“The hardest thing, I think, is to live richly in the present, without letting it be tainted and spoiled out of fear for the future or regret for a badly-managed past…

I want to taste and glory in each day, and never be afraid to experience pain; and never shut myself up in a numb core of nonfeeling, or stop questioning and criticizing life and take the easy way out. To learn and think: to think and live; to live and learn: this always, with new insight, new understanding, and new love.”

Sylvia Plath, poet and Unitarian Universalist, born on this day in 1932

“This song of mine will wind its music around you,
my child, like the fond arms of love.
The song of mine will touch your forehead
like a kiss of blessing.
When you are alone it will sit by your side and
whisper in your ear, when you are in the crowd
it will fence you about with aloofness.
My song will be like a pair of wings to your dreams,
it will transport your heart to the verge of the unknown.
It will be like the faithful star overhead
when dark night is over your road.
My song will sit in the pupils of your eyes,
and will carry your sight into the heart of things.
And when my voice is silenced in death,
my song will speak in your living heart.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861 – 1941)

“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