By Design
What’s next? I couldn’t say. What’s past? — blows away. What’s left? What’s best? What’s free? Uncertainty. . [ 1598 ]
Tag Archive for ‘Be Here Now’
Be No One
It’s useless for you to try to be like me, or for me to try to be like you, or even for us to try to be like ourselves. Rather, let’s set that notion aside and be no one — completely, fully, freely, dynamically. . [ 1595 ]
Love Story
Cradle the cup, and when you bring it to your lips, this is your first kiss. . [ 1587 ]
Star Light, Star Bright
A picture of a mountain isn’t a mountain. So with a river, a flower, and those we hate and love. Memory, too, is a kind of picture, as are words. The word mountain isn’t a mountain. But to show each other our pictures, we climb mountains and mountains of words. The memory of something that happened isn’t the happening. Maybe that’s one reason we keep fighting wars. Genocide in books […]
Until Then
Who knows? Someday, we may find the past and future really do exist, and we’ll be able to meet each other there. . [ 1575 ]
Now and Again
O dear raindrop, tell me, what was it like to land on the Buddha’s tongue? . [ 1571 ]
Repetition
Late yesterday evening, I was taking a barefoot stroll through the clover in front of the house when I saw, about ten feet away, a fine healthy skunk in the shade garden, quietly sniffing amongst the ferns. It had two white stripes. It seemed not to notice me. And in that instant I didn’t notice myself. That came immediately after, when I softly turned away and left it alone. There […]
The Miracle of Your Breath
The waning moon; a gentle arc of planets; a run that ends with a sprint — the ship is crowded, aye, but the deck is clear while the stars are out. Yesterday our eldest son climbed Mt. Whitney — a twenty-two-mile hike, four and a half hours to the summit, three hours down, the entire descent in a thunderstorm with hail and icy water all around. Back in Lone Pine, […]
A Few More Scratches
So many things live only for a day — flowers, insects, rain, and sometimes people — yet see how different, how strange the world would be without them. Love it all. Never look away. To embrace, rather than resist, the ephemeral nature of sharing one’s thoughts online. Helped, and also haunted by, mechanical memory. The neat, efficient archive (see cemetery rows, honeycomb) is for oneself, for the idle many, the […]
Time
It takes time to learn carpentry; algebra; to build bridges; plant a vineyard; fly to the moon. But to live simply and joyfully, to be kind, to breathe deeply, love, and be free, time is not needed at all. Peace is not a matter of identity, struggle, or effort; ask any tree or ever-changing cloud. You are here; the date, the hour, need not be recorded; the world need not […]
William Michaelian 