“And now you ask in your heart,
“How shall we distinguish that which is good in pleasure from that which is not good?”
Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower,
But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee.
For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life,
And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love,
And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.
Good People, be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees.”

Khalil Gibran

“Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise
From outward things, whate’er you may believe.
There is an inmost centre in us all,
Where truth abides in fullness … and, to know,
Rather consists in opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape,
Than in effecting entry for a light
Supposed to be without.”

Robert Browning, born on this day in 1812

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.”

Henry David Thoreau, who died on this day in 1862

“If a flea could use reason,
and if it could use it explore
the eternal abyss of divine being
out of which it originally came,
then all of the ideas, ideals and images of “God”
it could discover couldn’t make it any happier.
Therefore, we pray to be done
with these “God”- images and instead
allow the truth to break us back
through into that eternity
where the highest angel, the flea and the soul
are already the same in one truth:
where “I” was at the first beginning,
when “I” wanted what “I” was,
and “I” was what “I” wanted.”

Meister Eckhart (c.126 – 1328)

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering…
The fear of loss is a path to the dark side… Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.”
Yoda
Happy Star Wars Day – May the Fourth be with you!

“Once upon a time, wasn’t singing a part of everyday life as much as talking, physical exercise, and religion? Our distant ancestors, wherever they were in this world, sang while pounding grain, paddling canoes, or walking long journeys. Can we begin to make our lives once more all of a piece? Finding the right songs and singing them over and over is a way to start. And when one person taps out a beat, while another leads into the melody, or when three people discover a harmony they never knew existed, or a crowd joins in on a chorus as though to raise the ceiling a few feet higher, then they also know there is hope for the world….
Participation, that’s what going to save the human race.”

Pete Seeger, born on this day in 1919

“Nature is the source of all true knowledge. She has her own logic, her own laws, she has no effect without cause nor invention without necessity.”

Leonardo da Vinci, died on this day in 1519

“I too have known loneliness
I too have known what it is to feel
misunderstood
rejected and suddenly
not at all beautiful.
Oh, Mother Earth,
your comfort is great, your arms never withhold.
It has saved my life to know this.
Your rivers flowing, your roses opening in the morning.
Oh motions of tenderness!”

Mary Oliver

“There is no God in the sky. God is in the heart that loves the sky’s blueness.”

A. Powell Davies, Unitarian minister (1902 – 1957)

A story told by Faraduddin Attar, 12th Century, Persia, about the desert saint Rabia al-Adawiyya, 8th Century Iraq,

“Once when Rabia al-Adawiyya was travelling on a pilgrimage to Mecca, she found herself alone in the desert for several days.
She heard a voice saying, “Hey, holy woman, do you love the presence of the divine glory?”
“I do.”
“And so do you hate Satan?”
“Because I love the ultimate Source of compassion,” she replied, “I am unable to hate Satan. Once I saw the Prophet Muhammad in a dream. He asked me, ‘Rabia, do you love me?’ I replied, ‘O Prophet, who doesn’t love you? But love of Allah has filled my heart, so there is no place for loving or hating anyone else.'”