q

Geography, the formal way in which we grapple with this real mystery,
is finally knowledge that calls up something in the land we recognize
and respond to. It gives us a sense of place and a sense of
community. Both are indispensable to a state of well-being...
Barry Lopez

p

The Weighing

The heart's reasons

seen clearly,

even the hardest

will carry

its whip-marks and sadness

and must be forgiven.

As the drought-starved

eland forgives

the drought-starved lion

who finally takes her,

enters willingly then

the life she cannot refuse,

and is lion, is fed,

and does not remember the other.

So few grains of happiness

measured against all the dark

and still the scales balance.

The world asks of us

only the strength we have and we give it.

Then it asks more, and we give it.

Jane Hirshfield

q

Don't wait to start living. Live now! Your life should be real in this very moment…You can live every moment of every day deeply, in touch with the wonders of life.  Then you will learn to live, and, at the same time, learn to die.  A person who does not know how to die does not know how to live, and vice versa.  You should learn to die—to die immediately.

Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Zen master, scholar, author, poet, and peace activist, b. 1926