“One can no more approach people without love than one can approach bees without care.
Such is the quality of bees…” ― Leo Tolstoy
love
All posts tagged love
“Often, when we say, “I love you” we focus mostly on the idea of the “I” who is doing the loving and less on the quality of the love that’s being offered. This is because we are caught by the idea of self. We think we have a self. But there is no such thing as an individual separate self. A flower is made only of non-flower elements, such as chlorophyll, sunlight, and water. If we were to remove all the non-flower elements from the flower, there would be no flower left. A flower cannot be by herself alone. A flower can only inter-be with all of us… Humans are like this too. We can’t exist by ourselves alone. We can only inter-be. I am made only of non-me elements, such as the Earth, the sun, parents, and ancestors. In a relationship, if you can see the nature of interbeing between you and the other person, you can see that their suffering is your own suffering, and your happiness is their own happiness. With this way of seeing, you speak and act differently. This in itself can relieve so much suffering.” – Thich Nhat Hanh
Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,
Which I gaze on so fondly to-day,
Were to change by to-morrow, and fleet in my arms,
Like fairy-gifts, fading away!
Thou wouldst still be ador’d as this moment thou art,
Let thy loveliness fade as it will;
And, around the dear ruin, each wish of my heart
Would entwine itself verdantly still!
It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,
And thy cheeks unprofan’d by a tear,
That the fervour and faith of a soul can be known,
To which time will but make thee more dear!
Oh! the heart, that has truly lov’d, never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close;
As the sun-flower turns on her god, when he sets,
The same look which she turn’d when he rose!
Thomas Moore
Beauty, its perception, its feeling, to bathe and revel in beauty, is the most complete human delight of which man is capable; and though some have been marred in this pure faculty of enjoyment, by rough contact with a host of unhandsome beings and circumstances, yet sometimes a ray of beauty will pierce to their benighted heart, and send a thrill of joy through their whole being. The man will sometimes catch a faint glimpse of that divinity, and then again be lost in the vortex of utilitarianism. ~T.C. Henley, “Beauty,” 1851
In a Boat
D. H. Lawrence
See the stars, love,
In the water much clearer and brighter
Than those above us, and whiter,
Like nenuphars.
Star-shadows shine, love,
How many stars in your bowl?
How many shadows in your soul,
Only mine, love, mine?
When I move the oars, love,
See how the stars are tossed,
Distorted, the brightest lost.
—So that bright one of yours, love.
The poor waters spill
The stars, waters broken, forsaken.
—The heavens are not shaken, you say, love,
Its stars stand still.
There, did you see
That spark fly up at us; even
Stars are not safe in heaven.
—What of yours, then, love, yours?
What then, love, if soon
Your light be tossed over a wave?
Will you count the darkness a grave,
And swoon, love, swoon?
…not fishing but leaving today on a short trip this weekend. So the blog will be mostly on autopilot.
“And if travel is like love, it is, in the end, mostly because it’s a heightened state of awareness,
in which we are mindful, receptive, in dimmed by familiarity and ready to be transformed.
That is why the best trips, like the best love affairs, never really end.” ― Pico Iyer
Spend time with wine by a stream,
And let sorrows away stream.
My life, like a rose, is but few days;
Youthful and joyous live this dream.
Hafez Shirazi
Maverick Mist 