My posts are personal reflections on being mindful, inspired and curious.
“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,
I stood in the Provençal light my eyes hungry, the landscape beautiful. I couldn’t get enough of the dappled sunshine to quench my thirst. I’d seen a lot of bowed heads over cell phones instead of the fragrant roses blooming nearby. After Nazim Hikmet Aigues-Mortes Apt Goult Gordes St. Remy de Provence Caromb Uzès Bonnieux Carpentras Venasque
Above the mountains the geese turn into the light again painting their black silhouettes on an open sky. Sometimes everything has to be inscribed across the heavens so you can find the one line already written inside you. Sometimes it takes a great sky to find that first, bright and indescribable wedge of freedom in your own heart. Sometimes with the bones of the black sticks left when the fire has gone out someone has
“Beethoven tells you what it’s like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it’s like to be human. Bach tells you what it’s like to be the universe.” Douglas Adams We all have experiences that transcend reality, like the feeling we get when we listen to deeply arousing and poetic cello music. We recognize
The Buddha once asked a student, “If a person is struck by an arrow, is it painful?” The student replied, “It is.” The Buddha then asked, “If the person is struck by a second arrow, is that even more painful?” The student replied again, “It is.” The Buddha then explained, “In life, we cannot always
