Beautiful quotes, images and poetry (13)

'At every instant and from every side, resounds the call of Love: 
We are going to sky, who wants to come with us? '

Rumi

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Re: Beautiful quotes, images and poetry (13)

my love is building a building
around you, a frail slippery
house, a strong fragile house
(beginning at the singular beginning

of your smile)a skilful uncouth
prison, a precise clumsy
prison(building thatandthis into Thus,
Around the reckless magic of your mouth)

my love is building a magic, a discrete
tower of magic and(as i guess)

when Farmer Death(whom fairies hate)shall

crumble the mouth-flower fleet
He'll not my tower,
laborious, casual

where the surrounded smile
hangs

breathless 

E.E. Cummings 

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Embracing Yes
For
Certain
When i am
No longer here
My heart shall still
Gently whisper
As the sweet
Sweet
Silence
Appears
Healing
And embracing
The fear you may be facing
In moments of tears
Yet you will find
That this love
Is truly
Divine ~silent lotus

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you being in love
will tell who softly asks in love,

am i separated from your body smile brain hands merely
to become the jumping puppets of a dream? oh i mean:
entirely having in my careful how
careful arms created this at length
inexcusable, this inexplicable pleasure-you go from several
persons: believe me that strangers arrive
when i have kissed you into a memory
slowly, oh seriously
-that since and if you disappear

solemnly
myselves
ask “life, the question how do i drink dream smile

and how do i prefer this face to another and
why do i weep eat sleep-what does the whole intend”
they wonder. oh and they cry “to be, being, that i am alive
this absurd fraction in its lowest terms
with everything cancelled
but shadows
-what does it all come down to? love? Love
if you like and i like,for the reason that i
hate people and lean out of this window is love,love
and the reason that i laugh and breathe is oh love and the reason
that i do not fall into this street is love.” 

E.E. Cummings

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“A bird knows no barbed wire…” –Aaron Hughes
www.aarhughes.org

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“Be of love a little more careful than of anything.”


E.E. Cummings

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So vast is this experience of being, these exist together in time - no time

Bharat Rochlin from the book Split Seconds

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A student asked Soen Nakagawa during a meditation retreat, “I am very discouraged. What should I do?”
Soen replied, “Encourage others.”
(Essential Zen)

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It is easier often to forgive than to be forgiven; yet it is fatal to be willing to be forgiven by God and to be reluctant to be forgiven by men. 
Charles Williams 

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This shape I have, O master, who do I look like?
One moment I am a fairy, the next and enchanter of one.
Burning with enthousiasms, I am both the candle and the crowd gathered around it;
I am the smoke and the light, together and scattered at once.

Rumi

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“Do you know what you must do?”

She looked at him with a docile content. “I have nothing at all to do,” she said, and the Hajji cried suddenly
aloud, “Blessed for ever be the Resignation of the elect.”
“Under the Protection,…” 

Charles Williams

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If woman is inconstant, good, I am faithful to ebb and flow, I fall in season and now is a time of ripening.
Denise Levertov

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“The central mystery of the Mass has been at all times the subject of dream and speculation, of theology and devotion. If it is the centre of Christian life, it is also and therefore, the centre of all life – anyhow on this planet, and perhaps everywhere. … The Mass is an invisible communication, not only of redemption but also of creation and judgement: it is an absorption of the communicant in his degree into eternity. It is therefore above all things the relation between his own soul and Love with which the lover is concerned; and though he passes into the mystery by the channels which Love has prepared, Love itself issues therefrom in all his terrible strength along the channels which the lover has prepared.”



Charles Williams

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The Glow of Your Presence by Hafiz (English version by David and Sabrineh Fideler)

Where have you taken your sweet song?
Come back and play me a tune

I never really cared for the things of this world
It was the glow of your presence that filled it with beauty

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What fields are as fragrant as your hands?
You feel how external fragrance stands
upon your stronger resistance.
Stars stand in images above.
Give me your mouth to soften, love;
ah, your hair is all in idleness.

See, I want to surround you with yourself
and the faded expectation lift
from the edges of your eyebrows;
I want, as with inner eyelids sheer,
to close for you all places which appear
by my tender caresses now.


