Kate Vogt's Blog, page 4

SUNFLOWERS – symbols of eternal radiance

God, whose love and joy
are present everywhere,
can’t come to visit you
unless you aren’t there.

Angelus Silesius

The vendors were packing up.  I had arrived just before closing at the local farmers’ market, with the hope that it wasn’t too late to buy some vegetables. Luckily there were still some bundles of chard, arugula and kale.  Alongside the greens were sparks of the red, orange and purple of the colorful radishes, carrots, and beets.

I got sidetracked with a glimpse of yellow further do...

WHOLENESS – above and below

Our hands imbibe like roots,
so I place them on what is beautiful in this world.
And I fold them in prayer, and they
draw from the heavens
light.

St. Francis of Assisi

There are two things I try to remember to do each day – look up toward the sky – day or night – and look downward toward the dirt, soil and earth.  This a way of stirring awe and reverently remembering the astounding gift of existence.

Within any moment, countless beings – above and below – are slithering, shining, spinning, creep...

WALKING – joy in connectedness

Keep walking, though there ’s no place to get to.
Don’t try to see through the distances.
That’s not for human beings. Move within,
but don’t move the way fear makes you move.

Rumi
Translated by Coleman Barks

 

I like to take walks through my neighborhood’s redwood groves and hillsides.   My real joy on these walks is the simple gift of walking and imagining being in sync with the pulsebeat of the earth.  Within walking, some part of my body seems to resonate in the invisible kinship of all eart...

LIGHTNING – joy in the darkness

Friend, wake up!
Why do you go on sleeping?

Kabir

Wildfires are beginning to emerge in the area where I live, on the west coast of the United States.  I find myself longing for the fragrance of wet soil and the sound of raindrops on the leaves of the plants and trees.  Yet, recently when I awakened to flickering light on the bedroom walls, that inner longing was eclipsed by a rapt alertness.

Between the flickers of light, I could hear a slight static noise.  My mind pondered the source of the l...

ROAR

Drumsound rises on the air,
its throb, my heart.

A voice inside the beat
says, “I know you’re tired,
but come. This is the way.”

Rumi
Translated by Coleman Barks

 

A roar captured my attention.   Unlike the sound of a large truck or low flying plane, it was continuous, with no sign of fading.  In my childhood, I would imagine that the land quietly roared.  I imagined that the roar was the enduring resonance of the thousands of buffalo hooves that had freely run in the area that had become my fam...

ROCKS – gentle lovingness

To the bridge of love,
old stone between tall cliffs
— eternal meeting place, red evening —,
I come with my heart.

Juan Ramón Jiménez
Translated by James Wright

 

The rocks were still there.  I was excited to see them again.  The winter storms have erased so many familiar landmarks – old trees had fallen, hillsides slid away and shorelines were reshaped.  I had imagined the possibility of these giant rocks breaking apart with the intense force of the stormy ocean waves.  Yet, there they were:...

RIVER CONNECTIONS

losing its name
a river
enters the sea

John Sandbach

 

“I want to jump in the river.”   That is how a young boy decided to engage two strangers in a conversation.  He smiled as he spoke and playfully watched to see how we would respond.  My friend Jay and I were sitting on a bench and the boy was with an outing of pre-school children.  The group had momentarily paused.  Other than the boy, the children were quiet and seemingly unaware of the large river and the ships that passed nearby.

Before e...

MOONLIGHT – love loving love

The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.
They’re in each other all along.

Rumi
Translated by Coleman Barks

I awoke to what seemed like a timeless love story. At first, I thought it was the gentle hoot of the neighborhood owl or the sweet fragrance of freshly moistened earth from earlier rains. Yet when I opened my eyes, I realized that dawn was patiently making her way around the globe and still far aw...

LIGHT – eternal presence

Like a great starving beast
My body is quivering
Fixed
On the scent
Of
Light.

Hafiz
Trans. by Daniel Ladinsky

It seems fanciful that a new moon can appear to shimmer.  Yet, about once every eighteen months, there is a radiant glow around a new moon.  It occurs when the two orbs of the moon and the sun seem to mate in the daytime sky, and the moon apparently covers the sun.

I admire the odd and wondrous relationship between this unlikely pair.  They couldn’t be more different in their natures; y...

EARTHWORMS – quiet hope

Listen, if you can stand to.
Union with the Friend means not being who you’ve been,
being instead silence: A place: A view
where language is inside seeing.

Rumi
Translated by Coleman Barks

I awakened to a quiet morning.  It seemed like no one or anything was stirring.  Even the neighborhood crows had yet to make their cawing praises to the opening of the day.  The raindrops had ceased to roll off the roof, and the wind from the overnight storm had disappeared.  There was a sense that, for a mom...