“Most High, all-powerful, precious God.
No spoken word can hold your name.
Praise be to You who births all life,
with all Your creatures.

Especially you Sir Brother Sun,
who is the day and is your light.
A beauty so true to you,
there you are. There, you are.

Praise be to You, my Lord you are, Sister Moon and the stars.
Bright, precious heaven, there you are. There, you are.

Praise be to You, my Lord you are, Brother Wind and the air.
Breath of Spirit, there you are.
There, you are.

Praise be to You my Lord you are, Sister Water gift of Life.
Pure, essential, there you are.
There, you are.

Praise be to You my Lord you are Brother Fire,
friend through the night.
Strong and playful, there you are.
There, you are.

Most High, all-powerful, precious God,
through Mother Earth we see your face.
You who govern all of life,
sustain and nurture all that is.
With sister Death, first and last breath.
The key unlocking all we are,
there, we are.”

Simon de Voil, based on the Canticle of the Creatures by St Francis of Assisi

“Years ago, in the bottle-green light
of the cold January sea,
two seals suddenly appeared together
in a single uplifting wave –
each in exactly the same relaxed position –
each, like a large, black comma, upright and staring;
it was like a painting done twice
and, twice, tenderly.
The wave hung, then it broke apart;
its lip was lightning;
its floor was the blow of sand
over which the seals rose and twirled and were gone.
Of all the reasons for gladness,
what could be foremost of this one,
that the mind can seize both the instant and the memory!
Now the seals are no more than the salt of the sea.
If they live, they’re more distant than Greenland.
But here’s the kingdom we call remembrance
with its thousand iron doors
through which I pass so easily,
switching on the old lights as I go –
while the dead wind rises and the old rapture rewinds,
the stiff waters once more begin to kick and flow.”

Winter at Herring Cove by Mary Oliver

“Do silly things. Foolishness is a great deal more vital and healthy than our straining and striving after a meaningful life.”

Anton Chekhov (1860 – 1904), born on this day

“You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.”

From Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, published on this day in 1813

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF COMMEMORATION IN MEMORY OF THE VICTIMS OF THE HOLOCAUST

“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

Viktor Frankl, holocaust survivor and author of Man’s Search for Meaning

“Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.”

Bessie Coleman (1892 – 1926), first black woman to earn a pilot’s license, born on this day

“No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.”

Virginia Woolf (1882 – 1941), born on this day

“We need to experience ourselves in such a way that we could say that our real body… is not just what’s inside the skin, but our whole total external environment… because if we don’t experience ourselves that way, we mistreat our environment, we treat it as an enemy… We exploit the world we live in. We don’t treat it with love and gentleness and respect… We need a new kind of consciousness, because you see underneath the superficial self… there is another self, more really us, than I, and if you become aware of that unknown self, the more you become aware of it, the more you realize that it is inseparably connected with everything else that there is. That you are a function of this total galaxy, bounded by the Milky Way… and that, furthermore, this galaxy is a function of all other galaxies and that vast thing that you see far off, far off, far off with telescopes and you look and look and look, one day you’re going to wake up and say, “why… that’s me!””

Alan Watts (1915 – 1973)

“I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and in thoughts, you return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.”

Lao-Tzu, 6th century BCE China, translated by Stephen Mitchell

“Hope lies in dreams, in imagination, and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality.”

Jonas Salk (1914 – 1995), medical researcher who developed the first safe polio vaccine