Translated by John J.L. Mood 

Rainer Maria Rilke 

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all which isn't singing is mere talking
and all talking's talking to oneself
(whether that oneself be sought or seeking
master or disciple sheep or wolf)

gush to it as deity or devil
-toss in sobs and reasons threats and smiles
name it cruel fair or blessed evil-
it is you (ne i)nobody else

drive dumb mankind dizzy with haranguing
-you are deafened every mother's son-
all is merely talk which isn't singing
and all talking's to oneself alone

but the very song of(as mountains
feel and lovers)singing is silence 

EE Cummings 

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just love the poetry you're posting Nicole…

“Wisdom is the art of living in rhythm with your soul, your life and the divine.
Wisdom is the way that you learn to decipher the unknown; and the unknown is our closest companion.  So wisdom is the art of being courageous and generous with the unknown, of being able to decipher and recognize its treasures”

From the book Anam Cara by John O'Donohue

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Heartbeat

Only mouths are we. Who sings the distant heart
which safely exists in the center of all things?
His giant heartbeat is diverted in us
into little pulses. And his giant grief
is, like his giant jubilation, far too
great for us. And so we tear ourselves away
from him time after time, remaining only
mouths. But unexepectedly and secretly
the giant heartbeat enters our being,
so that we scream —-,
and are transformed in being and in countenance.


Translated by Albert Ernest Flemming 

Rainer Maria Rilke 

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Beautiful

“You can search far and in hungry places for love.  It is a great consolation to know that there is a wellspring of love within yourself.  If you trust that this wellspring is there, you will then be able to invite it to awaken”

From the book Anam Cara by John O'Donohue

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who knows if the moon's
a balloon, coming out of a keen city
in the sky–filled with pretty people?
(and if you and i should

get into it,if they
should take me and take you into their balloon,
why then
we'd go up higher with all the pretty people

than houses and steeples and clouds:
go sailing
away and away sailing into a keen
city which nobody's ever visited,where

always
it's
Spring)and everyone's
in love and flowers pick themselves 

EE Cummings 

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“Love is the deepest language and presence of soul.  In and through the warmth and creativity of love, the soul shelters us from the bleakness of nothingness.  We cannot fill up our emptiness with objects, possessions or people.  We have to go into that emptiness, then we will find beneath nothingness the flame of love waiting to warm us”

from the book Anam Cara by John O'Donohue

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Your Laughter

Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.

Do not take away the rose,
the lance flower that you pluck,
the water that suddenly
bursts forth in joy,
the sudden wave
of silver born in you.

My struggle is harsh and I come back
with eyes tired
at times from having seen
the unchanging earth,
but when your laughter enters
it rises to the sky seeking me
and it opens for me all
the doors of life.

My love, in the darkest
hour your laughter
opens, and if suddenly
you see my blood staining
the stones of the street,
laugh, because your laughter
will be for my hands
like a fresh sword.

Next to the sea in the autumn,
your laughter must raise
its foamy cascade,
and in the spring, love,
I want your laughter like
the flower I was waiting for,
the blue flower, the rose
of my echoing country.

Laugh at the night,
at the day, at the  moon
laugh at the twisted
streets of the island,
laugh at this clumsy
boy who loves you,
but when I open
my eyes and close them,
when my steps go,
when my steps return,
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never your laughter
for I would die. 

Pablo Neruda 

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http://inducingconsciousness.gaia.com/blog/2009/10/flame-to-my-heart#comments

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Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.
– Mevlana Rumi

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From the Book of Questions:


Tell me, is the rose naked
or is that her only dress?

Why do trees conceal
the splendor of their roots?

Who hears the regrets
of the thieving automobile?

Is there anything in the world sadder 
than a train standing in the rain? 

Pablo Neruda 

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You are responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

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forever, yes… i accept

“How could there be any question of acquiring or possessing, when the one thing needful for a man is to become - to be at last, and to die in the fullness of his being.” 

Antoine de Saint-Exupery 

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When you give yourself, you receive more than you give.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

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Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.


Louisa May Alcott

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“You have now found the conditions in which the desire of your heart can become the reality of your being.  Stay here until you acquire a force in you that nothing can destroy”

Spoken to the mystic Gurdjieff by his teacher in Meetings with Remarkable Men:  Gurdjieff's Search for Hidden Knowledge

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I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship.


Louisa May Alcott

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“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Mark Twain quotes

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 Love is the only thing that we can carry with us when we go, and it makes the end so easy.


Louisa May Alcott

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“What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us”.

