The soul is a house with windows.
How I sit now,
a person empty of longing
in the light of the sun rising.
The day’s arrival,
a lifting of the shroud of night.
How I am a window to the east
with light pouring at my feet.
How I am a moving vessel
that I might always tilt,
a flower following the sun.
I am a house without power
but for love’s
sustaining grace,
which falls,
a ribbon upon the
ground of my being,
flows out again.
Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
May 2023
Paradise is having a connection — roots in the garden, stem from the branch, current to the light. To be unaware of the connection is to have one’s heart in the wrong place — far out in the fruit instead of within, in the tree.
—Alan Watts
The Body Journal
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Each day I long so much to see
The true teacher. And each time
At dusk when I open the cabin
Door and empty the teapot,
I think I know where he is:
West of us in the forest.
Or perhaps I am the one
Who is out in the night,
The forest sand wet under
My feet, moonlight shining
On the sides of the birch trees,
The sea far off gleaming.
And he is the one who is
At home. He sits in my chair
Calmly; he reads and prays
All night. He loves to feel
His own body around him;
He does not leave the house.
—Francisco Albanez
Robert Bly version
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The airy sky has taken its place leaning against the wall.
It is like a prayer to what is empty.
And what is empty turns its face to us and whispers:
“I am not empty, I am open.”
—Tomas Tranströmer
Robert Bly translation
Living Tree Poetry 