Tag Archives: mary oliver

Summer Is Here

Posted on June 20, 2016 | Leave a comment

Summer solstice and a full moon, our weather should change tonight. It has been so cold and wet. What better way to celebrate the first day of summer than with Mary Oliver, A Summer Day. YES, what will you do?

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

Angels In Your Head

Posted on January 10, 2016 | 3 comments

“You wouldn’t believe what once or twice I have seen. I’ll just tell you this: only if there are angels in your head will you ever, possibly, see one.” – Mary Oliver

I consider eagles a spirit animal and I wear an aboriginal carved silver bracelet with an eagle on it always. I am very lucky to have the company of 46 eagles on my hikes with the dogs in January and into February. Wilderness is not a luxury.

3 Comments

Posted in Nature, Thoughts

Tagged eagles, mary oliver, nature

Farewell Friend ~ Farewell Advice

Posted on April 28, 2014 | 7 comments

My loving friend Paul has started a new journey. Freed from his earthly home, he is now free to wander the cosmos, delighting in all the things he knows are there for him. I cherish his last will and testament and remember his wishes for us.

“Before death, life is a seeker.
After death, the same life becomes a dreamer.
Before death, life struggles and strives for Perfection.
After death, the same life rests
and enjoys the divine Bliss with the soul.
Before death, life is God’s Promise.
After death, life is God’s inner Assurance.
This Assurance of God’s we notice while we fulfil God in our future incarnation.”

He did not simply visit this world.

When Death Comes

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world

– Mary Oliver

7 Comments

Posted in Thoughts

Tagged advice for the journey, death, last will and testament, mary oliver, Rev. Dr. Pavel Dimotoff, Upanishads

Relationships

Posted on April 15, 2014 | 1 comment

When it’s the anniversary of the loss of a loved one I can feel quite melancholy. There always seems to be something that reminds me whether it is a date, a season, a quick memory of good times. This weekend was the second year anniversary of one of my dogs deaths. Noel, was a wonderful dog who lived a very good and happy life. She wasn’t my first loss or is my last. I have written frequently on my dogs and other animals and my relationships with them.

A good friend has just gone into hospice. His time left here is measured in days. I will support him with love on his journey. I will miss him from my life. But, I ask myself why it is I miss my animals more?

John Berger, in About Looking, wrote: “With their parallel lives, animals offer man a companionship different from any offered by human exchange. Different because it is a companionship offered to the loneliness of man as a species.”

From this blog post I read today about the relationship of a man with his pigs it offers a beautiful reflection of companionship.

I think Mary Oliver sums it up in this poem from Dog Songs.

How It Is With Us, And How It Is With Them

We become religious,

then we turn from it,

then we are in need and maybe we turn back.

We turn to making money,

then we turn to the moral life,

then we think about money again.

We meet wonderful people, but lose them

in our busyness.

We’re, as the saying goes, all over the place.

Steadfastness, it seems,

is more about dogs than about us.

One of the reasons we love them so much.

1 Comment

Posted in Thoughts

Tagged about looking, animal reltationships, animals, bernecho, dog songs, john berger, mary oliver, poetry, poetry month