Long live the weeds and the wilderness

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

Gerard Manley Hopkins
from the book Earth Prayers From around the World: 365 Prayers, Poems, and Invocations for Honoring the Earth

Happy Fall Equinox!

While flipping through my copy of the book Earth Prayers this evening, I came across an old post it note on a poem about Autumn.  When I was in my yoga teaching training several years ago, the trainees would take turns with different segments of a class our instructor was teaching.  During one of the meditative sequences I led, I read this poem by Edward Hays:

O sacred season of Autumn, be my teacher, 
     for I wish to learn the virtue of contentment. 
As I gaze upon your full-colored beauty, 
     I sense all about you 
     an at-homeness with your amber riches. 

You are the season of retirement, 
     of full barns and harvested fields. 
The cycle of growth has ceased, 
     and the busy work of giving life 
     is now completed. 
I sense in you no regrets: 
     you've lived a full life. 

I live in a society that is ever-restless, 
     always eager for more mountains to climb, 
     seeking of happiness through more and more possessions. 
As a child of my culture, 
     I am seldom truly at peace with what I have. 
Teach me to take stock of what I have given and received; 
     may I know that it's enough, 
     that my striving can cease 
     in the abundance of God's grace. 
May I know contentment 
     that allows the totality of my energies 
     to come to full flower. 

May I know that, like you, I am rich beyond measure. 

As you, O Autumn, take pleasure in your great bounty, 
     let me also take delight 
     in the abundance of the simple things in life 
     which are the true source of joy. 
With the golden glow of peaceful contentment 
     may I truly appreciate this autumn day.

Edward Hays from the book Earth Prayers From around the World: 365 Prayers, Poems, and Invocations for Honoring the Earth

I finished the class by telling the students this: As you go about your day to day, getting caught up in busy schedules and commitments, remember to come back to this place of peace and contentment that you have created within yourself.  Carry it with you!

I hope you enjoy this beautiful season, wherever you find yourself and whatever you are doing.

My soul is heavy with sunshine...

The sun has climbed the hill, the day is on the
     downward slope.
Between the morning and the afternoon, stand I here:
     with my soul, and lift it up.
My soul is heavy with sunshine, and steeped with
     strength.
The sunbeams have filled me like a honeycomb,
It is the moment of fulness,
And the top of the morning.

D.H. Lawrence from the book Earth Prayers From around the World: 365 Prayers, Poems, and Invocations for Honoring the Earth

Peaches Before the Rain

Took this photograph this afternoon at the Conservatory Farmers' Market about ten minutes before a severe thunderstorm blew through Franklin Park...

Be a gardener
Dig a ditch,
toil and sweat,
and turn the earth upside down
and seek the deepness 
and water the plants in time.
Continue this labor
and make sweet floods to run
and noble and abundant fruits
to spring.
Take this food and drink
and carry it up to God
as your true worship.

Julian of Norwich from the book Earth Prayers From around the World: 365 Prayers, Poems, and Invocations for Honoring the Earth

I feel the summer

as my eyes
search
the prairie
I feel the summer
in the spring

Chippewa Song 
from the book Earth Prayers From around the World: 365 Prayers, Poems, and Invocations for Honoring the Earth

Borage Blossom

Lord make us mindful of the little things that grow and blossom
     in these days to make the world beautiful for us.

W.E.B. Du Bois
from the book Earth Prayers From around the World: 365 Prayers, Poems, and Invocations for Honoring the Earth

Clouds are flowing in the river, clouds are drifting in my tea

These are yesterday's photos of the day, which I heavily manipulated with picmonkey.  The photographs and the poem together remind me a bit of Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.  Just the right amount of silliness mixed with curiosity and a wondrous outlook on life.

The bliss of growth and splendor of beauty

Listen to the salutation to the dawn,
Look to this day for it is life, the very life of life,
In its brief course lie all the verities and realities of our 
existence.

The bliss of growth, the splendor of beauty,
For yesterday is but a dream and tomorrow is only a
     vision,
But today well spent makes every yesterday a dream
      of happiness
      and every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well therefore to this day.
Such is the salutation to the dawn.

SANSKRIT SALUTATION TO THE DAWN
from the book Earth Prayers From around the World: 365 Prayers, Poems, and Invocations for Honoring the Earth