Phrasing
Each pause a leaf where a comma once has been. Each leaf a pause and then the wind again. December 5, 2021 . [ 1309 ]
Tag Archive for ‘Gratitude’
Call to Joy
Every breath is a call to the joy of consciousness. If I’m afraid of that consciousness coming to an end, or try to think of ways I can hold onto it forever, the joy immediately slips away. Joy then becomes just one more word in a numbing, distracting intellectual exercise in which I’m both martyr and hero. When that happens, the moment simply goes on without me. It doesn’t matter […]
Canvas 953 — Face to Face
Passing / even in death / may our expressions / bring peace to the world. November 29, 2021 Canvas 953 July 1, 2017 . [ 1304 ]
Incidental
Shown by a leaf — service is not a doctrine, but the heart of the tree. November 23, 2021 . [ 1299 ]
Thanksgiving
When the apple on the table met the one in my mind, they spoke of the distance between blossom and knife. And I of this childhood at the end of my life. November 20, 2021 . [ 1295 ]
Feathers and Dust
When once we see everything is a flower — from wayward child to walnut shell, changing sky to ancient, mottled hand — we understand that no measurement or value can express the shimmering grace of this world. Life is so fine and so rare, it cannot be fathomed by means of comparison, or appreciated on such narrow, limiting terms. Just as there is profound strength in the whole, the individual […]
Your Flower Body
Have you crumbled soil in your hands and held it to your nose? That is just one thing a flower knows. Behold your flower body. It blooms. It fades. It grows. November 10, 2021 . [ 1284 ]
Breakfast
Bread, seeds, nuts, raisins, honey. But what did I really have for breakfast? One by one, before taking a single bite, I thought of the origin and lives of each — walnut trees, fields of sunflowers and pumpkins, peanuts in the ground, a variety of grains swaying in the breeze, vineyard rows in autumn, bees busy in berry blossoms. And then I ate — slowly, marveling at how each of […]
Morning Call
When it’s time to rest, let your sleep be death. And if you wake, let surprise be your infinite gratitude. November 4, 2021 . [ 1278 ]
Mendicant
Please slow down. I am overwhelmed. It is you I love. My bowl is full. How can I pick and choose and scroll? Instead, give me what I truly care to know: your profound silence while the sun is still bright upon your face and your shadow is behind you. . [ 1277 ]
William Michaelian 
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