Focus Your Longing ~ John O'Donohue

"For too long, we have believed that the divine is outside us.  This belief has strained our longing disastrously.  This is so lonely since it is human longing that makes us holy.  The most beautiful thing about us is our longing;  this longing is spiritual and has great depth and wisdom.  If you focus your longing on a faraway divinity, you put an unfair strain on your longing.  Thus it often happens that the longing reaches out towards the distant divine, but, because it over-strains itself, it bends back to become cynicism, emptiness or negativity.  This can destroy your sensibility.  Yet we do not need to put any strain on our longing.  If we believe that the body is in the soul and the soul is divine ground, then the presence of the divine is completely here, close with us."

John O'Donohue

More at ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_O'Donohue                                                         

Good is an Overflow ~ Iris Murdoch

"I know how much you grieve over those who are under your care: those you try to help and fail, those you cannot help. Have faith in God and remember that He will is His own way and in His own time complete what we so poorly attempt. Often we do not achieve for others the good that we intend but achieve something, something that goes on from our effort. Good is an overflow. Where we generously and sincerely intend it, we are engaged in a work of creation which may be mysterious even to ourselves - and because it is mysterious we may be afraid of it. But this should not make us draw back. God can always show us, if we will, a higher and a better way; and we can only learn to love by loving. Remember that all our failures are ultimately failures in love. Imperfect love must not be condemned and rejected but made perfect. The way is always forward, never back." 

— Iris Murdoch

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Murdoch

The Distance Within You ~ John O'Donohue

“Your beloved and your friends were once strangers. Somehow at a particular time, they came from the distance toward your life. Their arrival seemed so accidental and contingent. Now your life is unimaginable without them. Similarly, your identity and vision are composed of a certain constellation of ideas and feelings that surfaced from the depths of the distance within you. To lose these now would be to lose yourself.” 

― John O'Donohue

More at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_O'Donohue

Free Man In Powys: My Life as a Hedge

Free Man In Powys: My Life as a Hedge: This weekend, during a rare sighting of the sun, I decided to get stuck into the hedge and do some work. We have about 600ft of hedge to mai...

For the Oak Tree Within an Acorn ~ John Birch

"For the promise of harvest

contained within a seed

we thank you.

For the oak tree

within an acorn

The bread

within a grain

The apple

within a pip

The mystery of nature

gift wrapped

for us to sow

we thank you"

More at   http://www.faithandworship.com/Praying_through_the_Celtic_Year.htm#ixzz1DMKkyfZW 

At Candlemas ~ Charles Causley

'If Candlemas be bright and clear
There'll be two winters in that year';

But all the day the drumming sun
Brazened it out that spring had come,

And the tall elder on the scene
Unfolded the first leaves of green.

But when another morning came
With frost, as Candlemas with flame,

The sky was steel, there was no sun,
The elder leaves were dead and gone.

Out of a cold and crusted eye
The stiff pond stared up at the sky,

And on the scarcely breathing earth
A killing wind came from the north;

But still within the elder tree

The strong sap rose, though none could see.

(C) The estate of Charles Causley

More at   http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=122

Feeling of Wonder ~ John Burroughs

"Science tends more and more to reveal to us the unity that underlies the diversity of nature. We must have diversity in our practical lives; we must seize Nature by many handles. But our intellectual lives demand unity, demand simplicity amid all this complexity. Our religious lives demand the same. Amid all the diversity of creeds and sects we are coming more and more to see that religion is one, that verbal differences and ceremonies are unimportant, and that the fundamental agreements are alone significant. Religion as a key or passport to some other world has had its day; as a mere set of statements or dogmas about the Infinite mystery it has had its day. Science makes us more and more at home in this world, and is coming more and more, to the intuitional mind, to have a religious value. Science kills credulity and superstition but to the well-balanced mind it enhances the feeling of wonder, of veneration, and of kinship which we feel in the presence of the marvelous universe. It quiets our fears and apprehensions, it pours oil upon the troubled waters of our lives, and reconciles us to the world as it is."

John Burroughs (1837 - 1921)

More at  ~ http://research.amnh.org/burroughs/

Nature's Peace ~ John Muir

"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves." 
-John Muir

More at  http://ecouke.wordpress.com/2010/06/08/quaker-pantheism/

Artwork by Celia Hart http://celiahart.co.uk/index.html

Eternal Youth of Nature ~ John Muir

"Take a course in good water and air; and in the eternal youth of Nature you may renew your own. Go quietly, alone; no harm will befall you."

~ John Muir

More at    http://www.jmbt.org.uk/content/

Artwork from Celia Lewis www.celialewis.co.uk

Too Bright ~ Alyce Barry

"A few months ago, during silent worship, I visualized myself standing in a very bright shower of light coming down from above, from a source I couldn't see because the light was too bright. The light was moving and flowing over me, as the water in a shower does, with a very soft kind of rushing sound.
The experience was an emotional one that touched me....... The rushing shower also seemed to overcome some of my resistance to receiving the unconditional Divine love I believe it symbolized.
For that hour, I bathed in the light shower as much as I could, though my thoughts strayed from time to time."

More at   http://www.shadowwork.com/quakerthoughts.html

The Two Books ~ Eriugena

"God speaks to us through two books: the 'little book' of Scripture and the 'big book' of creation"

More at    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Scotus_Eriugena

All is Divine Harmony ~ John Muir

"On no subject are our ideas more warped and pitiable than on death...Let children walk with nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life, and that the grave has no victory, for it never fights. All is divine harmony."


More at  http://www.johnmuir.org/

Infinite Storm of Beauty ~ John Muir

"When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty."

~John Muir

More at   http://www.jmbt.org.uk/content/

If You Want to Understand ~ Columbanus

“If you want to understand the

Creator understand created things” 

More at    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbanus

11th Century Scottish Prayer for Peace

Deep peace of the running wave to you,
Deep peace of the flowing air to you,
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you,
Deep peace of the shining stars to you,
Deep peace of the Son of Peace to you, for ever.

Celtic Writings for the start of Autumn

"A good season for staying is autumn; there is work then for everyone before the very short days. Dappled fawns from among the hinds, the red clumps of the bracken shelter them; stags run from the knolls at the belling of the deer-herd. Sweet acorns in the wide woods, corn-stalks around cornfields over the expanse of brown earth. There are thorn-bushes and prickly brambles by the midst of the ruined court; the hard ground is covered with heavy fruit. Hazel-nuts of good crop fall from the huge old trees on dykes"

This was taken from a work called 'The Four Seasons' by a unknown Irish writer of the 11th century.

"The whole land, every dale and glen, weeps its long sorrow after the graceful summer; no tree-top can do more, nor weep leaves after that."

The 19th century Welsh writer Thomas Nicholson.

Artwork from Andrew Tromans
https://www.artistsandillustrators.co.uk/andrewtromans