Morning Trip (205)

“Keep your passion alive–
it will warm you when the
world around you grows cold.
It will not allow comfortable
familiarity to rob you of that
special glow that comes with
loving deeply. It can lift
you over stone walls of anger
and carry you across vast
deserts of alienation. But its
greatest gift is that of touch–
for passion cannot dwell in
solitude–it thrives best in
loving embrace. So keep your
passion alive–hold one
another as a tree holds the
Earth and your love will
bear the fruit of many,
many seasons.”
–Shamaan Ochaum Climbing Eagle

Morning Trip (204)

“Sometimes I think the people to feel the saddest for are people who once knew what profoundness was, but who lost or became numb to the sensation of wonder – people who closed the door that leads us into the secret world – or who had the doors closed for them by time and neglect and decisions made in times of weakness.”
–Douglas Coupland

Morning Trip (203)

“Don’t go into the inextricable jungle looking for the elephant who is already quietly at home.

Nothing to do

nothing to force,

nothing to want,

–and everything happens by itself.”

–Venerable Lama Gendun Rinpoche

Morning Trip (202)

“Inspiration is there all the time.

For everyone whose mind is not clouded over with thoughts, whether

they realize it or not…

Inspiration is pervasive but not a power.

It is a peaceful thing.

It is a consolation even to plants and animals.”

–Agnes Martin

Morning Trip (201)

“The heart remembers everything it loved and gave away, everything it lost and found again, and everyone it loved, the heart cannot forget.”
–Joyce Sutphen

Morning Trip (200)

“But there is one vocation–philosophy–which knows that all men, by what they think about and wish for, in effect wield all tools. It knows that men thus determine, by their manner of thinking and wishing, whether it is worthwhile to wield any.”
–Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, November

Morning Trip (199)

“Emotional pain makes me the opposite of a deep person; it renders my life narrow and thin and isolated. My suffering takes this whole thrilling, and gigantic universe and shrinks it down to the size of my own unhappy head.”
–Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic

Morning Trip (198)

“

The Laughing Heart

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.”
–Charles Bukowski