"There is no calamity greater than making light of the enemy; to make light of the enemy is to endanger my retention of the treasures. Hence once the opposing forces have met it is the pitiful who conquer." Tao Te Ching ch. 69, Medhurst translation. #taoteching #war
Long legged husky sleeps on his side on a sunlit carpet
Local wolf finds sunny spot in front of TV acceptable #huskies #dogs
Two poinsettias in a bright window, one dead, one with a few green leaves
dead poinsettia
poinsettia strives to live
two in the window
#haiku #poetry
"The violent and the fierce do not live out their years." Tao Te Ching, ch. 42. The Medhurst translation of 1905 nails the line like no other. #taoteching #tyrants
"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"
T.S. Eliot, "Choruses from The Rock"
#tseliot #wisdom #information #poetry
All great teaching is teaching about life. The nature and meaning of life. No matter what the subject. Teachers learn this from their students in turn. Celebrate this in your teachers. Demand this teaching from them. #teaching #meaningoflife #teachers
The sun sets behind bare wintry trees in a snow draped city park.
At minus 10 C and a stiff wind, in a bitterly early winter, a glimpse of utter peace and beauty. So lucky to have this place on our daily walk with Pico. Huskies help you dig winter. #wintertrees #sunsets #huskies
A leaf strewn path leads between two rows of sunlit autumn trees
Two roads converged in a yellow wood...
It's no longer about choice--"the road less traveled by". Was it ever?
But the way forward is clear and bright.
#poetry #robertfrost #autumn #trees
Autumn trees in sunlight surround a small white building
I wonder if anyone gets to leave this life feeling their job has been well done, the good are at least in the ascendant and the darkness is in retreat. Maybe the lucky, the blessed, leave at one particular moment where those happy chances seem to align. Just because of "a certain slant of light".
Dawn over a distant downtown; an angel statue descends over foreground snow
I'm excited to have posted my long poem "Creation: Ode" on btrehearne.online. You'll find it here: btrehearne.online/poems/. What if this was the first day of Creation? What if everything you see had just arisen fresh before your eyes? #creation #poetry
When John Donne wrote the tenth "Holy Sonnet" he addressed Death directly and found a Christian answer to his fears.
I invite you to listen to my reading of "Death Be Not Proud" and hear as well a confrontation of all the merchants of death in our own time.
#johndonne #poetry #death #readingaloud
When did we lose the difference between "can" and "may"? Haven't heard or read the latter in years. Maybe because so many of us think that whatever we can do, we should be allowed to do. Uh oh. #languagerules
Bright red maple leaves against a bright blue sky
Simply takes my breath away and makes me still for a few precious moments. Always remember to look up. #autumn #autumnleaves #mapleleaves
Street lamp lit in daytime in a park
I'm not sure if I stumbled into Narnia or if Diogenes the Cynic just went by.
Fungus attached to tree looks like a brain
Here's one for @lukelukeluke.bsky.social . Hope I'm not copycatting! But darned if I don't see nice mushrooms / fungi differently now.
Small bright slick on pebbly beach
Oil? Gas? Yet there hasn't been a boat on this beach all summer. A natural phenomenon? #beachcombing
Looping tracks of a worm left on firm damp sand
I hope he got where he was going. Or maybe wherever he winds up IS where he was going. #beachcombing
Dawn light on far shore of lake, with darker trees in foreground.
Dawn reaches Lac Cuiérrier in the Reservoir Poisson Blanc in western Quebec. #dawn #lake #poissonblanc
Summer lingers, but we know the cold is not far off. On such a day the splash and light of cascading water is particularly enchanting.
My reading of Jack Gilbert's breathtaking poem "Failing and Flying". One of the great American poets of the last century (and this), he deserves to be so much better known. #poetry #poetryreading #jackgilbert
Dock on a calm lake at evening with mountains in the distance
Yesterday I came to a new understanding of the relation between yin, yang, and meditative breathing. So I posted a new entry in my long neglected meditation journal. I wonder if it will be of interest to any others who meditate, or just breathe. See it here: btrehearne.online/yin-yang-and...
Colourful autumn tree above red brick row houses
Autumn peeps shyly over the rooftops. He arrived at the party before anyone else. The other trees were all still wearing green
Pink sunset over neighbourhood trees
Some gifts don't need noticing. They leap at our gaze.
Trunk of a large tree
Looking up to wide spread branches of grand old tree against blue sky
Ancestor.
Woodland path
From the people who brought you Central Park in NYC...
Imagine having this for your morning walk in the heart of a major cosmopolitan city.
Gratitude.
Pico the husky lying on his cot
This handsome fellow turns two today. Happy birthday, Pico! You're still a holy terror at times, but we love you and we're so proud of how far you've come. Thanks for letting us be your pack.
Small garden in morning sun strewn with dry leaves
Under the stress of heat and drought the trees are dropping their leaves early. No flare of colour first, just a thousand quiet little surrenders a day to global heating.
This is probably the ideal response to stress: withdraw from the extremes, give up on splendour, bide your time till next year.
Long perspective view of one side of a cloister
I once believed that you could only practise wu-wei, Taoist non-action, in a monastery. Modernity demands too much ongoing intervention.
Now I wonder if retirement, with its disconcerting overnight loss of prestige and control, might not be an ideal moment to reconsider, and to practise wu-wei.
View across a quiet lake towards hills and mountains.
Why should staring into the distance towards hills and mountains still seem to open us to essential and immediate experience? The inner silence is almost instantly audible. The power of sheer vista: to make us comfortable in our insignificance?
The smartphone encourages us to believe that the best possible outcome of wondering, of an ambiguity, of questioning, is the recovery of a fact.
All the other ways of being in those indistinct places are surrendered to a tool of positivism such as the Positivists could only dream of.
