nature
-
Refugees Welcome
There are places to rest along the miles of all your days, if you will only sit… Continue reading
-
Tree
The next time a storm comes, set your eyes upon a tree. The branches toss and turn, flail and bend – and wisely so, for what happens to things that don’t bend? But then, beneath the boughs and limbs, the trunk. And beneath that pillar of power and stability, the roots – firmly fixed to the earth. Continue reading
-
Remember
Meanwhile, the wind blows, incredibly. The sun rises – seen or unseen – and moves across the sky, incredibly. Water covers most of the planet. Effervescent laughter is remembered. The vast silence of the world helps quiet the noise of your mind. The great emptiness fills you up and calms your heart. Do not be Continue reading
-
The Encounter
I stood in a glass house at the edge of the sea. I watched as the tide rose, gradually swallowing the house, waves breaking against glass walls, and over the glass roof, booming, rattling, trembling. Seaweed, rocks, shells, too many fish to count, so many colors. Then came the crabs, starfish, anemones, cephalopods, sliding, clicking Continue reading
-
Towards The Fire
When things unravel with such fury, we conclude that something should be held responsible. We look for a place to lay our blame, though the source of our pain often has the power to be a catalyst for growth, a facilitator of movement in stagnant waters. If we can un-stick ourselves from the quicksand of Continue reading
-
Dream Catcher
A dream of bamboo groves and flickering candles. A dream of sitting in meditation, of the alchemy of bees bringing about the reality of honey, of the heart lifting, of a tormented heart and eyes grown world-weary. A dream of desire stirring below the navel, of a starry sky like a great milk-swelled breast, of Continue reading
-
Genesis
Good morning swollen and veiled moon, trees whose blossoms are about to erupt. Good morning sun, disc of fire piercing the place where stars froze and crackled in monumental quiet only moments before. Good morning to the owl’s hushed song sliding outward from a deep pocket among the boughs, to the banshee-wailing of belts beneath Continue reading
-
A Great Many Sparrows
You know there are a great many sparrows in a tree when your view of the tree itself has been almost completely obscured by the birds. There are three ways to see these birds as they leave the tree in the morning, a single entity swirling up and away, as if together they made a Continue reading
-
Nature’s Classroom
The wood at the heart of a tree cannot grow without wind. Once again, nature informs humanity. Continue reading
-
Listless
Every day I make a list of things that need to be done, things that might slip through the fine mesh net of short-term memory. Today, the list contained more items than I could possibly accomplish. So I did what you might expect – I pushed it down into the folds of my left-hand pocket, Continue reading
C.M. Rivers 