My posts are personal reflections on being mindful, inspired and curious.
“I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.” Susan Sontag On an unseasonably warm Sunday morning I took a drive through the southwestern French countryside around my home in the Gers, départment 32, the heart of Gascony where all roads feel like back roads. At this early hour they were virtually empty. In this
“The deep and active care for the planet comes through experiences of beauty.” Charles Eisenstein My excitement is always palpable as I drive along the remote, untraveled roads of the southwestern French countryside into the heart of Gascony, down narrow, tree-lined lanes, through villages shrouded in mystery. Over many years I have followed a sentimental
Each of us arrives on the doorstep of spiritual practice from different paths. When I first encountered Buddhism in the 1970s, I was particularly drawn to the the idea of finding my self. Both Eastern and Western traditions offered prayer, meditation, mantras, service, devotion to guru or god that shifted the attention to the universal in
“Happiness is one of the only things we can give without having.” A Basque Proverb “My world, my Earth is a ruin. A planet spoiled by the human species. We multiplied and gobbled and fought until there was nothing left, and then we died. We controlled neither appetite nor violence; we did not adapt. We
“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” ― Anton Chekhov We are all familiar with the aphorisms: Those who can’t do, teach, and Those who can’t write, edit. Guy Thomas Hibbert’s first book, Paris Postcards, disproves the later. Paris Postcards is a collection of eleven short stories that span
A feel of warmth in this place. In winter air a scent of harvest. No prayer is needed, When by sudden grace attended. Naturally, we fall from grace. Mere humans, we forget what light Led us, lonely, to this place. The Blessing by John Montague Here in the southwestern French countryside the summer season is
The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other’s welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the
It’s ripe, the melon by our sink. Yellow, bee-bitten, soft, it perfumes the house too sweetly. At five I wake, the air mournful in its quiet. My wife’s eyes swim calmly under their lids, her mouth and jaw relaxed, different. What is happening in the silence of this house? Curtains hang heavily from their rods.
Rules for Happiness Something to do. Someone to love. Something to hope for. Immanuel Kant What is it that we can’t make, make it stay when it arrives, or make it return once it has passed? Happiness. For us to live with things we like is easy. But to live surrounded by things we don’t,
