These images and these words below by Mary Oliver (thanks Libby Smith for recent reminder), grow delight and purpose in me.
The images are from the weekend, working and community-building in San Diego, California. I love the big views. I love the close in of “eyes” in rocks.
The words of Mary Oliver sing with the beauty of normalness seen through eyes that wonder and welcome. There is loving the world. There is loving self loving the world.
Enjoy.
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My Work Is Loving The World
Mary Oliver
My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird –
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,
Which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.
“Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird –
equal seekers of sweetness.”
this is what captures me today