“Love from its very nature must be transitory. To seek for a secret that would render it constant would be as wild a search as for the philosopher’s stone or the grand panacea: and the discovery would be equally useless, or rather pernicious to mankind. The most holy band of society is friendship.”
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759 – 1797), Unitarian feminist and writer, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women, who died on this day.

From War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (1828 – 1910), born on this day,

“Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.”

Psalm 66 Redux by Carla Grosch-Miller,
“The whole earth sings praise!
Wild wind whips glory,
babbling brook skipping sings,
green fields davening sway.
The smallest ears pick up the tune
that pulses through all things.
Oh God, Maker of all,
let my life move with
the earth songs beneath my feet
and the star songs above my head.
Let my heart jig and caper like a young lamb.
Let my soul sing and sigh and signify.
No corner of the earth is apart from Your power.
Everywhere a woman may roam,
she will see the signs and hear the songs:
Each day a new day.
Each moment an opportunity.
Each step.
each listening step,
a step in hope’s direction.
How may I live my gratitude,
but with humble attention,
with an ear quick to listen,
gaze penetrating to see,
a heart ready to love,
hands eager to bless,
with a mind slow to judge
and probing to discern,
with feet that move
in hope’s direction,
dancing earthstar
songs of praise.
So be it.”

“There comes a time when nothing is meaningful except surrendering to love.” Rumi

“Because yesterday was not all it should have been does not matter.
Yesterday is finished and gone and you can do nothing about it.
Today is a completely different matter.
It lies before you untouched and unblemished.
And it is up to you to make it the most wonderful day.

How do you start off each day?
Remember, it is no concern of anyone else.
It is something you, and you alone, have to choose to bring about.
Try to start off the day with inner peace and contentment
by taking time to be still and allowing that peace to infil and enfold you.

Do not rush into the day unprepared and out of harmony.
If you do, it is easy to take that state of mind into the day,
allowing it to affect the whole day and all those souls you contact.
It is up to you to choose what today is going to be and then make it so.
Why not choose now?”

Eileen Caddy (1917 – 2006), one of the founders of the Findhorn community

From Eternal Echoes by John O’Donohue,

“There are no manuals for the construction of the individual you would like to become.
You are the only one who can decide this and take up the lifetime of work that it demands.
This is a wonderful privilege and such an exciting adventure.
To grow into the person that your deepest longing desires is a great blessing.

If you can find a creative harmony between your soul and your life,
you will have found something infinitely precious.
You may not be able to do much about the great problems of the world
or to change the situation you are in, but if you can awaken the eternal
beauty and light of your soul, you will bring light wherever you go.

The gift of life is given to us for ourselves and also to bring peace,
courage, and compassion to others.”

“I once asked God what I could give him. “Your problems,” he said. “I’ve got everything else.”” Rabbi Lionel Blue

“In love, nothing exists between heart and heart.
Speech is born out of longing,
True description from the real taste.
The one who tastes, knows;
the one who explains, lies.
How can you describe the true form of Something
In whose presence you are blotted out?
And in whose being you still exist?
And who lives as a sign for your journey?”
Rabia al-Basri (717 – 801), female Sufi poet-saint
Art by Johno Prascak

The Moment by Margaret Atwood,

“The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can’t breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.”

From The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World by Peter Wohlleben,

“When you know that trees experience pain and have memories and that tree parents live together with their children, then you can no longer just chop them down and disrupt their lives with larger machines…
We have learned that mother trees recognize and talk with their kin, shaping future generations. In addition, injured trees pass their legacies on to their neighbours, affecting gene regulation, defence chemistry, and resilience in the forest community…
It appears that nutrient exchange and helping neighbours in times of need is the rule, and this leads to the conclusion that forests are superorganisms with interconnections much like ant colonies…
The trees in a forest care for each other, sometimes even going so far as to nourish the stump of a felled tree for centuries after it was cut down by feeding it sugars and other nutrients, and so keeping it alive. Only some stumps are thus nourished. Perhaps they are the parents of the trees that make up the forest of today.”