Thegiftofwords |
Thegiftofwords |
We read, write, create and share as a way of being alive or as a way of staying alive in the face of the unknown , the unpredictable and the catastrophic. May you be blessed with the gift of words and the joy of reading! For me, reading augments the joy of living and I hope it does the same for you and that it affects your lives so beautifully that you might find yourselves transcending this world and this historical moment with its cruelty, its woes, its troubles, its chaos and its violence and travel at least for a moment through your creative imagination to meet the finest minds and the most beautiful souls and spend time with them, internalizing their grace and unlocking the beauty of this world and the beauty of being human. I want you to join Shelly in his claim that “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” There is a connection between poetry and political philosophy, but poetry goes a step further. It is a gift, a prayer and a blessing. I hope this website will help you see the world afresh/anew and open the eye not of the flesh but that of discernment to beauty, justice, love, kindness, and radical empathy.
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RUMIIn this earth
in this immaculate field we shall not plant any seeds except for compassion except for love Rumi |
WALT WHITMAN
Song of the Open Road
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me, The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose. Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune, Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing, Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms, Strong and content I travel the open road. The earth, that is sufficient, I do not want the constellations any nearer, I know they are very well where they are, I know they suffice for those who belong to them. (Still here I carry my old delicious burdens, I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go, I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them, I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.) |
EMILY DICKINSON
Bloom
Bloom -- is Result -- to meet a Flower And casually glance Would scarcely cause one to suspect The minor Circumstance Assisting in the Bright Affair So intricately done Then offered as a Butterfly To the Meridian -- To pack the Bud -- oppose the Worm -- Obtain its right of Dew -- Adjust the Heat -- elude the Wind -- Escape the prowling Bee Great Nature not to disappoint Awaiting Her that Day -- To be a Flower, is profound Responsibility -- Emily Dickinson |
WENDELL BERRYWhen 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 who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. |
WITHOUT MUSIC, LIFE WOULD BE A MISTAKE. FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Yes, love...but not the love that loves for something, to gain something, or because of something, but that love that I felt for the first time, when dying, I saw my enemy and yet loved him. I knew that feeling of love which is the essence of the soul, for which no object is needed. And I know that blissful feeling now too. To love one's neighbours; to love one's enemies. To love everything - to Love God in all His manifestations. Someone dear to one can be loved with human love; but an enemy can only be loved with divine love. And that was why I felt such joy when I felt that I loved that man. What happened to him? Is he alive?...Loving with human love, one may pass from love to hatred; but divine love cannot change. Nothing, not even death, can shatter it. It is the very nature of the soul. And how many people I have hated in my life. And of all people none I have loved and hated more than her.... If it were only possible for me to see her once more... once, looking into those eyes to say... Tolstoy
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