WISE WORDS, A COLLECTION

 

 

Reader, I've filled my 2021 collage journal with these words and would humbly like to share them with you:

Winter reminds us that every living thing, including us, needs quiet time.

The world is full of magical things waiting for us to notice. 

"Books are the destination and the journey.  They are home."  Anna Quindlen (b. 1953)

When the astronauts looked back, they saw that what they were leaving behind was perhaps even more beautiful than where they were going. 

Acknowledging the good you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.  Eckhart Tolle (b. 1948)

A healthy wish:  To live simply.  To sit by the window when it rains and read books, and never be tested on them.  

Another healthy wish:  To fall asleep when the moon is high and wake up slowly without penalty.

Go ahead, write about your life; it's completely yours.

"[Books are] the only time we really go into the mind of a stranger, and we find our common humanity doing this.  So the book doesn't only belong to the writer.  It belongs to the reader as well.  And then together you make it what it is."  Paul Auster (b. 1947)

Trees have given us shelter, food, warmth and healing for all of human existence.  Now we must care for them with love.

"Life is to be lived, not controlled."  Ralph Waldo Ellison (1914-1994) 

"Make your life a little easier, especially in your head." unknown 

What we pay attention to thrives.  What we ignore fades away. So place your attention carefully.

"It is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in this broken world."  Mary Oliver (1935-2019) 

Peace doesn't mean no noise, trouble or effort; it means to be in the midst of these and more, yet still be calm in mind and heart. 

"The greatest wealth is to live content with little."  Plato (428-348 BCE)

Change is inevitable.  It's OK to change your point of view, change your priorities, change your beliefs, your mind, your behavior . . . .

"One short sleep past, we wake eternally." John Donne (1572-1631)

There's more to come, and some of it will be beautiful. 

Just connecting to beauty is consoling.  It helps us know the best we can do; the worst gets so much publicity. 

As life progresses, there are certain things we just have to get used to.  

"Something that is loved is never lost."  Toni Morrison (1931-2019)

"You are never stronger . . . than when you land on the other side of despair."   Zadie Smith (b. 1975)

It's easy to love life when everything is new to you, but surprising to still love every day as I get older. 

We don't live to ourself or die to ourself.  If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. Romans 14:7-8

How wonderful when you realize that you can save yourself.  How amazing it is to be brave without forethought.  

Learn to stop rushing things that need time to grow.

Sometimes just going forward is superhuman.  Give yourself credit. 

A Star led the way to the Light of the World.   

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

GOOD MORNING, POSSUM

Good Morning, Possum

"Come here, come quick . . ." my husband said this morning when the day had barely begun.  There it was just outside the door, this fat possum walking around our front deck, nosing the grass in the courtyard, inspecting the perimeter without a care.  Fat and gray and furry.  Now that I've looked up opossums, I'm thinking a Virginia Opossum because they're big and this one clearly out-ranked Mr. Wiggles, who weighs in at just under 10 lbs.  The photos are a bit blurry but the video came out well.  Deliberate, unhurried, curious.  I had no idea the day would begin in such an interesting way.  When we finally cranked a couple of windows it made way for a break in the decking and crawled under.  One other year we had a den of foxes under there.  That was less welcome.

So no doomscrolling for me this morning.  The first thing I had to do was look up possums.  Obvious to anyone who knows what I didn't:  our guest is an opossum, not a possum.  Possums don't live in North America.  They are an entirely different animal.  This visitor is a cat-sized omnivore with, like all opossums, a gentle nature.  They don't attack pets and Mr. Wiggles for sure won't attack it.  He'll bark, but he'll bark while backing away.  He's not aggressive either.

Then the next good thing of the day.  A friend forwarded this picture of a fawn she caught in her headlights as she neared the end of our driveway the other night.  We've been seeing a few fawns lately but never, never have gotten a photo worth anything.  The mom must be behind the cedar tree.  They tend their fawns well.

Two special animal encounters plus I just finished Upstream by Mary Oliver ("Mary Oliver Speaks To Us Today," 3/28/20), a lovely book of essays that combines the natural world with the world of writing.  I had planned to share it as soon as I read the first sentence:  "One tree is like another tree, but not too much.  One tulip is like the next tulip, but not altogether.  More or less like people--a general outline, then the stunning individual strokes."  "What a life is ours!" she says.  "Doesn't anybody in the world anymore want to get up in the middle of the night and sing?" 

Who can resist such exuberance?  She's right of course.  I know I have favorite trees.  Double-trunked with nestled bowls for leaves and water. 

Or curved to avoid a neighbor.  Or tall with goiters for which I have no explanation.   I have favorite boulders, big as tables and comfortable as chairs.  And of course fine mossy places and beds of fresh gold pine straw, deep and spongy. (Who knew it wasn't brown?) 

Oliver notices the way the ferns rise, delicately curled with a fuzz that presses against each frond. 

"Attention is the beginning of devotion,"

she says.  Well I can do that.  I can pay attention to all that is outside my door.  And I can do it during a pandemic as well as not.  Maybe better.  You too? 

                                                             Nina Naomi