“This morning
the beautiful white heron
was floating along above the water
and then into the sky of this
the one world
we all belong to
where everything
sooner or later
is a part of everything else
which thought made me feel
for a little while
quite beautiful myself.”

Poem of the One World by Mary Oliver

“To love. To be loved.
To never forget your own insignificance.
To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you.
To seek joy in the saddest places.
To pursue beauty to its lair.
To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple.
To respect strength, never power.
Above all, to watch.
To try and understand.
To never look away.
And never, never, to forget… another world is not only possible, she is on her way.
On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”

Arundhati Roy

“Doubt can serve you well, if you train it. It must become a way of knowing, a good critic. Every time doubt wants to spoil something for you, ask why it finds something ugly and demand proofs. Thus tested by you, doubt may become bewildered and embarrassed, even aggressive. But don’t give in, demand reasons and be persistent and attentive every single time, and the day will come when, instead of a destroyer, he will become one of your best servants – perhaps one of the most intelligent of those who will help you build your life.”

From Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, 4 November 1904

Artwork: Doubts by Henrietta Rae, 1886

“I have seen the sun break through
to illuminate a small field
for a while, and gone my way
and forgotten it. But that was the
pearl of great price, the one field that had
treasure in it. I realise now
that I must give all that I have
to possess it. Life is not hurrying
on to a receding future, nor hankering after
an imagined past. It is the turning
aside like Moses to the miracle
of the lit bush, to a brightness
that seemed as transitory as your youth
once, but is the eternity that awaits you.”

From The Bright Field by R. S. Thomas (1913 – 2000)

All Souls’ Day

“Nothing you love is lost. Not really. Things, people—they always go away, sooner or later. You can’t hold them, any more than you can hold moonlight. But if they’ve touched you, if they’re inside you, then they’re still yours. The only things you ever really have are the ones you hold inside your heart.”

Bruce Coville

Festival of Diwali

“Om Jai Lakshmi
Goddess born from the struggle between good and evil
Guide us toward the light.
In a world where plenty is possible,
Let us end hunger, thirst and homelessness.
In your nurturing hands,
Let us seek refuge from want, fear and violence.
With your grace,
Let our world be reborn in your image,
Where all needs are met,
Where morality and love are abundant,
And whereby we are free.
Om Jai Lakshmi.
Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti.”

A Prayer for Diwali by Shailly Gupta Barnes

Samhain

“In the season leaves should love,
since it gives them leave to move
through the wind, towards the ground
they were watching while they hung,
legend says there is a seam
stitching darkness like a name.

Now when dying grasses veil
earth from the sky in one last pale
wave, as autumn dies to bring
winter back, and then the spring,
we who die ourselves can peel
back another kind of veil

that hangs among us like thick smoke.
Tonight at last I feel it shake.
I feel the nights stretching away
thousands long behind the days
till they reach the darkness where
all of me is ancestor.

I move my hand and feel a touch
move with me, and when I brush
my own mind across another,
I am with my mother’s mother.
Sure as footsteps in my waiting
self, I find her, and she brings

arms that carry answers for me,
intimate, a waiting bounty.
“Carry me.” She leaves this trail
through a shudder of the veil,
and leaves, like amber where she stays,
a gift for her perpetual gaze.”

Samhain by Annie Finch

“What you encounter, recognize or discover depends to a large degree on the quality of your approach. Many of the ancient cultures practised careful rituals of approach. An encounter of depth and spirit was preceded by careful preparation. When we approach with reverence, great things decide to approach us. Our real life comes to the surface and its light awakens the concealed beauty in things. When we walk on the earth with reverence, beauty will decide to trust us. The rushed heart and arrogant mind lack the gentleness and patience to enter that embrace.”

From Beauty: The Invisible Embrace by John O’Donohue

“Eternity can be touched in this present moment, and the cosmos can be seen in the palm of our hand. But we need some mindfulness and concentration to do this. When you practice mindful walking or stretching, you can touch eternity with every movement. If you’re truly mindful, if you’re truly concentrated, if you can release the notion of self, you’re no longer this tiny body. You’re the whole cosmos. Your tiny body contains the whole cosmos in it. All the generations of the past and the future are there in your tiny body, and if you have that insight, it’s easy to touch eternity in the present moment.”

From Peace Is This Moment by Thich Nhat Hanh

“”Did you hear what the fish said,
Floundering among the reeds?
Nature’s wiser than learning.”

Fourteenth century Welsh verse

In the Celtic and world folk traditions, reminders of this important fact emerge time and time again in stories that tell of speaking animals. All young heroes and heroines who are sent out on the road of adventure eventually encounter animal allies who speak to them of deeper wisdoms that those they received at school. These encounters require that the young person treat the animal with respect, share her goods or food with the animal, and listen and act upon the animal’s wisdom. The characters who do these things emerge unscathed; the ones who neglect to respect, share, or listen lose their way and fall prey to dangers. It is for this reason that so many spiritual traditions regard animals as their wisdom-keepers: animals are representatives of the oral, living world of nature – beings who know the implications and responsibilities of their belonging and guardianship.

All people now living have the responsibility of relearning the wisdom of nature, directly from nature: from the trees and hills, the birds and streams, the animals and fields, the fish and seas. Wherever we are, there is an older wisdom singing, which keeps the world in harmony. When we can join in that singing, we will begin to find our true place in nature and be at one with our brother and sister beings.”

From The Celtic Spirit: Daily Meditations for the Turning Year by Caitlin Matthews

Artwork by T. Kittelsen, 1900