The Age of Not Knowing by Maira Kalman

What era are we in?

The era of not knowing.

In that there is so much to know,
the only recourse is not to know.
Or, we are incapable of knowing what we need to know.

Which, like everything, can have a good side and a bad side.

The bad is that we don’t know what will happen.
And the anxiety this provokes is vast and constant.
What new terror lurks?

The good is that we don’t know what will happen 
and it could be a pleasant surprise.
The other good is that we can decide what we need 
to have happen in the moment. And take action.
Go down the stairs and go outside.
Go up the stairs and into the room.

We don’t know the outcome of doing something.
Again, it is impossible to know. 
But the life must be lived and the chances must be taken.

And perhaps it won’t be all bad.

 You never know.

For the Senses by John O'Donohue

May the touch of your skin

Register the beauty

Of the otherness

That surrounds you.

May your listening be attuned

To the deeper silence

Where sound is honed

To bring distance home.

May the fragrance

Of a breathing meadow

Refresh your heart

And remind you you are

A child of the earth.

And when you partake

Of food and drink,

May your taste quicken

To the gift and sweetness

That flows from the earth.

May your inner eye

See through the surfaces

And glean the real presence

Of everything that meets you.

May your soul beautify

The desire of your eyes

That you might glimpse

The infinity that hides

In the simple sights

That seem worn

To your usual eyes.

For the One Who is Exhausted by John O'Donohue

When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,

Time takes on the strain until it breaks;

Then all the unattended stress falls in

On the mind like an endless, increasing weight.

The light in the mind becomes dim.

Things you could take in your stride before

Now become laborsome events of will.

Weariness invades your spirit.

Gravity begins falling inside you,

Dragging down every bone.

The tide you never valued has gone out.

And you are marooned on unsure ground.

Something within you has closed down;

And you cannot push yourself back to life.

You have been forced to enter empty time.

The desire that drove you has relinquished.

There is nothing else to do now but rest

And patiently learn to receive the self

You have forsaken in the race of days.

At first your thinking will darken

And sadness take over like listless weather.

The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.

You have traveled too fast over false ground;

Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up

To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain

When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,

Taking time to open the well of color

That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone

Until its calmness can claim you.

Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.

Learn to linger around someone of ease

Who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,

Having learned a new respect for your heart

And the joy that dwells far within slow time.

Let Them Not Say by Jane Hirshfield

Let them not say:   we did not see it.
We saw.

Let them not say:   we did not hear it.
We heard.

Let them not say:   they did not taste it.
We ate, we trembled.

Let them not say:   it was not spoken, not written.
We spoke,
we witnessed with voices and hands.

Let them not say:  they did nothing.
We did not-enough.

Let them say, as they must say something: 

A kerosene beauty.
It burned.

Let them say we warmed ourselves by it,
read by its light, praised,
and it burned.