“When in the fullness of its time
this creation wilts,
its vigour returns to its own source.
This is the underlying natural law.
When the elements of the world fulfil their function,
they come to ripeness
and their fruit is gathered back to God.
Now these things are in reference to the soul’s life:
spiritual vitality is alive in the soul
in the same way as the marrow of the hips in the flesh.
Out of the soul in good standing,
the vigour of the virtues flows out
as do the elements of creation,
it flows back in the same capacity
in attentive prayer.”

Hildegard von Bingen (1098 – 1179)

“In myths and fairy tales, deities and other great spirits test the hearts of humans by showing up in various forms that disguise their divinity. They show up in robes, rags, silver sashes, or with muddy feet. They show up with skin dark as old wood, or in scales made of rose petal, as a frail child, as a lime-yellow old woman, as a man who cannot speak, or as an animal who can. The great powers are testing to see if humans have yet learned to recognize the greatness of soul in all its varying forms.”

Clarissa Pinkola Estés

“People aren’t in awe of your sharp mind? So be it. But you have many other qualities you can’t claim to have been deprived of at birth. Display then those qualities in your own power: honesty, dignity, endurance, contentment, frugality, kindness, persistence, and magnanimity…

Dig deep within yourself, for there is a fountain of goodness ever ready to flow if you will keep digging.”

Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (121 – 180)

“Awaken to the awesome mystery of God
Who cradles the earth and all her peoples,
Who planted the laws of justice and mercy in our hearts,
Who nurtured and nudged the saints of the ages
and the teachers of the people
Forgiving them their faults, mistakes,
addictions, and selfishness,
And invited them to grow and change.
Awaken to this awesome mystery
Follow it all your days.”

Psalm 99 Awaken by Christine Robinson

“Why is it that so many of us persist in thinking that autumn is a sad season? Nature has merely fallen asleep, and her dreams must be beautiful if we are to judge by her countenance.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834), poet and one-time Unitarian minister, born on this day.

“To re-experience the integration of ourselves with nature, we have to take ourselves out of our four walls and set our life-story in the context of nature’s terms. This means becoming especially aware of one area of the natural world – an area that is our listening place, an area where we tune out the old broadcasts of our separateness and retune to the original station of the universal belonging…

In this communion, a further state of belonging may be experienced – initially just in brief glimpses, then sometimes for longer and longer periods – the temporary loss of our sense of identity, a softening of the hard boundaries that separate us from the tree and the animal, from the earth and the sunset. In this condition, we experience ourselves as no different from nature or anything within it. We come into true relationship with nature in such moments, which strip away our hubris, our control, and our feelings of separation and bring us once more under the mantle of the universe.”

Caitlin Matthews

“Sunlight made visible
the whole length of a sky,
movement of
leaf, flower, all six colours
on tree, bush and creeper:
all this
is the day’s worship.

The light of moon, star and fire,
lightnings and all things
that go by the name of light
are the night’s worship.

Night and day
in your worship
I forget myself
O lord white as jasmine.”

Mahadeviyakkha (12th Century South Indian poet)

“Three things differentiate living from the soul versus living from ego only.
They are:
the ability to sense and learn new ways;
the tenacity to ride a rough road;
and the patience to learn deep love over time.”

Clarissa Pinkola Estés

“Everything changes, everything passes,
Things appearing, things disappearing.
But when it is all over –
everything having appeared and having disappeared,
Being and extinction both transcended –
Still the basic emptiness and silence abides,
And that is blissful peace.”

Maha Prajna Paramita Hridaya (The Heart Sutra)

“Nonviolence requires of those who practise it, from whatever religious or cultural background they may come, an extraordinary commitment. It requires nothing less than the transformation of ourselves. We have to look deeply into our own anger, our aggressiveness and our fear. It’s no less arduous than training for the Olympics. And the results are no less rewarding. When you meet real peace-makers, they are radiant. They radiate an inner spaciousness, a joy and a power that is greater than any weapon.”

Scilla Elworthy, international peace campaigner, quoted in Fragments of Holiness for Daily Reflection