Fresh Quotes: The Moon and I

 

There has been times in my life when it seemed the moon was my only friend. It seemed so lonely up there in the dark. And so it came to be that we’d keep each other company.
If we seem well acquainted this is why. 

Having romantic notions about the moon. I felt my soulmate, my kindred spirit, my best friend, a person I had yet to meet was out there looking at that same moon wondering about me too. The moon told me that love is timeless and to be patient, for love is that too. 
And so we’d have these little conversations wherein the moon reminded me just how small I am and how big and ancient the moon is compared to me. These talks tend to put things into perspective when I am as lucid as the moon which is only sometimes, most of the time I am a lunatic which is another story…

 

-Nancy

***Here are some Moon quotes intended to inspire the lunatic in all of us. 

 

MOON Quotes

It is a beautiful and delightful sight to behold the body of the Moon.

Galileo Galilei

 

There is a moon inside every human being. Learn to be companions with it.

Rumi

 

Credit: Public Domain

Perhaps the crescent moon smiles in doubt at being told that it is a fragment awaiting perfection.

Rabindranath Tagore

 

 

Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

Anton Chekhov

“The moon is a loyal companion.
It never leaves. It’s always there, watching, steadfast, knowing us in our light and dark moments, changing forever just as we do. Every day it’s a different version of itself. Sometimes weak and wan, sometimes strong and full of light. The moon understands what it means to be human.
Uncertain. Alone. Cratered by imperfections.”
― Tahereh Mafi

 

“Yours is the light by which my spirit’s born: – you are my sun, my moon, and all my stars.”
― e. e. cummings

 

Sunrise to Sunrise

 

 

 

 

And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.”
~Mahatma Gandhi

 

Each day is a new beginning, a chance to begin again. We shed the confining skin of yesterdays troubles, concerns and “mistakes” and emerge anew full of life and with the vitality of hope and exuberance, at least I hope so. At least that is what I tell myself at 7:15 a.m. while on my way to my newest adventure.

My year and a half long foray into retail at a well known-they-have-a-parade big chain department store has ended and I am stepping right inside another and very different job with just one day in between.  It was an easy decision to make.  I am getting more hours at more pay with less work.   It was sad to leave nonetheless.  I have met so many wonderful and amazing people there and that is what makes a place; the people I work with. I also liked the quick pace and flurry of activity, and although I excelled at that job and felt comfortable there, my dissatisfaction with a lack of opportunity has made me seek it elsewhere.

 

It’s scary to go out of one’s comfort zone as I am doing it once again. I was just settling in which I found myself jumping.  Truth be told I do feel like I need to make up for lost time, which at 46 I really do.  I have been feeling more outgoing and confident in the last year and this has prompted an ambition in me which I didn’t know I possessed and this has surprised me.

 It seems everything is beginning to come together and it feels great.

 

These thoughts race through my mind as we turn the corner and the mountain comes into view.  MM is so correct when he told me about the sunrises here.  The morning sky is a vibrant purple erupting with  brilliant tangerine. Wow! It is an almost surreal scene and it lends an air of excitement to the morning I didn’t expect…like I needed more excitement on my first day. I choose to see it as a good sign and MM sees at as a sign that he should pull over because I will want to snap some shots and he is so right again.

 

I am not the only person compelled to stop and take a pic. (haha)

I marvel at the way life can abruptly change; just like that.  One day  you wake up to one reality and then the next day you can be living an entirely new one.  Each day has it’s own distinct sunrise, it’s own set of challenges and moments of serendipity. Some days are so bloody fantastic that you have to pinch yourself just to make sure you aren’t dreaming. While others are more akin to nightmares. Most days fall someplace in between.  Every day memories are being created and etched into our minds, memories that make us who we are and what we will be.  There are days that can break us but these are the days that can make us stronger. Every day is a risk. To leave your house is a risk, to never leave is one also. The uncertain is fraught with perceived risk. Whether this is entirely justified is unclear to me.