Helen Keller

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*tears of joy* how could you know how perfect this is for me and Robert right now? hugs




If your eyes were not the color of the moon,
of a day full [here, interrupted by the baby waking – continued about 26
hours later ]
of a day full of clay, and work, and fire,
if even held-in you did not move in agile grace like the air,
if you were not an amber week,

not the yellow moment
when autumn climbs up through the vines;
if you were not that bread the fragrant moon
kneads, sprinkling its flour across the sky,

oh, my dearest, I could not love you so!
But when I hold you I hold everything that is –
sand, time, the tree of the rain,

everything is alive so that I can be alive:
without moving I can see it all:
in your life I see everything that lives. 

Pablo Neruda 

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Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You, too? Thought I was the only one.” ~

 C.S. Lewis

Love to you both…
Tai

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Lost in the forest, I broke off a dark twig
and lifted its whisper to my thirsty lips:
maybe it was the voice of the rain crying,
a cracked bell, or a torn heart.

Something from far off it seemed
deep and secret to me, hidden by the earth,
a shout muffled by huge autumns,
by the moist half-open darkness of the leaves.

Wakening from the dreaming forest there, the hazel-sprig
sang under my tongue, its drifting fragrance
climbed up through my conscious mind

as if suddenly the roots I had left behind
cried out to me, the land I had lost with my childhood—
and I stopped, wounded by the wandering scent. 

Pablo Neruda 

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In spiritual life, in the search for truth, in the search for God, desire is everything. Desire is a force that moves you, not only in spiritual life, but it moves you from one place to another in this material world. The situations that you create are largely based upon desires. So just as much of your material life is created by your desires, so is your spiritual life, because it is only by spiritual desire that one makes spiritual advancement in meditation.

Sometimes when a person goes within and begins touching upon a deep place, they cannot help but cry because of an incredible longing that it brings. Some feel it is like coming home after having been away for  so long, and it might feel like a sadness and a happiness at the same time.

For many people, to get in touch with their emotional side is a wonderful thing – to finally not be inhibited to let go, to express themselves in that way. However, for those that do not feel this, there are so many ways to truth; the ways vary so greatly. Don’t think that you need to follow the same path as the next person.

If you have not yet succeeded on an inward journey, be
gentle with yourself. Give yourself time. Gently let
yourself go deeper. Whatever experience comes to you,
let it take you over. Welcome it. Relish it.

- GOURASANA

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O tower of light, sad beauty
that magnified necklaces and statues in the sea,
calcareous eye, insignia of the vast waters, cry
of the mourning petrel, tooth of the sea, wife
of the Oceanian wind, O separate rose
from the long stem of the trampled bush
that the depths, converted into archipelago,
O natural star, green diadem,
alone in your lonesome dynasty,
still unattainable, elusive, desolate
like one drop, like one grape, like the sea. 

Pablo Neruda 

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A lake carries you into recesses of feeling otherwise impenetrable.

 ~William Wordsworth

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this is the garden:colours come and go,
frail azures fluttering from night's outer wing
strong silent greens serenely lingering,
absolute lights like baths of golden snow.
This is the garden:pursed lips do blow
upon cool flutes within wide glooms,and sing
(of harps celestial to the quivering string)
invisible faces hauntingly and slow.

This is the garden. Time shall surely reap
and on Death's blade lie many a flower curled,
in other lands where other songs be sung;
yet stand They here enraptured,as among
The slow deep trees perpetual of sleep
some silver-fingered fountain steals the world. 


E.E. Cummings

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“Open the window, and let the air
Freshly blow upon face and hair,
And fill the room, as it fills the night,
With the breath of the rain's sweet might.
Hark! the burthen, swift and prone!
And how the odorous limes are blown!
Stormy Love's abroad, and keeps
Hopeful coil for gentle sleeps.

Not a blink shall burn to-night
In my chamber, of sordid light;
Nought will I have, not a window-pane,
'Twixt me and the air and the great good rain,
Which ever shall sing me sharp lullabies;
And God's own darkness shall close mine eyes;
And I will sleep, with all things blest,
In the pure earth-shadow of natural rest.”
-   James Henry Leigh Hunt, A Night Rain in Summer

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A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: 
Its loveliness increases; it will never 
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep 
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep 
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. 
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing 
A flowery band to bind us to the earth, 
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth 
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, 
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkn'd ways 
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, 
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall 
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, 
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon 
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils 
With the green world they live in; and clear rills 
That for themselves a cooling covert make 
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake, 
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms: 
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms 
We have imagined for the mighty dead; 
An endless fountain of immortal drink, 
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink. 

