Beauty

Photograph: Tarhata Estacaan, "The Real", December 2012

Among the grasses,

An unknown flower

Blooming white.

―Zen Haiku

The Sacred in Everyday Life

Photograph: Tarhata Estacaan "Rustic Kitchen", March 2012

  “Daily”

A poem by Naomi Shihab Nye

These shriveled seeds we plant,
corn kernel, dried bean,
poke into loosened soil,
cover over with measured fingertips

These T-shirts we fold into
perfect white squares

These tortillas we slice and fry to crisp strips
This rich egg scrambled in a gray clay bowl

This bed whose covers I straighten
smoothing edges till blue quilt fits brown blanket
and nothing hangs out

This envelope I address
so the name balances like a cloud
in the center of sky

This page I type and retype
This table I dust till the scarred wood shines
This bundle of clothes I wash and hang and wash again
like flags we share, a country so close
no one needs to name it

The days are nouns: touch them
The hands are churches that worship the world

My Tranquility Base

I have nothing at all -- 

 But this tranquility! 

 This coolness!




 – Issa

What inspires you?

“Don’t bend; don’t water it down; 

don’t try to make it logical; 

don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion.  

Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.”  

―Franz Kafka

Choices

“In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves.  
The process never ends until we die.  
And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.”  

-Eleanor Roosevelt

Blessing in the Chaos

To all that is chaotic in you,

let there come silence.

Let there be a calming

of the clamoring,

a stilling of the voices that

have laid their claim

on you,

that have made their

home in you,

that go with you

even to the

holy places

but will not

let you rest,

will not let you

hear your life

with wholeness

or feel the grace

that fashioned you.

Let what distracts you

cease.

Let what divides you

cease.

Let there come an end

to what diminishes

and demeans,

and let depart

all that keeps you

in its cage.

Let there be

an opening

into the quiet

that lies beneath

the chaos,

where you find

the peace

you did not think

possible

and see what shimmers

within the storm.

―John O’Donohue

to know me...

Study me as much as you like, you will not know me, 

for I differ in a hundred ways from what you see me to be. 

Put yourself behind my eyes 

and see me as I see myself,

 for I have chosen to dwell in a place you cannot see.

~Rumi