Author Archives: veerjih

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 breathContinue reading “Thought for the day, Tuesday 26th December”

“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 chestlike an orchid bending toward light.Now is the time to depart from the kingdom of fearand return to the palace of this human form.One sweet dark nerve in your solar plexusradiatesContinue reading “Thought for the day, Monday 25th December”

“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 cureContinue reading “Thought for the day, Sunday 24th December”

“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 notContinue reading “Thought for the day, Thursday 21st December”

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 weContinue reading “Thought for the day, Wednesday 20th December”

“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 listenContinue reading “Thought for the day, Tuesday 19th December”

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 IContinue reading “Thought for the day, Monday 18th December”

“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 withoutContinue reading “Thought for the day, Sunday 17th December”