nature

life’s passages … 60

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

life’s passages … 58

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

life’s passages … 52

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?

life’s passages … 45

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