Listening for Earth Sounds
Nature can be trusted
to work her own miracle
in the heart of any man whose daily task keeps him alone among her sights, sounds, and silences.
~ Gene Stratton-Porter
kneeling to listen
We Make Our Vows Together with All Beings
by Gary Snyder, from No Nature. © Pantheon Books.
Eating a sandwich
At work in the woods,
As a doe nibbles buckbrush in snow
Watching each other,
chewing together.
A Bomber from Beale
over the clouds,
Fills the sky with a roar.
She lifts head, listens,
Waits till the sound has gone by.
So do I.
Whether the bees have thoughts, we cannot say,
But the hind part of the worm wiggles the most,
Minnows can hear, and butterflies, yellow and blue,
Rejoice in the language of smells and dancing,
Therefore I reject the world of the dog
Though he hear a note higher than C
And the thrush stopped in the middle of his song.
And I acknowledge my foolishness with God...
— first lines from The Longing by Theodore Roethke
Some keep the Sabbath going to Church,
I keep it staying at Home -
With a bobolink for a Chorister,
And an Orchard, for a Dome.
— Emily Dickinson
The louder I screamed, the less I was heard
The more I cloaked myself in cloth, the more I was invisible
The more I stood in the light, the less I was being seen
So I closed my mouth to silence the noise,
Threw off my cloth cloak till I was bare
And withdrew from the light that wasn’t mine to share.
And a voice said hello.
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
— William Shakespeare, As You Like It
Better than if there were
thousands of meaningless verses
is one meaningful verse
that on hearing brings peace.
— Dhammapada
Let your heart guide you.
It whispers, so listen closely.
— The Land Before Time
If I keep a green bough in my heart,
the singing bird will come.
— Chinese Proverb
May what you think, and what you say, and what you do, be in harmony.
To meet everything and everyone through stillness instead of mental noise is the greatest gift you can offer to the universe. — Eckhart Tolle
There is no language of the holy.
The sacred lies in the ordinary.
— Deng Ming-Dao
And we pray, not for a new earth or heaven,
but to be quiet in heart, and in eye clear.
What we need is here.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes.
And the voice whispered,
that if I stepped out of my body, I would break into blossom.
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