“. . . I have many friends in New York who are not religious people. Most, I would say. Either they fell away from the spiritual teachings of their youth or they never grew up with any God to begin with . . . What I’m seeing in some of my friends, though, as they are aging, is a longing to have something to believe in. But this longing chafes against any number of obstacles, including their intellect and common sense. Despite all their intellect, though, these people live in a world that careens about in a series of wild and devastating and completely nonsensical lurches. Great and horrible experiences of either suffering or joy occur in the lives of all these people, just as with the rest of us, and these mega-experiences tend to make us long for a spiritual context in which to express either lament or gratitude, or to seek understanding. The problem is—what to worship, whom to pray to? . . . . “
—-Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love
longing
Morning Trip (239)
“Advice to those about to acquire a Vermeer: Always look at it as it might appear in its average moments–not as it might glow in the light-dance of the fireplace, or burn from within on a fall Sunday morning when the amalgamation of the sun’s rays blasts red upon those fat dutch cheeks, or as you would make it glow when you return home flushed with the one victory or another, or with wine. None of that.
Rather think: What will this masterpiece look like at 2:45 on a February afternoon when you have run out of toilet paper and the roof leaks and a horse has just kicked in your kitchen door for the fun of it. And a dead badger is wedged high in the chimney, stinking up the house. Consider such moments as these, when you are about to acquire your Vermeer. But yes. She is as lovely as a Vermeer.”
–Roger Rosenblatt, The Book of Love
Morning Trip (98)
“Whispers in the Wind
Your whispers are gentle echoes
that sway ardent winds of harmony
and in the symphony of life
each word is wrapped in rhapsody.
We travel separate roads of life
gather flowers along the way and
share the music of their fragrance.
We exist between two winds,
I here under a pale moon
you, the other end of somewhere.
Sometimes when wind blows through trees
I pause to listen and in its passing
I hear the tenderness of your voice
that fills the spectrum of my soul.
You are the chime of warm rain,
the moon that glows through the trees
and within the luster of evening
your aura fills the scene.
I hear the whispers of the wind
see the stars shine in the sky,
but I hold the sunrise in my pocket.
Dance with me within the wind,
then just let me love you.”
–Trent Moore
Morning Trip (24)
I see my beauty in you. I become
a mirror that cannot close its eyes
to your longing. My eyes wet with
yours in the early light. My mind
every moment giving birth, always
conceiving, always in the ninth
month, always the come-point. How
do I stand this? We become these
words we say, a wailing sound moving
out into the air. These thousands of
worlds that rise from nowhere, how
does your face contain them? I’m
a fly in your honey, then closer, a
moth caught in flame’s allure, then
empty sky stretched out in homage.
– Jelaluddin Rumi
The Glance Songs of Soul-Meeting
Elisa's Spot 