For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life’s procession that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.
It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw, But rather a garden forever in bloom and a flock of angels forever in flight.
But now I have learned to listen to silence. To hear its choirs singing the song of ages, chanting the hymns of space, and disclosing the secrets of eternity.
I am bored with gabbers and their gab; my soul abhors them. . . . Is there any place where there is no traffic in empty talk? Is there on this earth one who does not worship himself talking?
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving; To rest at noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy; To return home at eventide with gratitude; And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise on your lips.
When you kill a beast, say to him in your heart: ~By the same power that slays you, I too am slain, and I too shall be consumed. ~For the law that delivers you into my hand shall deliver me into a mightier hand. ~Your blood and my blood is naught but the sap that feeds the tree of heaven.
Extreme torture is mute, and so we sat silent, petrified, like columns of marble buried under the sand of an earthquake. Neither wished to listen to the other because our heart-threads had become weak and even breathing would have broken them.
Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.
But your ears thirst for the sound of the heart's knowledge.
You would know in words that which you have always known in thought.
You would touch with your fingers the naked body of the dreams.
There are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue; They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.