“More sports teams are named after animals than anything else. The panther, the manta ray, and the shark lend their symbolic power to the teams; even the oriole, the blue jay, and the gopher conjure a regional pride that helps a team win for its hometown. These animals are totems.

Many people identify with a particular animal, but adopting a totem animal is different. Your totem animal is a creature whose grace, power, or mystery gives you the ability to keep going. There’s no need to trudge through this world with only your own strength. Try connecting, even if only through the power of imagination, to the qualities of an animal you call sacred.”

From Earth Bound: Daily Meditations For All Seasons by Brian Nelson

“We pray for a keener delight in the world around us.
Delight in its loveliness, its colours, its scents and sounds.
Delight in the fascinating structure of nature and of the human form.
Delight in the saga of the past, in story, song and movement, in art and science, and in good work well done.
Delight in the present moment in all its richness.”

Frank Walker, retired Unitarian minister, quoted in Fragments of Holiness for Daily Reflection

“Love is the only reality and it is not a mere sentiment. It is the ultimate truth that lies at the heart of creation.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861 – 1941), Bengali polymath, born on this day

“Sometimes entering the sacred grove
is easy as closing the eyes while you sit
in a chair at home and let someone
lead you there, their voice a path you follow
to a ring of trees with roots entwined.
A sun-bright meadow in the middle.
A group of other willing hearts
who form a circle with you. How did it
ever feel far away when the sacred grove
is as close as breath, close as imagination,
real as an openness to wonder. I was there,
just this morning, my hands flat on the earth,
sky reaching in through my crown. I was there,
even as I sat in my office chair, I was there.
My hands held the hands of strangers
beside me. Alone in my room, I was there.
And after knowing the sacred grove breath-close,
all day I find it everywhere.”

In the Sacred Grove by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Image: Sacred Grove (1882) by Arnold Böcklin

“I always have a comfortable feeling that nothing is impossible if one applies a certain amount of energy in the right direction.”

From Around the World in 72 Days by Nellie Bly, journalist and adventurer (1865 – 1922), born on this day

“They say love is the best investment; the more you give, the more you get in return.”

Audrey Hepburn (1929 – 1993), born on this day

“There is only one page left to write on. I will fill it with words of only one syllable. I love. I have loved. I will love.”

From I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (1896 – 1990), born on this day

“I prayed for change, so I changed my mind.
I prayed for guidance and learned to trust myself.
I prayed for happiness and realized I am not my ego.
I prayed for peace and learned to accept others unconditionally.
I prayed for abundance and realized my doubt kept it out.
I prayed for wealth and realized it is my health.
I prayed for a miracle and realized I am the miracle.
I prayed for a soul mate and realized I am the One.
I prayed for love and realized it’s always knocking, but I have to allow it in.”

Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī (1207 – 1273)

Beltane

“Beltain is a celebration of the potency of the Earth and the forces of Nature. This is the beginning of the most active part of the year and the beginning of Summer. All of life is bursting with fertility, sap is rising, birdsong fills the air and growth is everywhere..

Ask yourself what you wish to give energy to. Where will you put your focus? What can you change for the better? What actions can you make that will help the spread of goodwill and Love in the world? All too soon this highly fertile time will be spent, so make the most of its raw energy for initiating plans and visions. Everything you do now will bring you closer to your goals, as the expansive energy of the moment carries you along.”

From Earth Wisdom by Glennie Kindred

“In an extreme view, the world can be seen as only connections, nothing else. We think of a dictionary as the repository of meaning, but it defines words only in terms of other words. I liked the idea that a piece of information is really defined only by what it’s related to, and how it’s related. There really is little else to meaning. The structure is everything. There are billions of neurons in our brains, but what are neurons? Just cells. The brain has no knowledge until connections are made between neurons. All that we know, all that we are, comes from the way our neurons are connected.”

From Weaving the Web by Tim Berners-Lee, Unitarian-Universalist, CERN scientist and inventor of the World Wide Web, launched in the public domain on this day in 1989