Adrift

Let my dreams while I’m wide-awake 

loose. Let me be drowned, baptized, 

in the light given me. Day comes around, 

night, fall, winter, spring, 

summer. Leaves overhead, underfoot. 

Waves arrive, buffets from friends 

offended, enemies. Let it all come: 

this is my way, this is the canoe I’m in.

William Stafford

Photo:  Peter Bowers

Homage to the One

To this transparent light, clearness itself, omnipresent as space, 
to This, the host of all that appears, 
to This, the non-locatable, spontaneous here-and-now,
to This that is identical with the openness of all those who, 
whether known or unknown, have recognized its simple presence;
to This our vibrant home, never created
so never able to cease,
to this unseen light, the most familiar presence of now,
indistinguishable from the bones in our face
and the tongue in our mouth,
indistinguishable from our most intimate thoughts and feelings, 
yet beyond all limitation,
to this infinite kindness that allows everything to appear,
we bow down.



...



To which direction shall we bow,
to what sacred space, shrine or God,
if not to the bowing itself?



...





Pir Elias Amidon
Free Medicine
Photo:  Peter Bowers

i am a little church

i am a little church(no great cathedral)
far from the splendor and squalor of hurrying cities
—i do not worry if briefer days grow briefest,
i am not sorry when sun and rain make april

my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;
my prayers are prayers of earth's own clumsily striving
(finding and losing and laughing and crying)children
whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness

around me surges a miracle of unceasing
birth and glory and death and resurrection:
over my sleeping self float flaming symbols
of hope,and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains

i am a little church(far from the frantic
world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature
—i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;
i am not sorry when silence becomes singing

winter by spring,i lift my diminutive spire to
merciful Him Whose only now is forever:
standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence
(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)





e.e.cummings
photo:  Peter Bowers

If you love love...

If you love love,

look for yourself.

Rumi

The Book of Love

Photo:  Peter Bowers