The Tourists

Arriving was their passion.
Into the new place out of the blue
Flying, sailing, driving -
How well these veteran tourists knew
Each fashion of arriving.

Leaving a place behind them,
There was no sense of loss; they fed
Upon the act of leaving -
So hot their hearts for the land ahead -
As a kind of pre-conceiving.

Arrival has stern laws, though,
Condemning men to lose their eyes
If they have treated travel
As a brief necessary disease,
A pause before arrival.

And merciless the fate is
Of him who leaves nothing behind,
No hostage, no reversion:
He travels on, not only blind
But a stateless person.

Fleeing from love and hate,
Pursuing change, consumed by motion,
Such arrivistes, unseeing,
Forfeit through endless self-evasion
The estate of simple being.

Cecil Day-Lewis

An Affirming Flame

"Senseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies:
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame."

(September 1, 1939, W.H. Auden)

Happiness

“Happiness isn’t a town on a map, or an early arrival, or a job well done, but good work ongoing.”

(Work Sometimes, Mary Oliver)

The Grave

Far from the churchyard dig his grave,
On some green mound beside the wave;
To westward, sea and sky alone,
And sunsets. Put a mossy stone,
With mortal name and date, a harp
And bunch of wild flowers, carven sharp;
Then leave it free to winds that blow
And patient mosses creeping; slow,
And wandering wings, and footsteps rare
Of human creature pausing there.

William Allingham

Photos: Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, Wales

I Must Go Down to the Seas Again

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied; And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

(Sea Fever, John Masefield)

A Life Lived Fully

The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Life’s Work at 72 
by Molly Peacock 

Mary Delany was 72 years old and mourning the death of her second husband when she began assembling detailed, realistic flower mosaics (one mosaic contains over 230 individual pieces of paper). Failing eyesight forced her to stop at 82 (although she continued with her needlework), by which time she had created 985 flower collages. At the same time, she maintained a busy social life, cared for a young grand-niece, maintained an extensive correspondence, and worked on other crafts.

Mary Delany’s life had many parts – a childhood designed to obtain a position at court, a first marriage at 17 to an old, drunken man and a second, happy marriage in Ireland. Creativity and handiwork were the common strands, weaving together a life lived fully and graciously.

The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Life’s Work at 72 by Molly Peacock reminds us of the value of every stage of our lives and the importance of valuing women’s handiwork as art.

You can view some of Mary Delany’s flowers in the British Museum’s online collection.

The Art of Stillness

“If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.” Dorothy, The Wizard of Oz 

“To me, the point of sitting still is that it helps you see through the very idea of pushing forward; indeed, it strips you of yourself, as of a coat of armor, by leading you into a place where you’re defined by something larger.”

“talking about stillness is really a way of talking about clarity and sanity and the joys that endure.”

“You don’t get over the shadows inside you simply by walking away from them.”

“Buddhists explain the nature of our mind: there may be clouds passing across it, but that doesn’t mean a blue sky isn’t always there behind the obfuscations. All you need is the patience to sit still until the blue shows up again.”

“So much of our lives takes place in our heads – in memory or imagination, in speculation or interpretation – that sometimes I feel that I can best change my life by changing the way I look at it.”

“This is what the principle of the Sabbath enshrines. It is, as Abraham Joshua Heschel, the great Jewish theologian of the last century, had it, ‘a cathedral in time rather than in space’; the one day a week we take off becomes a vast empty space through which we can wander, without agenda, as through the light-filled passageways of Notre Dame.”

“The point of gathering stillness is not to enrich the sanctuary or mountaintop but to bring that calm into the motion, the commotion of the world.”

“In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still.”

Quotes from The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere by Pico Iyer

Photos of Abkhazi Garden, Victoria, BC