To witness a miracle, spend a day, a few hours, or even a few minutes listening to your body. Be still. Don’t sit in judgment. There’s no need for words. Notice where it hurts. Notice where it doesn’t. Notice your heartbeat, and the rise and fall of your breath. Notice your digestion. And along with this noticing, notice too how everything is happening of its own accord. The body is […]
I’ve lived long enough to know that whatever I try to do is weakened by the effort. Whatever I try to say, is rendered less clear. I’ve learned that even before I begin, the doing and saying is already being done for me, and that by keeping breath in this body, life is allowing me to take part in a process as playful as it is timeless and profound. Life […]
I run so early in the morning I’m seldom met or passed by a car. When I am, I’m amazed all over again at how much pollution even one vehicle generates. It happened this morning, when I was overtaken by a small late-model pickup as we moved towards the stop sign by the fig tree. As I ran through the fumes, I took shallow breaths until I was clear of […]
It’s time to cut the grass away from the dandelions so the flowers will have more space to breathe and grow. I want them to spread. I want to be a dandelion man, and to bloom like them, a bright, sunny yellow, and for this place where I live to be a bee sanctuary, with more flowers than anyone can dream or count, and a little sign by the street […]
As the mind and body are connected by the breath, all three are connected to the stars, because in that awareness, everything is present, everything is here. Or, not the stars, if they seem too far — a loved one, a pet, the trees, the flowers. . [ 1715 ]
Deep in our ancient programming, we know how to be healthy and whole. But we believe in so much nonsense that we undermine ourselves, and are taken in by the ones sending the bill. Life wants us to be well — not just in mind and body, but in a universal way that intimately involves everything seen and unseen, every grain of sand, every drop of rain, every molecule and […]
Now, with so much joy in one dandelion, imagine the collective power of every blade of grass, every tree, every drop of rain, and the sky full of stars. Then imagine the joy in thee and me. To say it another way, the only thing that can come between ourselves and the universe, and everything near and beyond, is the hardened assumption that we are superior or inferior, right or […]
Are those stars in your mirror, or is that your hair? And the space in your eyes? And the ship sailing there? . [ 1680 ]
It isn’t a matter of using the day, but of finding a way to express one’s gratitude. Or it might be a matter of finding one’s gratitude and expressing the way. * Junco bathing in a puddle — sunlight-celebration. * Death is the poet’s last poem. Life is the page it’s written on. * The body ages like a star. The mind is its light, seen from afar. * Joy […]
A falling star — a petal bright, from the flower. * Some books I leave open, so that during daylight hours, I can read a few lines from them in passing. Diaries, journals, letters, poetry, too — and it’s all poetry, beginning with the light coming in through the window. Or call it pollen, or honey, because the words coat the wings, and sweeten the tongue. * How many things […]
William Michaelian 