careline

“I Have Decided
I have decided to find myself a home in the mountains, somewhere high up where one learns to live peacefully in the cold and the silence. It’s said that in such a place certain revelations may be discovered. That what the spirit reaches for may be eventually felt, if not exactly understood. Slowly, no doubt. I’m not talking about a vacation. Of course at the same time I mean to stay exactly where I am. Are you following me?”
― Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings: Poems

“When someone is searching," said Siddhartha, "then it might easily happen that the only thing his eyes still
see is that what he searches for, that he is unable to find anything, to let anything enter his mind, because he
always thinks of nothing but the object of his search, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed by the
goal. Searching means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal. You, oh
venerable one, are perhaps indeed a searcher, because, striving for your goal, there are many things you don't
see, which are directly in front of your eyes.”
― Herman Hesse, Siddhartha

“What can I say that I have not said before?
So I’ll say it again.
The leaf has a song in it.
Stone is the face of patience.
Inside the river there is an unfinishable story
and you are somewhere in it
and it will never end until all ends.

Take your busy heart to the art museum and the
chamber of commerce
but take it also to the forest.
The song you heard singing in the leaf when you
were a child
is singing still.
I am of years lived, so far, seventy-four,
and the leaf is singing still.

(from, “What Can I Say”)”
― Mary Oliver

“Maybe I made a mistake yesterday, but yesterday’s me is still me. I am who I am today, with all my faults. Tomorrow I might be a tiny bit wiser, and that’s me, too. These faults and mistakes are what I am, making up the brightest stars in the constellation of my life. I have come to love myself for who I was, who I am, and who I hope to become.”
― Kim Namjoong