Year of the Horse

 

Year of the Fire Horse

Vitality, Power, Grace

- potent combination - 

Humility, like fire

gives and takes too.

"Come my friends"

Come my friends

‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world ...

Though much is taken, much abides;

... that which we are we are, –

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Lord Alfred Tennyson, Ulysses

 

"You walking, your footprints are"

 

You walking, your footprints are

the road, and nothing else;

there is no road, walker,

you make the road by walking.

By walking you make the road,

and when you look backward,

you see the path that you

never will step on again.

Walker, there is no road,

Only wind-trails in the sea.

Antonio Machado, Proverbs and Tiny Songs

"The Peace of Wild Things"

 

The Peace of Wild Things

"When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. 

I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. 

For a time I rest in the grace of the world, 

and am free..."

Wendell Berry

"Keep your heart clear"

 

Keep your heart clear

And transparent,

And you will

Never be bound.

A single disturbed thought

Creates ten thousand distractions.

Ryokan

"To touch the cup ...."

 

To touch the cup with eager lips and taste, not drain it;

To woo and tempt and court a bliss – and not attain it;

To fondle and caress a joy, yet hold it lightly,

Lest it become a necessity and cling too tightly;

To watch the sun set in the west without regretting;

To hail its advent in the east – the night forgetting;

To smother care in happiness and grief in laughter;

To hold the present close – not questioning hereafter;

To have enough to share – to know the joy of giving;

To thrill with all the sweets of life – is living.

Anonymous

"Retreat"

 

Retreat 

Let there be silence sometimes,

A space of starless night –

A silence, a space of forgetfulness

Away from seething of lives,

The rage of struggle.

Let there be a time of retreat,

A hiding of the sun and all colours,

For the soul to ride at ease in darkness;

For the coldness of no-life

To soothe life’s burning.

Let there be rest 

For wearied eyes to ease their labour

And wander across great distances,

For the spirit to slip the chain of hours

And drift in Atlantic waves of time.

Grant peace;

For a space let there be no roar

Of wheels and voices, no din

Of steel and stone and fire.

Let us cleanse ourselves from the sweat and dirt,

Let us be hushed, let us breathe

The cold sterile wind from colourless space.

Richard Aldington