Taking on a new job is a risk. To go out of one’s comfort zone and try anything new takes a fair amount of courage.  I will confess I am a bit nervous on my first day but the sky invigorates me.   I  take it all in. My heart pounds, my pulse races. I feel so alive! A warm surge of excitement fills and tickles my every molecule. I’m living in the moment from sunrise to sunrise, one step leads to the next and I take it all in like I do the sky; my  life, the new people that I meet. This is scary but it is good…

And now two weeks have passed…

I have good days. I have had not so good ones. All in all it’s been a positive experience. I now work in an office out by the airport that has big windows so I can always see the sky. I keep regular hours and have weekends to spend with my family. During lunch I go for “nature” walks. So far I have seen a fox and a bumblebee and numerous birds.  Spring will soon be here. I can feel it. I can see it in the tiny crocus erupting from the ground in my backyard, I can hear it in the song of the birds in the morning and I can see it in the glorious sunrise I see in the morning.  I am happy and content.  Life is good and it’s getting better all the time.

 

~NLM

A sampling of the beauty I am fortunate to witness . My cheap little camera does not do it justice…

Norah Jones-Sunrise

 

TIME LAPSE :: Beautiful Ocean Sunrises & Sunsets

Seeds of Love

Every action or non-action we take have repercussions that run like ripples in a still pool, constantly moving and changing. Out of randomness comes a chaotic sort of order we call life.

Life is a journey with twists and turns, offshoots, detours and about-faces.  We skip merrily, or unmerrily, planting seeds along the way.

Some seeds get blown away and never come to fruition, others find the right landing spot and with a little luck, care and attention erupt out of the ground bursting into life, red, ripe and beautiful like a shiny apple.

Most of the time we don’t know where they go. A small kindness is a seed that can travel far, farther than we realize. I’ve learned to appreciate the small and the seemingly insignificant.

Seeds are like that; small and seemingly insignificant. We all know that looks are deceiving and that a seed however tiny can pack a wallop. The potential of one tiny seed is incalculable.

 

 “We can count how many seeds are in the  apple, but not how many apples are in the  seed.”

   ~Ken Kesey

 

We are always planting seeds whilst we know it or not. I like to think that every action I take however small and seemingly insignificant most likely has repercussions: good, bad or somewhere in between. The results of some of our actions are immediate, other results take longer, others longer still. Seldom does life work on our timetable, nature works on it’s own and we are a part of that greater whole.

We are a part of the web of life. We take part in the dance of the seasons; springing forth with a rush of light and energy. We burst up through into the living world, bright, trusting and full of potential thrust into the wilderness of existence, a life with gardens and tigers and people and trees and owls…so much beauty and wonder…

…and indifference, greed, Monsanto and war…

The world is our garden, the garden of our making. We grow here and there is no other place for us. We must take care to plant the right kind of seeds.

If we plant seeds of love and compassion and altruism and trust, if we plant a respect for all life and the environment, if we plant peace and understanding and tolerance with care and watering, luck and a lot of hard work, we could grow a beautiful garden with enough wonderfulness to sustain us all.

Of course this is all so easy to say….so lovey-dovey and some may say unrealistic. Yes, I know the world is an ugly place but it is also a place of beauty. It’s up to us to cull out the badness and plant the goodness. If not us, who? And if not now when?

Any farmer will tell you the best time to plant is yesterday. Get those seeds in the ground and pray for sunny days…the more seeds we plant the better.

