Kate Vogt's Blog, page 6

CATERPILLAR – light touch

Tenderly, I now touch all
things,
knowing one day we will
part.

St. John of the Cross

Childhood memories seemed to suddenly gush into my mind.   I could feel the warm surface of the back porch where my sister Gail and I would stretch out on sunny Saturday afternoons.   Living on a farm a few decades prior to this digital era, we found a familiar comfort in seemingly doing nothing.   Clouds would drift across the sky as they eased into one animal shape after another.  While we’d never seen real l...

GEESE – expressions of infinity

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

It was a still morning, with a few ripples in the wide expanse of the nearby waters.  On the far horizon there was a slight hint of the nighttime hues surrendering into the gentle oranges of dawn.  Then, suddenly, almost magically, there were sounds of joy percolating in the distance.

My mind danced with the disappearance and reappeara...

TRAIL – inspiring prints

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

 

The trail welcomed me forward.  Each gentle bend seemed like a beckoning hand to “come, be here, and follow me until the next bend . . . and the next, and the next…”   It seemed to offer the reassurance that bend by bend, it would reliably lead me along each stretch of what was tangible an...

LOVING NATURE

Look
what happens to the scale
when love
holds
it.

It
stops
working.

Kabir
Trans. by Daniel Ladinsky

 

Looking out the plane’s window, I was mesmerized by the curvy pathways of the waters and the undulating contours of the earth.  Every bend in a river and every rise in the land seemed like individual brushstrokes shaping an unending scene of existence itself.

There was something peaceful about having a bird’s-eye view of our planet earth. Within the landscape below, nearly nine million species...

SPIDER – Creating Graciousness

And love Says,
“I will, I will take care of you,”
To everything that is Near.

Hafiz
Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

As I opened the front door, I was greeted by an elaborate spider web.   The main strands were anchored to the four edges of the doorframe, leaving the web undisturbed by the movement of the door.  The weaver was gracefully balanced in the heart of her newly spun home of intricately woven spirals.

Somehow the presence of this tiny being stirred a sense of graciousness within me. Per...

AGLOW

You’re in my eyes.
How else could I see light?

You’re in my brain.
This wild joy.

If love did not live in matter,
how would any place have
any hold on anyone?

Rumi
Translated by Coleman Barks

As I sat down on a park bench, a nearby shrub seemed aglow.   The glistening was evenly spread throughout the bush, giving the appearance that someone had hung strands of sparkling lights between the branches; instead, it was the afternoon light revealing the otherwise hidden artistry of a spider.

The ligh...

MORNING CALM

God is a pure no-thing,
Concealed in now and here:
The less you reach for him,
The more he will appear.

Angelus Silesius

A nighttime wind had faded into a morning calm.  Like a friend who had lovingly left a present by the door, the wind had graced us with her own gifts.  The front steps and surrounding area had been transformed into a colorful tapestry of green and yellow leaves.

The leaves seemed to be peacefully resting.  Their small groupings resembled the way they would have gathered only ...

LIFE STREAM

You are my lover, my longing,
my flowing stream,

my sun,
and I am your reflection.

Mechtild of Magdeburg

 

The stream was cold and brisk.  Yet, with its shallowness I had no qualms about stepping onto the rocky bottom of the moving water.  The stream was nestled in a broad, flat area offering an apt transition from shoe soled to unshod feet.

As I stood within the movement, I felt a kinship with the larger stones and boulders.  The stream simultaneously caressed and moved freely around the rocks....

LOVE – hidden within the gray

But love of God
hath so absorbed me
that neither love
nor hate
of any other thing
remains in my heart.

Rābiʻa

 

Yesterday was a foggy summer morning.  The air had taken on form and texture.  Like a freshly painted canvas, it was heavy and wet with soft, silvery hues.  A subtle radiance seeped through the thinner layers of the fog, revealing the presence of light.

While in many ways this was a typical coastal California foggy day, it felt instead almost hallowed   A tranquil, loving gentleness en...

DRAGONFLY – transcendent beauty

In
His
loving eyes
your every thought, word, and movement
is always, always

beautiful.

Hafiz
Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

 

I stared at the leafless geranium plant.  Yesterday this plant being had been filled with red buds and sprouts for new leaves.  Just as my heart was torn between sadness for the plant and happiness for the sated deer, a blue dragonfly landed on the bare stock.

Change is rarely easy, but everything is born, lives and dies of change.  That is the message I imagined hearing f...