In Praise of Atum

In a place open to the sky,
facing west at the hour of sunset
or east at sunrise,
I pray that the cosmos be flung open to me
and that all nature
may receive the sound of my psalms.
Open, great earth,
and trees, silence your waving boughs,
for I am about to sing
the praise of the One and All.
Justice, praise the just through me.
Goodness, praise the good through me.
Selflessness, praise the All throught me.
It is Your words
that through me sing Your praises -
for all comes from You
and all returns to You.
Accept these pure offerings of speech
from a heart and soul uplifted.
You of whom no words can tell,
no tongue can speak,
and only silence can declare.

~The Hermetica

From that which we fear

From that which we fear, make us fearless.

O bounteous One, assist us with your aid.

May the atmosphere we breathe

breathe fearlessness into us:

fearlessness on earth

and fearlessness in heaven!

May fearlessness surround us

above and below!

May we be without fear

by night and by day!

Let all the world be my friend!

~Atharva Veda XIX

We are Nature

We are Nature, long have we been absent, but now we return,
We become plants, trunks, foliage, roots, bark,
We are bedded in the ground, we are rocks,
We are oaks, we grow in the openings side by side,
We browse, we are two among the wild herds, spontaneous as any,
We are two fishes swimming in the sea together,
We are what locust blossoms are, we drop scent around lanes mornings and evenings,
We are also the coarse smut of beasts, vebetables, minerals,
We are two predatory hawks, we soar above and look down,
We are two resplendent suns, we it is who balance ourselves orbic and stellar, we are as two comets,
We prowl fang'd and four-footed in the woods, we spring on prey,
We are two clouds forenoons and afternoons driving overhead,
We are seas mingling, we are two of those cheerful waves rolling over each other and interwetting each other.
We are what the atmosphere is, transparent, receptive, pervious, impervious,
We are snow, rain, cold, darkness, we are each product and influence of the globe,
We have circled and circled till we have arrived home again, we too,
We have voided all but freedom and all but our own joy.

~Walt Whitman

No Words

Tired of all who come with words, words but no language

I went to the snow-covered island.

The wild does not have words.

The unwritten pages spread themselves out in all directions!

I come across the marks of roe-deer's hooves in the snow.

Language but no words.

~Tomas Transtromer

I've known rivers

I've known rivers:
I've know rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

~Langston Hughes

Excite the soul

Excite the soul, and the weather and the town and your condition in the world all disappear; the world itself loses its solidity, nothing remains but the soul and the Divine Presence in which it lives.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

To all that is brief

To all that is brief and fragile
superficial, unstable,
To all that
lacks foundation
argument or principles;
To all that is light,
fleeting, changing, finite
To smoke spirals,
wand roses,
To sea foam
and mists of oblivion...
To all that is light in weight
for itinerants
on this transient earth
Somber, raving,
with transitory words
and vaporous bubbly wines
I toast
in breakable glasses.

~Maria Eugenia Baz Ferreira