life – Page 22 – In the Woods

memory is fragile

"Reading Woman" by August Macke — “Reading Woman” by August Macke

At times I feel as if I had lived all this before and that I have already written these very words, but I know it was not I: it was another woman, who kept her notebooks so that one day I could use them. I write, she wrote, that memory is fragile and the space of a single life is brief, passing so quickly that we never get a chance to see the relationship between events; we cannot gauge the consequences of our acts, and we believe in the fiction of past, present, and future, but it may also be true that everything happens simultaneously. … That’s why my Grandmother Clara wrote in her notebooks, in order to see things in their true dimension and to defy her own poor memory.
~ Isabel Allende
(The House of the Spirits)

we return thanks

“Bouquet of Chrysanthemums” by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

We return thanks to our mother, the earth, which sustains us.
We return thanks to the rivers and streams, which supply us with water.
We return thanks to all herbs, which furnish medicines for the cure of our diseases.
We return thanks to the corn, and to her sisters,
the beans and squash, which give us life.
We return thanks to the bushes and trees, which provide us with fruit.
We return thanks to the wind, which, moving the air, has banished diseases.
We return thanks to the moon and stars,
which have given to us their light when the sun was gone.
We return thanks to our grandfather He-no,
that he has protected his grandchildren from witches and reptiles,
and has given to us his rain.
We return thanks to the sun,
that he has looked upon the earth with a beneficient eye.
Lastly, we return thanks to the Great Spirit, in whom is embodied all goodness,
and who directs all things for the good of his children.
~ 19th-Century Iroquois Prayer
(The Joy of Family Traditions: A Season-by-Season Companion to Celebrations, Holidays & Special Occasions)

sea love

May the nourishment of the earth be yours, may the clarity of light be yours, may the fluency of the ocean be yours, may the protection of the ancestors be yours. And so may a slow wind work these words of love around you, an invisible cloak to mind your life.
~ John O’Donohue
(Echoes of Memory)

The use of this digital painting is a gift from Val Erde. Thanks ever so much, Val!

treasure house of infinity

“The Rainbow” by Nikolay Nikanorovich Dubovskoy

Infinite riches are all around you if you will open your mental eyes and behold the treasure house of infinity within you. There is a gold mine within you from which you can extract everything you need to live life gloriously, joyously, and abundantly.
~ Joseph Murphy
(The Power of Your Subconscious Mind)

pomegranate seeds and stories

"Persephone" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti — “Persephone” by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

We have all of us eaten the pomegranate seed of language, and we are its Persephones in its ways of structuring our experience of ourselves and the world.
~ John Moriarty
(Turtle Was Gone a Long Time)

They weren’t true stories; they were better than that.
~ Alice Hoffman
(The Story Sisters)

Memory is the way we keep telling ourselves our stories – and telling other people a somewhat different version of our stories. We can hardly manage our lives without a powerful on-going narrative.
~ Alice Munro
(Sport & Memory in North America)

The world is shaped by two things – stories told and the memories they leave behind.
~ Vera Nazarian
(Dreams of the Compass Rose)

wonders of discovery

"Still Life" by Balthasar van der Ast — “Still Life” by Balthasar van der Ast

Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of our science.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Society & Solitude)

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “Eureka!” (I found it!) but “That’s funny….”
~ Isaac Asimov
(The Stuff of Thought: Language As a Window into Human Nature)

harvest moon

Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.

Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.

~ Carl Sandburg
(Under the Harvest Moon)

migrants in time

In many ways, constancy is an illusion. After all, our ancestors were immigrants, many of them moving on every few years; today we are migrants in time. Unless teachers can hold up a model of lifelong learning and adaptation, graduates are likely to find themselves trapped into obsolescence as the world changes around them. Of any stopping place in life, it is good to ask whether it will be a good place from which to go on as well as a good place to remain.
~ Mary Catherine Bateson
(Composing a Life)

keeping the channel open

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action. And because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you.
~ Martha Graham
(Dance to the Piper)