there it was, confronting me -- a sky, air, light:

                                    a being.  And before it started to descend

                                    from the height of noon, it leaned over

                                    and struck my shoulder as if with

                                    the flat of a sword, granting me

                                    honor and a task.  The day's blow

                                    rang out, metallic -- or it was I, a bell awakened,

                                    and what I heard was my whole self 

                                    saying and singing what it knew: I can.

Denise Levertov

"Variation on a Theme by Rilke"

                                     Withered vines, gnarled trees, twilight crows,

                                     river flowing beneath the little bridge,

                                     past someone's home.

                                     The wind blows from the west

                                     where the sun sets, it blows

                                     across the ancient road,

                                     across the bony horse,

                                     across the despairing man

                                     who stands at heaven's edge.

Ma Chih-Yuan

"Meditation in Autumn"

                                     Nature's first green is gold,
                                     Her hardest hue to hold.
                                     Her early leaf's a flower;
                                     But only so an hour.
                                     Then leaf subsides to leaf.
                                     So Eden sank to grief,
                                     So dawn goes down to day.
                                     Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost
"Nothing Gold Can Stay"

         

                                  Lord, it is time.  The summer was so great,

                                  Impose upon the sundials now your shadows

                                  and round the meadows let the winds rotate.

                                      

                                  Command the last fruits to incarnadine;

                                  vouchsafe, to urge them on into completeness,

                                  yet two more south-like days; and that last

                                        sweetness,

                                  inveigle it into the heavy vine.

                                  He'll not build now, who has no house awaiting.

                                  Who's now alone, for long will so remain:

                                  sit late, read, write long letters, and again

                                  return to restless perambulating

                                  the avenues of parks when leaves downrain.

Rilke

"Autumn Day"

                                   The leaves are falling, falling as from far,

                                    as though above were withering farthest gardens;

                                    they fall with a denying attitude.

                                    And by night, down into solitude,

                                    the heavy earth falls far from every star.

                                    We are all falling.  This hand's falling too —

                                    and have this falling-sickness none withstands.

                                    And yet there's One whose gently-holding hands

                                    this universal falling can't fall through.

   

Rilke
"Autumn"

Peace to Everyone!

A SHORT BREAK

For the next month, I will be taking a short break from my normal schedule of posting a new article or photo essay every four or five days.  Having just completed my fiftieth posting since beginning "Transit Notes" in April, I find that I need a little time to rest, reflect, and address a few personal matters that require my attention. As time and opportunity permit, however, I will continue to follow and comment upon the inspirational postings of my friends in the blogging community.

During my absence, I will leave this space with a small gallery of photos, some of which have appeared before.  I will also leave some of my favorite passages from the Tao Te Ching.  These words give me peace and comfort daily, and I hope that you will find solace in them as well. 

There is a time for being ahead,
a time for being behind;
a time for being in motion,
a time for being at rest;
a time for being vigorous,
a time for being exhausted;
a time for being safe,
a time for being in danger.

In dwelling, live close to the ground.

In thinking, keep to the simple.

In conflict, be fair and generous.

In governing, don't try to control.

In work, do what you enjoy.

In family life, be completely present.

 Can you step back from your mind

and thus understand all things?

. . .  just stay at the center of the circle

and let all things take there course.

If you want to become whole,

let yourself be partial.

If you want to become straight,

let yourself be crooked.

If you want to become full,

let yourself be empty.

If you want to be reborn,
 let yourself die.

If you want to be given everything, 

give everything up.

He who stands on tiptoe

doesn't stand firm.

He who rushes ahead

doesn't go far.

He who tries to shine

dims his own light.

He who defines himself

can't know who he really is.

He who has power over others

can't conquer himself.

He who clings to his work

will create nothing that endures.

Knowing others is intelligence;

knowing yourself is true wisdom.

Mastering others is strength;

mastering yourself is true power.

Leaving Lisbon, Acrylic

When there is no desire,

all things are at peace.

. . . the Master concerns himself

with the depths and not the surface,

with the fruit and not the flower. 

He has no will of his own.

He dwells in reality,

and lets all illusions go.

Ordinary men hate solitude.

But the Master makes use of it, 

embracing his aloneness, realizing

he is one with the whole universe.

If you look to others for fulfillment,

you will never truly be fulfilled.

If your happiness depends on money,

you will never be happy with yourself.

Be content with what you have;

rejoice in the way things are.

When you realize here is nothing lacking,

the whole world belongs to you.

True mastery can be gained

by letting things go their own way.

It can't be gained by interfering.

Autumn Tree Life, Acrylic

Seeing into darkness is clarity.

Knowing how to yield is strength.

The Master's power is like this.

He lets all things come and go

effortlessly, without desire.

He never expects results;

thus he is never disappointed.

He is never disappointed;

thus his spirit never grows old.

The mark of a moderate man

is freedom from his own ideas.

When two great forces oppose one another,

the victory will go

to the one that knows how to yield.

If you realize that all things change,

there is nothing you will try and hold on to.

. . . whoever is stiff and inflexible

is a disciple of death.

Whoever is soft and yielding

is a disciple of life.

I have just three things to teach:

simplicity, patience, and compassion.

Peace and joy to everyone!