Breath by Breath

House Rules 2014

2014 HOUSE RULES

1) Give thanks.

2) Be kind.

3) Say you’re sorry when someone hurts—no fault, no blame.

4) Help others.

5) Use manners.

6) Give lots of hugs.

7) Pay attention (i.e., be present)

8) Have fun.

9) Clean up after yourself.

10) Put stuff in its place.

11) Eat veggies.

12) Drink water.

13) Move….Every 15 minutes.

14) Make your bed.

15) Get rid of stuff.

 

Holiday Haiku ::: 11

Celebrate the Solstice

Let go of what's not needed

Welcome light and love.

Holiday Haiku ::: 10

Solstice gift making...

Saturday's extra effort

Results in great joy!!

 

 

Holiday Haiku ::: 9

It's a rainy day

No carols, just John Williams

Soon ::: candles and calm

Holiday Haiku ::: 7

Little bits of sweetness

Baked across generations

Treasured traditions.

Holiday Haiku ::: 5

Each is named and placed:

Saint Nicholas, Santa Claus

and King Winter, too.

Holiday Haiku ::: 4

One elf is at work

Making treasures in secret

For the dad he loves

Holiday Haiku ::: 2

Tapas is discipline

The fire that burns hot within

Essence ::: purity

Building the universe

Song of the Builders

On a summer morning

I sat down

on a hillside

to think about God -

a worthy pastime.

Near me, I saw

a single cricket;

it was moving the grains of the hillside

this way and that way.

How great was its energy,

how humble its effort.

Let us hope

it will always be like this,

each of us going on

in our inexplicable ways

building the universe.

Mary Oliver from Why I Wake Early (2004)

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, "The Peace of Wild Things" from The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry. Copyright © 1998.