“If I find a green meadow splashed with daisies and sit down beside a clear-running brook, I have found medicine. It soothes my hurts as well as when I sat in my mother’s lap in infancy, because the Earth really is my mother, and the green meadow is her lap.”

Deepak Chopra

“We must become so alone, so utterly alone, that we withdraw into our innermost self. It is a way of bitter suffering. But then our solitude is overcome, we are no longer alone, for we find that our innermost self is the spirit, that it is God, the indivisible. And suddenly we find ourselves in the midst of the world, yet undisturbed by its multiplicity, for our innermost soul we know ourselves to be one with all being.”

Hermann Hesse (1877 – 1962), born on this day

“”Whatever anyone does or says, for my part I’m bound to the good. In the same way an emerald or gold or purple might always proclaim: ‘whatever anyone does or says, I must be what I am and show my true colours.’” Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.15

The Stoics believed that every person, animal, and thing has a purpose or a place in nature. Even in ancient Greek and Roman times, they vaguely understood that the world was composed of millions of tiny atoms. It was this idea – this sense of an interconnected cosmos – that underpinned their sense that every person and every action was part of a larger system. Everyone had a job – a specific duty. Even people who did bad things – they were doing their job of being evil because evil is a part of life.

The most critical part of this system was the belief that you, the student who has sought out Stoicism, have the most important job: to be good! To be wise. “To remain the person that philosophy wished to make us.”

Do your job today. Whatever happens, whatever other people’s jobs happen to be, do yours. Be good.”

From The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman

“The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love – whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light.”

James Baldwin (1927 – 1987)

“Most of us lead far more meaningful lives than we know. Often finding meaning is not about doing things differently; it is about seeing familiar things in new ways. When we find new eyes, the unsuspected blessing in work we have done for many years may take us completely by surprise. We can see life in many ways: with the eye, with the mind, with the intuition. But perhaps it is only those who speak the language of meaning, who have remembered how to see with the heart, that life is ever deeply known or served.”

Rachel Naomi Remen

“One who expects to change the world will be disappointed;
one must change one’s view.
When this is done,
then tolerance will come,
forgiveness will come,
and there will be nothing one cannot bear.”

Hazrat Inayat Khan, Sufi master (1882 – 1927)

“I am the mother of sorrows,
I am the ender of grief;
I am the bud and the blossom,
I am the late-falling leaf.

I am thy priest and thy poet,
I am thy serf and thy king;
I cure the tears of the heartsick,
When I come near they shall sing.

White are my hands as the snowdrop;
Swart are my fingers as clay;
Dark is my frown as the midnight,
Fair is my brow as the day.

Battle and war are my minions,
Doing my will as divine;
I am the calmer of passions,
Peace is a nursling of mine.

Speak to me gently or curse me,
Seek me or fly from my sight;
I am thy fool in the morning,
Thou art my slave in the night.

Down to the grave will I take thee,
Out from the noise of the strife;
Then shalt thou see me and know me—
Death, then, no longer, but life.

Then shalt thou sing at my coming,
Kiss me with passionate breath,
Clasp me and smile to have thought me
Aught save the foeman of Death.

Come to me, brother, when weary,
Come when thy lonely heart swells;
I’ll guide thy footsteps and lead thee
Down where the Dream Woman dwells.”

The Paradox by Paul Laurence Dunbar, African-American poet (1872 – 1906), born on this day

“Wide green world. we know and love you:
Clear blue skies that arch above you,
Moon-tugged oceans rising, falling,
Summer rain and cuckoo calling.
Some wild ancient ferment bore us.
Us, and all that went before us:
Life in desert. forest, mountain.
Life in stream and springing fountain.

We know how to mould and tame you,
We have power to mar and maim you.
Show us by your silent growing
That which we should all be knowing:
We are of you, not your master,
We who plan supreme disaster.
If with careless greed we use you
Inch by extinct inch we lose you.

May our births and deaths remind us
Others still will come behind us.
That they also may enjoy you
We with wisdom will employ you.
That our care may always bless you
Teach us we do not possess you.
We are part and parcel of you.
Wide green world, we share and love you.”

Dr. June Bell, Unitarian poet and hymn writer

“Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.”

George Orwell (1903 – 1950), born on this day

Midsummer Day

“Wild Elemental One,
bless us through your gifts of wind, fire, water, and earth.
May we awaken to new life each dawn
and feel your holy breath sustaining us.
Let the breezes whisper their secrets
and the winds strip away what is no longer needed.
May we bless the sky with our reaching,
the clouds a witness to our becoming.
May we feel the living flame of love
burning in our hearts.
Let the sun warm and illumine us
and may the ash that remains
from the fire bring us new clarity.
May we bless the fire with our passion
letting all that sparks and blazes within
warm this world.
May we know the sea as our holy source
and the rivers and lakes carry us
on currents of love.
Let the holy water of the wells
heal our broken places,
bringing us back to wholeness again.
May we bless the water of life,
yielding to its flow, carrying us home.
May we bless Earth with our gratitude,
for the sweetness of every sip and bite.
Let the trees root us, let the mountains lift us.
May we endure like stone,
may we nourish like bread.
May the elements guide us on the way
to live more fully, to breathe deeply,
to ignite our longings, to follow the flow,
to create something which persists.”

Blessing of the Elements by Christine Valters-Paintner