~NLM

“I will be generous with my love today. I will sprinkle compliments and uplifting words everywhere I go. I will do this knowing that my words are like seeds and when they fall on fertile soil, a reflection of those seeds will grow into something greater.”
~Steve Maraboli

 

 

 

Related Articles

Eric Clapton - Let It Grow (2011 Remaster)

Johnny Appleseed Song (Youtube)

SEEDBOMBS (How to)  (Guerrillagardening.org)

List of edible seeds (Wikipedia)

Star seed (Wikipedia)

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault,The doomsday vault: the seeds that could save a post-apocalyptic world (theguardian.com)

The Complete History of Monsanto, “The World’s Most Evil Corporation”

Fresh Quotes: LOVE Hafiz

 The words of Hafiz:  How they enchant. They move, they writhe and wiggle up and down from right to left; dancing like crazy….inspiring me like crazy… Hafiz is another one of my favorite poets. Never mind he wrote these words in the 1300’s. They are timeless, ideas even more so.  Translation adds a twist to these quotes. Daniel Ladinsky does a superb job. It’s hard to tell how much of himself he adds to the text. I concentrate more on the pleasure of reading and the places my thoughts travel to, invoked by the ideas, the whimsy and the thoughtfulness.

LOVE is always inspiring. Poetry lends the power of words and ideas and Hafiz adds the magic. Enjoy!

The following quotes are by Hafiz

 

Your heart and my heart
are very, very old friends

Arces Natural Park Utah, USA

I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being.

 

 You carry all the ingredients

To turn your existence into joy

“I caught the happy virus last night
When I was out singing beneath the stars.
It is remarkably contagious –
So kiss me.”

Love sometimes wants to do us a great favor: hold us upside down and shake all the nonsense out.

 

Gustav Klimt’s The KISS

 ♥

Your love
Should never be offered to the mouth of a
Stranger,
Only to someone
Who has the valor and daring
To cut pieces of their soul off with a knife
Then weave them into a blanket
To protect you.

The tide of my love
Has risen so high let me flood
over

You. 

How did the rose
Ever open its heart
And give to this world
All its beauty?
It felt the encouragement of light
Against its being,
Otherwise,
We all remain
Too frightened.

Let us be like

Two falling stars in the day sky. 

Let no one know of our sublime beauty

As we hold hands with God

And burn 

Into a sacred existence that defies –

That surpasses 

Every description of ecstasy

And love.

♥

Hafiz (also spelled Hafez), whose given name was Shams-ud-din Muhammad, was one of the greatest of Persia’s mystical and lyrical Sufi poets. He was born in Shiraz in southeast Persia (modern Iran) c. 1320 and died c. 1389. He is affectionately known as “The Tongue of the Invisible”. His poems were artfully translated and interpreted by American poet Daniel Ladinsky.

References and Related Articles and Recommended Reading 

Hafiz Bio (hafizonlove.com)
FRESH QUOTES: RABINDRANATH TAGORE 
Fresh Quotes: LOVE RUMI

"The Gift" Poems by Hafiz, The Great Sufi Master * Daniel Ladinsky
"A Year With Hafiz" Daily Contemplations * Daniel Ladinsky 

Fresh Quotes EARTH

On this Earth Day please do something however small for the Earth. Plant a tree, walk instead of drive. Don’t buy anything new.  Look to the past for inspiration. We once were more in touch with the Earth and the basics of life and death. Life was messy and sometimes ugly but real.

We worked hard and got our hands dirty. More people grew their own food, made their own clothes and bartered with neighbors. Children played outside all day in the fresh air. We were strong and healthy…life was good and rich and full.. but somewhere along the line we gradually removed ourselves from the nasty bits of life. The dirty. the unpleasant, the time consuming.

Life is now for the taking,  prepackaged and ready to go. It’s been inspected and sanitized. And it’s on sale for those that can afford to pay.  Everyone else must make do…and we left the rural communities and farms and tight knit families. We worked in the factories to make goods and life was good, there was enough to go around…we reached a gilded age. A time of plenty.

It is not only unfortunate but starkly unfair that our spending spree comes at the expense of our progeny; the ones left in our wake who will not think so much of us I think.

