Who speaks the sound of an echo?
Who paints the image in a mirror?
Where are the spectacles in a dream?
Nowhere at all — that’s the nature of mind!
~Tree-Leaf Woman*

*cited:
Women in Praise of the Sacred
Ed: Jane Hirshfield
Who speaks the sound of an echo?
Who paints the image in a mirror?
Where are the spectacles in a dream?
Nowhere at all — that’s the nature of mind!
~Tree-Leaf Woman*

*cited:
Women in Praise of the Sacred
Ed: Jane Hirshfield
A sunflower taller than
your dad, uncle, and grandpa,

A sunflower reaching to touch a trees’ branches half-way up to the crown.
Though, I do imagine, an ant wandering about on the sunflower would believe it touched the blue-blue sky.
Nearby a yellow garden spider lunching on a white butterfly … sunflower yellow.
Fuji X-T4 … f/4 . 1/750 . 32.5mm . 160 ISO Edited: Capture One
What is in front of my eyes
changes into a scene of the past —
a winter shower!
~Buson (Y Sawa & E Shiffert, Haiku Master Buson)

life is a never-ending river…sudden moments of a stilled pond, languishing through time; riding whitewater rapids; falling waterfalls, bubbling creeks; uniting raindrops on a windowpane. Passing through life, seeking to rejoin with a vast unknown, and then again, evaporating into clouds that release into another stream of searching…searching…searching.



Are you in the waves of vast oceans?
Are you in the scent of flowers?
Are you in the spring’s early morning?
Are you in the touch of the afternoon’s sun rays?
Are you in the ever-changing clouds that tells stories of old?



Are you in the sound of melting snow?
Are you in the rustling movement of tumble weeds?
Are you in the colors of a brand new box of 72 Crayons? Or an old one?
Are you in the season of Autumn? Spring? Summer? Winter?
Are you in the wings of butterflies?



Are you in the vibrations of honey bees?
Are you in these questions?
Are you in the morning chanting sangha?
Are you in the scent of sun-warmed pine needles?
Are you in the uniting of water drops?
Are you in my searching, searching, searching?
sunset silhouette
leafless branches — in the sky
an ink-line drawing

Today, I like the word Wintering (the act of staying at a place throughout the winter) as it has an underlying message of being at…rest, peace. A seasonal nap time.

February has within it whispers of spring, It also–like November–is a time of heavy snow storms and cabin fever.

sunday morning with Thich Nhat Hanh
‘… the flower is made of non-flower elements. We can describe the flower as being full of everything. There is nothing that is not present in the flower. We see sunshine, we see the rain, we see clouds, we see the earth, and we also see time and space in the flower.

A flower, like everything else, is made entirely of non-flower elements. The whole cosmos has come together in order to help the flower manifest herself, The flower is full of everything except one thing: a separate self, a separate identity.
The flower cannot be by herself alone. The flower has to inter-be with the sunshine, the cloud and everything in the cosmos. If we understand being in terms of inter-being, then we are much closer to the truth. Inter-being is not being and it is not non-being. Inter-being means being empty of a separate identity, empty of a separate self.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life
Zepher Richard Lee

rocks and wood – front porch, light and shadow

rocks and water – Big Thompson Canyon, long exposure
images submitted for Dawn’s Monochrome Madness theme challenge: rocks
If I should live long,
Then perhaps the present days
May be dear to me,
Just as past time filled with grief
Comes quietly back in thought.
~Fujiwara no Kiyosuke


Standing at this Threshold
With uncertainty, I question:
What is it that I seek?
Protection? Compassion? Acceptance? Forgiveness? Completion?
Who is it that I beckon?
A father? A mother? A sister? A brother? A companion? A child? A god?
To be? To endure? To offer? To embrace? To validate?
An intentional presence that is drawn upon
A place and time of shadows, myths, and dreams?
Birthed within a family?
Matured within a relationship?
Nourished within a community?
Where the Stillness within Silence,
Affirms the exchange of life’s giving and taking,
Embraces the connection of life’s emotional threads, and
Observes the interdependence of life with non-judgmental awareness,
Yet, knows of a united oneness with another that can not be?
Since it can not be, do I yearn
To know integration through the formation of thought;
To see clarity through the flowing of ink; and
To feel completion through the act of creating?
And then, finally, within the stillness of silence,
I befriend
An internal companion with whom
There is an honoring of the who and what of which I am;
A woman, a daughter, a sister, a niece, a wife, a mother, an aunt, a grandmother, a great-grandmother.
I touch
With reverence the presence of all that was, is, and will be.
I release
The seeking, the beckoning, the yearning to the Winds of Change.
I with uncertainty, Step over this Threshold
Foreseeing a return
~bckofford
Day by day, day by day, and day by day,
quietly in the company of children I live,
In my sleeves, tiny embroidered balls, two or three.
Useless, intoxicated, in this peaceful spring.~Ryokan*

*cited:
Sky Above, Great Wind
K Tanahashi
Oh leaves, ask the wind which of you
Will be the first to fall. ~Soseki*

*cited in Jonathan Clements, The Moon in the Pines
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