Understanding Edges...

Between forest and field, a threshold

like stepping from a cathedral into the street–
the quality of air alters, an eclipse lifts,

boundlessness opens, earth itself retextured

into weeds where woods once were.
Even planes of motion shift from vertical

navigation to horizontal quiescence:
there’s a standing invitation to lie back

as sky’s unpredictable theater proceeds.

Suspended in this ephemeral moment

after leaving a forest, before entering
a field, the nature of reality is revealed.

Ravi Shankar, ‘Crossings’

Dear Human

Dear human,
modern incarnate
for a brief moment.
Neither of the angels,
neither of the demons.

Dear human,
you, where evil and light wrangle,
on some daybreak, will awaken
to remember the reason
of this existence.

Meanwhile, dear human,
through the twists and turns
you belong here
and through this wounded lifetime,
teach others to heal...


- Tara Estacaan, June 05, 2016

Recollections

Ye blesséd Creatures, I have heard the call
     Ye to each other make; I see
The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;
     My heart is at your festival,
       My head hath its coronal,
The fulness of your bliss, I feel—I feel it all.

William Wordsworth, 1770 - 1850,
'Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood'

Only Love Lasts

The dawn is not distant, nor is the night starless;
love is eternal.

H.W. Longfellow

The Mind And Awareness

There is no ideal in observation.
When you have an ideal,
you cease to observe,
you are then merely
approximating the
present to the idea,
and therefore there
is duality, conflict,
and all the rest of it.

The mind has to be in the
state when it can see, observe.
The experience of the observation
is really an astonishing state.

In that there is no duality.
The mind is simply—aware.

—Jiddu Krishnamurti

Creative Power

The creative adult
is the child who has survived.

― Ursula K. Le Guin

Be Curious, Be Aware

Our business in living
is to become fluent
with the life we are living,
and art can help this.

― John Cage

Just as long as you stand, stand by me...

When the night has come
And the land is dark
And the moon is the only light we'll see
No I won't be afraid...

- Ben King, Stand By Me (1961)

Nature's Portraits

Our intention is to affirm this life,
not to bring order out of chaos,
nor to suggest improvements in creation,
but simply to wake up
to the very life we're living,
which is so excellent once
one gets one's mind
and desires out of its way
and lets it act of its own accord.


― John Cage

The World Is Your Mirror

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.

Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.

Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.

Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.

There is room in the halls of pleasure 
For a long and lordly train, 
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.

~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Solitude

Mornings

Every morning
the world
is created. 
Under the orange 

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again 

and fasten themselves to the high branches ---
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands 

of summer lilies. 
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails...

~ Mary Oliver, Morning Poem

For Zoey

Zoey, sweet beloved
Whose thoughtfulness
Overflows,
Graceful in manner,
Elegant in spirit.

Grow up and
Spread your light,
Be a conqueror yet benevolent,
Strong in mind,
And always kind.

Much, much love,
Tita N.

A Poem For Xenia

"I put this on,

my big sister's dress

and you take some snaps,

and some more snaps...

here, here, like this

as I sniff the rose."

Animated laughter

Snorting, Roaring,

Giggling,

All those yellings

Xenia zapping

my serial disquiet. :)

With Much, Much Love,
Tita N.

Focus on the positive

Life can seem a tangle, in and out of focus.
Don't concentrate on the tangle.
Concentrate on the places
where one line in the tangle
crosses another line in the tangle.

~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

On a grander perspective

“...two thirds of all sorrow is homemade and, 
so far as the universe is concerned, unnecessary.” 

― Aldous Huxley

and I believe so.

xx Tara Estacaan :)
indigo girl