On this Earth Day, plant a tree, plant several….do something, or better yet, do nothing. Go outside. Spend some time with the earth. With nature… 

I think if we all spent more time outdoors. learned to love the natural world all over again….and if we brought our children and allowed them this gift; the love and deep appreciation of nature.

I think we’d as a people would care more about our beautiful planet and take active steps to do as little harm to our home as possible and perhaps leave it a little better than how we found it. Hopefully they will look upon us as pioneers who blazed the trail and set in motion events that will subsequently save our planet from us and thus save ourselves too.

HAPPY EARTH DAY 2015

~NLM

Great Smoky Mountains. North Carolina. USA

“Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children’s children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance.”
―Theodore Roosevelt

Our Galaxy over Queenstown ( on the evening of the Aurora Australis )

 “The earth is speaking to us, but we can’t hear because of all the racket our senses are making. Sometimes we need to erase them, erase our senses. Then – maybe – the earth will touch us. The universe will speak. The stars will whisper.”

 -Jerry Spinelli

 “We don’t inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”

~Native American Proverb (source unclear)

“And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair” 
― Kahlil Gibran

 

“Take nothing but memories, leave nothing but footprints!”
~Chief Seattle

 

If we do not permit the earth to produce beauty and joy, it will in the end not produce food, either.
~Joseph Wood Krutch

Earth Blue-Marble-by-Nasa-Public-Domain-via-Wikimedia

 “We have become, by the power of a glorious evolutionary accident called intelligence, the stewards of life’s continuity on earth. We did not ask for this role, but we cannot abjure it. We may not be suited to it, but here we are.” 

~Stephen Jay Gould

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

~Margaret Mead

 

 

“Sit, be still, and listen,
because you’re drunk
and we’re at
the edge of the roof.”
―Rumi

Related Youtube

Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) by Marvin Gaye

Earth Day 2014: Green Cities

Related Articles

Earth Day: The History of A Movement (earthday.org)

Fresh Quotes: LOVE RUMI

His words were simple and earthy. Words that came straight to the point, jutting out at odd angles, all the while meandering along the sandy bank, flowing along with the gentle stream.  Words that  reflected a quiet beauty; a oneness with nature conveyed in tiny jagged pieces that formed an exquisite mosaic of thought and feeling.

He wrote of love in such a simple and honest way and his words have inspired countless romantics on their quest to find their other half.

The general theme of Rumi’s thought, like that of other mystic and Sufi poets of Persian literature, is essentially that of the concept of tawhid — union with his beloved (the primal root) from which/whom he has been cut off and become aloof — and his longing and desire to restore it.

All the quotes that follow are his…

Daylight, full of small dancing particles. Can you see them when I whisper in your ear? 

“There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled.
There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled.
You feel it, don’t you?” 

 

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field.

I’ll meet you there

When the soul lies down in that grass

The world is too full to talk about

“The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.
They’re in each other all along.”

“The most alive moment comes when those who love each other meet each other’s eyes and in what flows between them.”

“In your light I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest where no-one sees you, but sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art.”

 

Lovers find secret places inside this violent world where they make transactions with beauty.

Reason says nonsense.

I have walked and measured the walls here, there are no places like that.

Love says, there are.

“Wherever you are, and whatever you do, be in love.”

Here’s to green fields and sunshine, blue skies ,timeless poetry and infinite LOVE ♥

Happy February

May this romantic month bring you your heart’s desire.

♥

Strawberryindigo

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī , also known as Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī  and more popularly in the English-speaking world simply as Rumi (September 30, 1207 – December 17 1273) was a 13th-century Persian poet, jurist, theologian, and Sufi mystic.  Rumi’s importance is considered to transcend national and ethnic borders. His poems have been widely translated into many of the world’s languages and transposed into various formats. In 2007, he was described as the “most popular poet in America.

*

  RUMI ( wikipedia.org)

♥

Related YOU TUBE

. 

My heart – Rumi

I Knew I Loved You ~ Savage Garden

ADELE – ‘Make You Feel My Love’