Hum

Hum  by Mary Oliver

What is this dark hum among the roses?
The bees have gone simple, sipping,
that's all. What did you expect? Sophistication?
They're small creatures and they are 
filling their bodies with sweetness, how could they not 
moan in happiness? The little
worker bee lives, I have read, about three weeks. 
Is that long? Long enough, I suppose, to understand
that life is a blessing. I have found them-haven't you?—
stopped in the very cups of the flowers, their wings
a little tattered-so much flying about, to the hive,
then out into the world, then back, and perhaps dancing,
should the task be to be a scout-sweet, dancing bee.
I think there isn't anything in this world I don't 
admire. If there is, I don't know what it is. I 
haven't met it yet. Nor expect to. The bee is small,
and since I wear glasses, so I can see the traffic and 
read books, I have to
take them off and bend close to study and
understand what is happening. It's not hard, it's in fact
as instructive as anything I have ever studied. Plus, too,
it's love almost too fierce to endure, the bee
nuzzling like that into the blouse
of the rose. And the fragrance, and the honey, and of course
the sun, the purely pure sun, shining, all the while, over
all of us. 

What we think, will come about.

When we think of failure; failure will be ours. 

If we remain undecided nothing will ever change. 

All we need to do is want to achieve something great and then simply to do it. 

Never think of failure, for what we think, will come about. 

Autobiography in Five Chapters

1) I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I fall in.
I am lost … I am hopeless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

2) I walk down the same street.
There is a hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place.
But it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

3) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it there.
I still fall in … it’s a habit
My eyes are open
I know where I am
It is my fault.
I get out immediately

4) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I walk around it.

5) I walk down another street.

A Native American Metaphor

A Native American Metaphor

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson 
about a battle that goes on inside people.

He said, "My son, the battle is between 
two "wolves" inside us all.

One is Evil.
It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, 
arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies,
false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. 
It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute
and then asked his grandfather: 
"Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, 
"The one you feed."

Make each on count

The average person lives 27,375 days. Make each one count.  Spend part of the year fishing in Canada or sailing in the Caribbean.  Learn to cook or paint.  Don’t just sit in your office or at home, mindlessly collecting pieces of paper called money so you can pay for a car that needs to be replaced every few years or a house that won’t do you any good when you are gone!  

- Joshua Kennon

Tao Te Ching

Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu

Those who know do not talk.
Those who talk do not know.

Keep your mouth closed.
Guard your senses.
Temper your sharpness.
Simplify your problems.
Mask your brightness.
Be at one with the dust of the earth.
This is primal union.

He who has achieved this state
Is unconcerned with friends and enemies,
With good and harm, with honor and disgrace.
This therefore is the highest state of man.

Advice to Myself

Advice to Myself

by Louise Erdrich

Leave the dishes. Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator
and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor.
Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster.
Throw the cracked bowl out and don't patch the cup.
Don't patch anything. Don't mend. Buy safety pins.
Don't even sew on a button.
Let the wind have its way, then the earth
that invades as dust and then the dead
foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch.
Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome.
Don't keep all the pieces of the puzzles
or the doll's tiny shoes in pairs, don't worry
who uses whose toothbrush or if anything
matches, at all.
Except one word to another. Or a thought.
Pursue the authentic—decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don't even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos.
Don't sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth
or worry if we're all eating cereal for dinner
again. Don't answer the telephone, ever,
or weep over anything at all that breaks.
Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons
in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life
and talk to the dead
who drift in through the screened windows, who collect
patiently on the tops of food jars and books.
Recycle the mail, don't read it, don't read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.