After storms, I walk the winter garden. In bone-time,

I see the world’s structure-

the way the light falls on open boughs,

what it reveals of the past, the future.

I walk the woodland path.

Without distraction of hope,

I see what is ending, ready to die.

The tilting willow, about to relax into death.

The great old maple that soon will fall.

Then my throat will tighten, my eyes flood.

Now I look without bitterness at the past, the future. No regrets.

Only seeds. Everywhere, seeds.

The past, the future. At the road, burdock holds up pointed fists.

Beneath, yarrow stands, erect small soldiers.

Grass catches wind, swooning to the ground and springing back.

Rose hips gleam, and the last red firethorn.

The special beauty of waiting. Patience and reserve.

Proud bearing, infinite vulnerability.

Things seen for what they are.

Dark shadow on the snow; above me crow calls.

~ Patricia Monaghan

how to suggest a renewal….

inquiry for today~ may you feel the call of grace…

forgive the world…

Our mental universe (which contains all we know, feel or are afraid of in the real world we live in)

may be enchanting, happy, tragic, comic, etc.

We are capable of transforming it and giving it a charm which makes life more valuable.

More valuable since life becomes more joyful, thanks to the extraordinary effort needed to create this charm.

Life is wasted when we make it more terrifying, precisely because it is so easy to do so.

It is an easy task, because people who are intellectually lazy are convinced that this miserable terror is “the truth”,

that this terror is knowledge of the “extra-mental” world. This is an easy way out,

resulting in a banal explanation of the world as terrifying.

Creating enchantment is an effective means of counteracting this depressing, banal habit.

We must go in search of enchantment.

~Rene Magritte