body and spirit

Embrace your physical and spiritual natures as one.
Is it even possible to separate them?

— Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, translated by Robert Brookes

survive

"I think that little by little I'll be able to solve my problems and survive."

— Frida Kahlo

[blue century plant]

riches

You might notice that in some ways the effects of our winter experiences are similar. You write of a constant sense of fullness, an almost overabundance of inner being, which from the outset counterbalances and compensates all deprivations and losses that might possibly come. In the course of my work this last long winter, I have experienced a truth more completely than ever before: that life's bestowal of riches already surpasses any subsequent impoverishment. What, then, remains to be feared? Only that we might forget this! But around and within us, how much it helps to remember! 

— Rainer Maria Rilke, Letter to Lisa Heise, May 19, 1922

lines for winter

Lines for Winter

   by Mark Strand

   for Ros Krauss


Tell yourself
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself—
inside the dome of dark
or under the cracking white
of the moon's gaze in a valley of snow.
Tonight as it gets cold
tell yourself
what you know which is nothing
but the tune your bones play
as you keep going. And you will be able
for once to lie down under the small fire
of winter stars.
And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back
and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
tell yourself
in that final flowing of cold through your limbs
that you love what you are.

dervishes

A dervish lover was told to turn

toward his own face,

and he did, saying, Lord, lord, for years

with no answer, no message back,

yet he was always there turning in silence,

with no music supporting him,

no tambourine rhythm.

A pigeon knows which roof to haunt.

Even if you drive it off,

it will circle and stay near.

This is the critical moment

when a swell of ocean turns

its edge to foam.

Every dervish has two mouths,

a crafted reed opening

and the lips of the flute player.

Lord, don't speak from there.

— Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks

follow it

However small, your gift will guide you.

Is it prickly, or soft?

You won't know without touching.

Let's live the New Year as fully as we can!