Last few hours of summer vacation

We're going to miss it!

Juicy bits

Squeezin' em all in while we can. :)

A bonfire every night

Such a fun week with family visiting the river. It helps to get the smores ready ahead of time so your fingers don't stick to the camera! ;)

tribes of the Susquehanna

Making a river fort

[Panhala] Out of the Mouths of a Thousand Birds

Out of the Mouths of a Thousand Birds

Listen -
Listen more carefully to what is around you
Right now.

In my world
There are the bells from the clanks
Of the morning milk drums,

And a wagon wheel outside my window
Just hit a bump

Which turned into an ecstatic chorus
Of the Beloved's Name.

There is the Prayer Call
Rising up like the sun
Out of the mouths of a thousand birds.

There is an astonishing vastness
Of movement and Life

Emanating sound and light
From my folded hands

And my even quieter simple being and heart.

My dear,
Is it true that your mind
Is sometimes like a battering
Ram

Running all through the city,
Shouting so madly inside and out

About the ten thousand things
That do not matter?

Hafiz, too,
For many years beat his head in youth

And thought himself at a great distance,
Far from an armistice
With God.

But that is why this scarred old pilgrim
Has now become such a sweet rare vintage
Who weeps and sings for you.

O listen -
Listen more carefully
To what is inside of you right now.

In my world
All that remains is the wondrous call to
Dance and prayer

Rising up like a thousand suns
Out of the mouth of a
Single bird.

~ Hafiz ~




(The Subject Tonight is Love -- versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)

A little adventure

The boys were swimming when we decided to jump in the canoe. One of the times it's cool to have the river for a backyard (when the river visits the inside of the house, not so much). ;)

present moments

"To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom."

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Love summer

Glorious river days

River boy

Beach boy

[Panhala] Hawks -- Lynn Ungar (Redux)

Hawks

Surely, you too have longed for this -- 
to pour yourself out
on the rising circles of the air 
to ride, unthinking, 
on the flesh of emptiness.

Can you claim, in your civilized life, 
that you have never leaned toward 
the headlong dive, the snap of bones,
the chance to be so terrible, 
so free from evil, beyond choice?

The air that they are riding 
is the same breath as your own. 
How could you not remember? 
That same swift stillness binds 
your cells in balance, rushes 
through the pulsing circles of your blood.

Each breath proclaims it -- 
the flash of feathers, the chance to rest 
on such a muscled quietness, 
to be in that fierce presence, 
wholly wind, wholly wild.

~ Lynn Ungar ~

(Blessing the Bread)

Rollin' on the river

"Spa-day"

Sometimes it's neat living in a resort town. Our local Unity had a kids day out at the Hershey Gardens. Missed the bambino but the adults had a three hour break to stroll around and relax. Scrumptious mini yoga retreat at a hidden rock garden we found...

Lovely things

Peel me a grape

Wish you were here!

[Panhala] One -- Mary Oliver

One

 

The mosquito is so small
it takes almost nothing to ruin it.
Each leaf, the same.
And the black ant, hurrying.
So many lives, so many fortunes!
Every morning, I walk softly and with forward glances
down to the ponds and through the pinewoods.
Mushrooms, even, have but a brief hour
before the slug creeps to the feast,
before the pine needles hustle down
under the bundles of harsh, beneficent rain.

 

How many, how many, how many
make up a world!
And then I think of that old idea: the singular
and the eternal.
One cup, in which everything is swirled
back to the color of the sea and sky.
Imagine it!

 

A shining cup, surely!
In the moment in which there is no wind
over your shoulder,
you stare down into it,
and there you are,
your own darling face, your own eyes.
And then the wind, not thinking of you, just passes by,
touching the ant, the mosquito, the leaf,
and you know what else!
How blue is the sea, how blue is the sky,
how blue and tiny and redeemable everything is, even you,
even your eyes, even your imagination.

 

~ Mary Oliver ~

 

(Why I Wake Early)

www.panhala.net/Archive/One.html

Fwd: Quote of the Week | Meeting Confusion

Loved this from Pema Chodron at Shambala Sun online

June 6, 2012

MEETING CONFUSION

Instead of struggling against the force of confusion, we could meet it and relax. When we do that, we gradually discover that clarity is always there. In the middle of the worst scenario of the worst person in the world, in the middle of all the heavy dialogue with ourselves, open space is always there.

[Panhala] Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front (excerpt) -- Wendell Berry

 

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

 

(second half)

 

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

 

Listen to carrion -- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

 

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go.
Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

~ Wendell Berry ~

Dinner

Don't you just love spring? :)

Fwd: [Panhala] Fluent -- John O'Donohue

Fluent

 

I would love to live

Like a river flows,

Carried by the surprise

Of its own unfolding.

 

~ John O'Donohue~

 

 

(Conamara Blues)

Fwd: [Panhala] Mysteries, Yes -- Mary Oliver

 

 

Mysteries, Yes

 

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.

 

How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds
will never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.

 

Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.

 

Let me keep company always with those who say
"Look!" and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.

 

~ Mary Oliver ~

 

(Evidence)

 

 

Web version: www.panhala.net/Archive/Mysteries_Yes.html

 

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