I can eat with gratitude and reverence, or I can thoughtlessly shovel it in. Either way, how I eat is how I live. If I eat thoughtlessly, my body will respond accordingly; we two will become coarse and crude, and be both cause and mirror of hunger and strife in the world. If I eat mindfully, and consume only what I need, the good food I eat will bring joy […]
Tiny towns and crossings on the west side of the river: Amity, Hopewell, Eola. Lincoln. Zena. Bethel. On this side: St. Louis, Brooks, Mt. Angel, Bethany. Churches. Barns. Cemeteries. Oaks, firs, winding roads that give way to gravel. Smoke from fireplaces and stoves. Deer. Wild blackberries. When was the last time I wanted something I didn’t really need? It must be the forthcoming Richard Wilbur translations of Molière. And the […]
Each pause a leaf where a comma once has been. Each leaf a pause and then the wind again. December 5, 2021 . [ 1309 ]
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 […]
Passing / even in death / may our expressions / bring peace to the world. November 29, 2021 Canvas 953 July 1, 2017 . [ 1304 ]
Shown by a leaf — service is not a doctrine, but the heart of the tree. November 23, 2021 . [ 1299 ]
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 ]
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 […]
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 ]
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 […]
William Michaelian 
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