How to Be a Poet (to remind myself) by Wendell Berry

“Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon affection, reading, knowledge, skill—more of each than you have—inspiration, work, growing older, patience, for patience joins time to eternity. Any readers who like your poems, doubt their judgment.

Breathe with unconditional breath the unconditioned air. Shun electric wire. Communicate slowly. Live a three-dimensioned life; stay away from screens. Stay away from anything that obscures the place it is in. There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places.

Accept what comes from silence. Make the best you can of it. Of the little words that come out of the silence, like prayers prayed back to the one who prays, make a poem that does not disturb the silence from which it came.”

“Don’t tell me what you are against.
Tell me what you love.
What you cherish with your whole body.
Being against contracts the heart.
Being for opens the chest
like an orchid bending toward light.
Now is the time to depart from the kingdom of fear
and return to the palace of this human form.
One sweet dark nerve in your solar plexus
radiates a thousand times more power than any opinion.
Let this be your worship on a Sunday morning.
For a little while, don’t be against anything.
Only be for.
Be for the sun on the table.
Be for the late summer rose.
Be for tears and the laughter of children.
Wash the whole planet in the foolishness of God.”

Fred LaMotte

“Whether or not they contain the encapsulated wisdom of ages past, what is certain is that myths, fairy tales and folklore offer us a world imbued with participation mystique – a world in which humans are fully enmeshed. In this world, animals always have something to teach us, trees and plants can save or cure us, wise old men and women are waiting in the dark woods to help us, and a well may be a doorway to another world. Myths and folklore can put us back in touch with the seasons and turnings of the year, and they can restore our acceptance of the necessary cycles of life. They can also remind us that we have a responsibility to future generations, and to the planet as a whole. If we approach myth and story in non-human-centric ways, it places us more firmly into the wider life of the world: our personal story is enmeshed with a greater story of which we’re a part.”

From The Enchanted Life: Unlocking the Magic of the Everyday by Sharon Blackie

“If you will stay close to nature, to its simplicity, to the small things hardly noticeable, those things can unexpectedly become great and immeasurable.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 – 1926), poet

Winter Solstice

“Our souls are not broken that they should need repair, nor deficient that they should need anything added. Our souls need only to be uncovered and allowed to shine.”

Rabbi Tzvi Freeman

“People [sometimes] talk about creation as a remote fact of history, as if it were something that was attended to a long time ago, and finished at the time. But creation was not an act; it is a process; and it is going on today as much as it ever was. And Nature is not in a hurry…”

John Muir (1838 – 1914), Scottish-American naturalist

International Human Solidarity Day

“My mom taught us never to look away from people’s pain.
The lesson was simple:
Don’t look away.
Don’t look down.
Don’t pretend not to see hurt.
Look people in the eye.
Even when their pain is overwhelming.
And when you are in pain, find the people who can look you in the eye.
We need to know we are not alone, especially when we are hurting.
This lesson is one of the greatest gifts of my life.”

Brené Brown

“Listening is a very deep practice. You have to empty yourself. You have to leave space in order to listen. Especially to people we think are our enemies – the ones we believe are making our situation worse. When we have shown our capacity for listening and understanding, the other person will begin to listen to you, and you have a chance to tell him or her of your pain, and it’s your turn to be healed. This is the practice of peace.”

Thích Nhất Hạnh (1926 – 2022), Vietnamese Buddhist teacher

International Migrants Day

“I know that those who hate have good reason to do so. But why should we always have to choose the cheapest and easiest way? It has been brought home forcibly to me here how every atom of hatred added to the world make it an even more inhospitable place. And I also believe, childishly perhaps but stubbornly, that the earth will become more habitable again only through love.”

Etty Hillesum (1914 – 1943), Dutch Jewish writer, murdered in Auschwitz

“The Judaeo-Christian vision of the cosmos defends the unique and central value of the human being amid the marvellous concert of all God’s creatures, but today we see ourselves forced to realize that it is only possible to sustain a “situated anthropocentrism”. To recognize, in other words, that human life is incomprehensible and unsustainable without other creatures…

Let us stop thinking, then, of human beings as autonomous, omnipotent and limitless, and begin to think of ourselves differently, in a humbler but more fruitful way.

I ask everyone to accompany this pilgrimage of reconciliation with the world that is our home and to help make it more beautiful, because that commitment has to do with our personal dignity and highest values. At the same time, I cannot deny that it is necessary to be honest and recognize that the most effective solutions will not come from individual efforts alone, but above all from major political decisions on the national and international level.”

From Laudato Deum by Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, on this day in 1936