International Day for Biological Diversity

“The heart that has learned to love feels sorry for every created thing…
Once I needlessly killed a fly. The poor thing crawled on the ground, hurt and mangled, and for three whole days I wept over my cruelty to a living creature, and to this day the incident remains in my memory…
The Spirit of God teaches the soul to love every living thing so that she would have no harm come to even a green leaf on a tree, or trample underfoot a flower of the field. Thus the Spirit of God teaches love towards all, and the soul feels compassion for every being.”

Saint Silouan of Athos (1866 – 1938)

International Tea Day

“Tea is an act complete in its simplicity. When I drink tea, there is only me and the tea. The rest of the world dissolves. There are no worries about the future. No dwelling on past mistakes. Tea is simple: loose-leaf tea, hot pure water, a cup. I inhale the scent, tiny delicate pieces of the tea floating above the cup. I drink the tea, the essence of the leaves becoming a part of me. I am informed by the tea, changed. This is the act of life, in one pure moment, and in this act the truth of the world suddenly becomes revealed: all the complexity, pain, drama of life is a pretense, invented in our minds for no good purpose.
There is only the tea, and me, converging.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

World Bee Day

“What is this dark hum among the roses?
The bees have gone simple, sipping,
that’s all. What did you expect? Sophistication?
They’re small creatures and they are
filling their bodies with sweetness, how could they not
moan in happiness? The little
worker bee lives, I have read, about three weeks.
Is that long? Long enough, I suppose, to understand
that life is a blessing. I have found them-haven’t you?—
stopped in the very cups of the flowers, their wings
a little tattered-so much flying about, to the hive,
then out into the world, then back, and perhaps dancing,
should the task be to be a scout-sweet, dancing bee.
I think there isn’t anything in this world I don’t
admire. If there is, I don’t know what it is. I
haven’t met it yet. Nor expect to. The bee is small,
and since I wear glasses, so I can see the traffic and
read books, I have to
take them off and bend close to study and
understand what is happening. It’s not hard, it’s in fact
as instructive as anything I have ever studied. Plus, too,
it’s love almost too fierce to endure, the bee
nuzzling like that into the blouse
of the rose. And the fragrance, and the honey, and of course
the sun, the purely pure sun, shining, all the while, over
all of us.”

Mary Oliver

“I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which comes to me as seed goes to the next as blossom and that which comes to me as blossom, goes on as fruit.”

From I Will Not Die an Unlived Life: Reclaiming Purpose and Passion by Dawna Markova

“When we feel that we’re fragile, not stable or solid, we can come back to ourselves and take refuge in the earth. With each step we can feel her solidity beneath our feet. When we’re truly in touch with the earth, we can feel her supportive embrace and her stability. We use our whole body and mind to go back to the earth and surrender ourselves to her. With each breath we release all our agitation, our fragility, and our suffering. Just being aware of her benevolent presence can already bring relief.”

From Peace Is This Moment by Thich Nhat Hanh

“God neither heeds nor needs vigils, fasting, prayer, and all forms of mortification in contrast to repose. God needs nothing more than for us to offer him a quiet heart. Then he accomplishes in the soul such secrets and divine deeds that no creature can serve them or even add to them… The divine nature is repose and God seeks to draw all creatures with him back again to their origin which is repose.”

Meister Eckhart (c.1260 – c.1328), quoted in Christian Mystics by Matthew Fox

Image: Repose by John Singer Sargent, 1911

International Day of Living Together in Peace

“Here’s to the bridge-builders, the hand-holders, the light-bringers, those extraordinary souls wrapped in ordinary lives who quietly weave threads of humanity into an inhumane world. They are the unsung heroes in a world at war with itself. They are the whisperers of hope that peace is possible. Look for them in this present darkness. Light your candle with their flame. And then go. Build bridges. Hold hands. Bring light to a dark and desperate world. Be the hero you are looking for. Peace is possible. It begins with us.”

L. R. Knost

Image: Evening Lounging by Jonathan Soren Davidson

“I feel carried away and possessed by an unutterable rapture over the divine spectacle of heavenly harmony.”

German astronomer Johannes Kepler discovers the third of his three planetary laws, the “harmonic law”, on this day in 1618

“The doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.”

From Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés

“Our bodies produce a constant rhythm, which may explain why some small children and animals sleep better next to a ticking clock or metronome. Perhaps Shakespeare’s poetry is so timeless partly because its iambic pentameter mimics the steady beat of our own hearts: ba-thump, ba-thump, ba-thump.
Put your ear next to someone’s heart and listen to the pace of life. Listen to an animal’s heartbeat sometime, and hear the amazing rush of passion and blood within, so similar to our own heartbeats and yet so different. Watch the seasons, the heartbeat of the earth.
There is music all around us, within us.”

From Earth Bound: Meditations For All Seasons by Brian Nelson