I am grateful for …

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… lingers awhile along borders for a translator to savor secretly,
borrowing from both sides, holding
for a moment the smooth round world
in that cool instant of evening before the sun goes down

William Stafford
from Walking the Borders
The Way It Is – New and Selected Poems

I write a few lines in my meditation journal each day, and from time to time review what I’ve written – looking for patterns and repetitions. One of the most frequent notes that appears in the ‘I am grateful for …’ sections is what I often describe as ‘nature’s art and light’.

And I realise that the poets I regularly turn to have eyes and ears for the detail in the natural wonders that surround them; some having especial penchant for the sky, or sea, or lakes, or mountains, or sweeping plains, or animals and their particular, chosen, encouraged or given habitats, flora and fauna. I delight in all of these.

But most of all I am entranced by light, always changing, writing, painting, softening, sharpening, defining, reaching, touching, listening – full from earth to sky with metaphor and parable, reaching onwards, upwards, and into the heights and depths of the Universe. And into my soul.

So it was during our after-supper walk this evening. So it was a million aeons ago. So for a million, million more. Meditating in and upon light I stand time and again in awe.

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Perspective

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Here’s a photo of my study made earlier today, the sun streaming through the windows, shortly after a snowfall – seen through a kaleidoscopic lens filter – the multi-perspective possibilities through which are infinite. What immense depth lies just beyond what we usually ‘see’. What wonderment, praise and awe are forthcoming when I still myself – even if only very briefly each day – to meditate upon the intricate extra-ordinariness of our life and experience in this world, and the universe in which it spins. I love it. Plain sight, or kaleidoscopic art and reach, this is quite a place to be!