John Keats 

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I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.  ~John Muir, 1913, in L.M. Wolfe, ed., John Muir, John of the Mountains:  The Unpublished Journals of John Muir, 1938

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Bards of Passion and of Mirth,
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Have ye souls in heaven too,
Double lived in regions new?
Yes, and those of heaven commune
With the spheres of sun and moon;
With the noise of fountains wound'rous,
And the parle of voices thund'rous;
With the whisper of heaven's trees
And one another, in soft ease.

Seated on Elysian lawns
Brows'd by none but Dian's fawns;
Underneath large blue-bells tented,
Where the daisies are rose-scented,
And the rose herself has got
Perfume which on earth is not;
Where the nightingale doth sing
Not a senseless, tranced thing,
But divine melodious truth;
Philosophic numbers smooth;
Tales and golden histories
Of heaven and its mysteries.

Thus ye live on high, and then
On the earth ye live again;
And the souls ye left behind you
Teach us, here, the way to find you,
Where your other souls are joying,
Never slumber'd, never cloying.
Here, your earth-born souls still speak
To mortals, of their little week;
Of their sorrows and delights;
Of their passions and their spites;
Of their glory and their shame;
What doth strengthen and what maim.
Thus ye teach us, every day,
Wisdom, though fled far away.

Bards of Passion and of Mirth,
Ye have left your souls on earth!
Ye have souls in heaven too,
Double-lived in regions new! 

John Keats

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I simply believe that some part of the human Self or Soul is not subject to the laws of space and time. 
 ~Carl Jung

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Moving Lyrics from David Gates

If a picture paints a thousand words,
then why can't I paint you?
The words would never show,
the you I've come to know …

If a face could launch a thousand ships,
then where am I to go?
There's no one home but you,
you're all that's left me to …

And when my love for life
is running dry,
You come and pour
yourself on me …

If a man could be two places at one time,
I'd be with you,
tomorrow and today,
beside you all the way …

If the world should stop revolving,
Spinning slowly down to die,
I'd spend the end with you
when the world was through …

Then one by one
the stars would all go out …
Then you and I
would simply fly away!

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It's so long since I heard that David Gates song - it is just so moving and full of emotion…
thank you for posting torchholder

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Starry, starry night.
Paint your palette blue and grey,
Look out on a summer's day,
With eyes that know
 the darkness in my soul.

Shadows on the hills,
Sketch the trees and daffodils,
Catch the breeze and  winter chills,
In colors on
the snowy linen land.

Now I understand,
 what you tried to say to me,
 and How you suffered for your sanity, and
How you tried to set them free -

They would not listen, 
they did not know how.
Perhaps they'll listen now.

Starry, starry night.
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze,
Swirling clouds in violet haze,
Reflect in Vincent's eyes
 of china blue.
Colors changing hue,
 morning field of amber grain,
Weathered faces lined in pain,
Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand.

Now I understand
 what you tried to say to me, and
How you suffered for your sanity, and
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen,
 they did not know how.
Perhaps they'll listen now.

For they could not love you,
But still your love was true.
And when no hope was left in sight
On that starry, starry night,

You took your life, as lovers often do.

But I could have told you, Vincent,
This world was never meant for one
So beautiful as you.

Starry, starry night.
Portraits hung in empty halls,

Frameless head on nameless walls,
With eyes that watch the world and can't forget.
strangers that you've met,
ragged men in ragged clothes,
silver thorn of bloody rose,
Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow.

Now I think I know
what you tried to say to me, and
How you suffered for your sanity, and
How you tried to set them free.

They would not listen,
They're not listening still.
Perhaps they never will… 
Lyrics by Don McLean

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Another beautiful song ….

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thanks so much for those beautiful songs - 

If (David Gates)

Vincent (Starry Starry Night) Don McLean


 but the other
day i was passing a certain
gate rain
fell as it will


in spring 
ropes 
of silver gliding from sunny 
thunder into freshness 


as if god's flowers were 
pulling upon bells of 
gold i looked 
up 


and 
thought to myself death 
and will You with 
elaborate fingers possibly touch 


the pink hollyhock existence whose 
pansy eyes look from morning till 
night into the street 
unchangingly the always 


old lady sitting in her 
gentle window like 
a reminiscence 
partaken 


softly at whose gate smile 
always the chosen 
flowers of reminding 

ee cummings