“And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.”

From As You Like It by William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616), born on this day

Image: Morning Amongst the Coniston Fells by J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), born on this day

International Mother Earth Day

“howl up the moon.
bask in starlight and
bathe in stories.
make friends with dandelions.
listen to the trees.
walk out of your house barefoot
and let the grass
whisper poems to your toes.
sigh.
feast on cloud shapes.
gulp the sunset.
let the wind play with your hair
like a lover.
sing the wild geese into
night’s grand unfurling.
ask a caterpillar for a dance.
cloak yourself in twilight
soft as a moth kiss.
sway to the music
in your veins that remembers
who you were before
the world told you who you should be.
fill your ruby-wing heart
with that truth
and revel up the dawn.”

Angi Sullins

World Creativity and Innovation Day

“You advise me, too, not to stray far from the ground of experience, as I become weak when I enter the region of fiction; and you say, “real experience is perennially interesting, and to all men.” I feel that this also is true; but, dear Sir, is not the real experience of each individual very limited? And, if a writer dwells upon that solely or principally, is he not in danger of repeating himself, and also of becoming an egotist? Then, too, imagination is a strong, restless faculty, which claims to be heard and exercised: are we to be quite deaf to her cry, and insensate to her struggles? When she shows us bright pictures, are we never to look at them, and try to reproduce them? And when she is eloquent, and speaks rapidly and urgently in our ear, are we not to write to her dictation?”

Charlotte Brontë (1816 – 1855), novelist, born on this day, in a letter to G. H. Lewes, 6 November 1847

Easter Sunday

“And just when the darkness
became too much to bear
and the struggle too hard,
the light broke through
and the caterpillar emerged
a butterfly
delicate but unbroken,
wild and gentle,
finally free to spread its lovely wings
and fly away on the wind.”

L.R. Knost

Holy Saturday

“My heart is so small
it’s almost invisible.
How can You place
such big sorrows in it?
“Look,” He answered,
“your eyes are even smaller,
yet they behold the world.”

Rumi

Good Friday

“Every time we make the decision to love someone, we open ourselves to great suffering, because those we most love cause us not only great joy but also great pain. The greatest pain comes from leaving… the pain of the leaving can tear us apart. Still, if we want to avoid the suffering of leaving, we will never experience the joy of loving. And love is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair. We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking.”

Henri Nouwen

Maundy Thursday

“The grass never sleeps.
Or the roses.
Nor does the lily have a secret eye that shuts until morning.
Jesus said, wait with me. But the disciples slept.

The cricket has such splendid fringe on his feet,
and it sings, have you noticed, with its whole body,
and heaven knows if it ever sleeps.

Jesus said, wait with me. And maybe the stars did, maybe
the wind wound itself into a silver tree, and didn’t move.
Maybe the lake far away, where once he walked
as on a blue pavement,
lay still and waited, wild awake.

Oh the dear bodies, slumped and eye-shut, that could not
keep that vigil, how they must have wept,
so utterly human, knowing this too
must be part of the story.”

Gethsemane by Mary Oliver

“I feel I am privileged to express a hope. The hope is this: that we shall have peace throughout the world, that we shall abolish wars and settle all international differences at the conference table, that we shall abolish all atom and hydrogen bombs before they abolish us. The future of the modern world demands modern thinking. Therefore, let us use the full force of our intelligence instead of obsolete homicidal methods in settling our international differences.”

Charlie Chaplin’s message to the world on his 70th birthday, 16th April 1959

“Even Kings and Emperors with heaps of wealth and vast dominion cannot compare to an ant filled with the love of God.”

Guru Nanak (1469 – 1539), founder and first Guru of Sikhism, born on this day

“There are ways in, journeys to the center of life, through time; through air, matter, dream and thought. The ways are not always mapped or charted, but sometimes being lost, if there is such a thing, is the sweetest place to be. And always, in this search, a person might find that she is already there, at the center of the world. It may be a broken world, but it is glorious nonetheless.”

Linda Hogan