A Quote by Edward Hirsch
And every year there is a brief, startling moment
When we pause in the middle of a long walk home and
Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless
Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air:
It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies;
It is the changing light of fall falling on us.
Related Quotes
My monumental netted sculptural environments move through time, animated by an ever-changing 'wind choreography,' making invisible air currents suddenly visible to the human eye. I make living, breathing pieces that respond to the forces of nature - wind, light, water.
The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us. Thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing. The trees wave and the flowers bloom in our bodies as well as our souls, and every bird song, wind song, and tremendous storm song of the rocks in the heart of the mountains is our song, our very own, and sings our love.
For the most part, of course, the presence of the great spiritual universe surrounding us is no more noticed by us than the pressure of air on our bodies, or the action of light. Our field of attention is not wide enough for that; our spiritual senses are not sufficiently alert. Most people work so hard at developing their correspondence with the visible world, that their power of correspondence with the invisible is left in a rudimentary state.
Death and disaster are at our shoulders every second of our lives, trying to get at us. Missing, a lot of the time. A lot of miles on the motorway without a front wheel blow-out. A lot of viruses that slither through our bodies without snagging. A lot of pianos that fall a minute after we've passed. Or a month, it makes no difference. So unless we're going to get down on our knees and give thanks every time disaster misses, it makes no sense to moan when it strikes.
If we can forgive everyone, regardless of what he or she may have done, we nourish the soul and allow our whole being to feel good. To hold a grudge against anyone is like carrying the devil on your shoulders. It is our willingness to forgive and forget that casts away such a burden and brings light into our hearts, freeing us from many ill feelings against our fellow human beings.
We feel the breath of the wind upon our cheeks, we see the dust and the leaves blowing before the wind, we see the vessels at sea driven swiftly towards their ports; but the wind itself remains invisible. Just so with the Spirit; we feel His breath upon our souls, we see the mighty things He does, but Himself we do not see. He is invisible, but He is real and perceptible.
Our souls are made of water, Goethe says. So too, our bodies. There is a flow within us, rising and falling, unidirectional, to the heart. there is a flow without also. We circulate. We are drawn up, and we fall back down to earth again. It's all haemodynamics.
Variations: II Green light, from the moon, Pours over the dark blue trees, Green light from the autumn moon Pours on the grass ... Green light falls on the goblin fountain Where hesitant lovers meet and pass. They laugh in the moonlight, touching hands, They move like leaves on the wind ... I remember an autumn night like this, And not so long ago, When other lovers were blown like leaves, Before the coming of snow.
We don't think there's
something wrong with one-
year-old children because they
can't walk perfectly. They fall
down frequently, but we pick
them up, love them, bandage
them if necessary, and keep
working with them. Surely our
heavenly Father can do even
more for us than we do for our
children.
For all parts of the body that we see fit to expose to the wind and air are found fit to endure it: face, feet, hands, legs, shoulders, head, according as custom invites us. For if there is a part of us that is tender and that seems as though it should fear the cold, it should be the stomach, where digestion takes place; our fathers left it uncovered, and our ladies, soft and delicate as they are, sometimes go half bare down to the navel.
God of our life, there are days when the burdens we carry chafe our shoulders and weigh us down; when the road seems dreary and endless, the skies gray and threatening; when our lives have no music in them, and our hearts are lonely, and our souls have lost their courage. Flood the path with light, run our eyes to where the skies are full of promise; tune our hearts to brave music; give us the sense of comradeship with heroes and saints of every age; and so quicken our spirits that we may be able to encourage the souls of all who journey with us on the road of life, to your honor and glory.
We all reject out of hand the idea that the love of our life may be something light or weightless; we presume our love is what must be, that without it our life would no longer be the same; we feel that Beethoven himself, gloomy and awe-inspiring, is playing the “Es muss sein!” to our own great love.
Take the Long Way Home is a song that I wrote that's on two levels - on one level I'm talking about not wanting to go home to the wife, 'take the long way home' because she treats you like part of the furniture. But there's a deeper level to the song, too. I really believe we all want to find our true home, find that place in us where we feel at home, and to me, home is in the heart. When we’re in touch with our heart and we're living our life from our heart, then we do feel like we found our home.
FALLING STARS: Do you remember still the falling stars that like swift horses through the heavens raced and suddenly leaped across the hurdles of our wishes -- do you recall? And we did make so many! For there were countless numbers of stars: each time we looked above we were astounded by the swiftness of their daring play, while in our hearts we felt safe and secure watching these brilliant bodies disintegrate, knowing somehow we had survived their fall.
Night is falling. The gods have left us for those who please them better. Our time in the world is passed, and we are as wasted as the wind against the mountains. Shadows are falling, the gods have left us.
So as long as you can forget your body you are happy and the moment you begin to be aware of your body, you are wretched. So if civilization is any good, it has to help us forget our bodies, and then time passes happily without our knowing it. Help us get rid of our bodies altogether.
Related Authors
Alexander Pope Quotes
English
Poet
Emily Dickinson Quotes
American
Poet
George Herbert Quotes
British
Poet
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes
American
Poet
Homer Quotes
Greek
Poet
Horace Quotes
Roman
Poet
John Milton Quotes
English
Poet
Khalil Gibran Quotes
Lebanese
Poet
Lord Byron Quotes
British
Poet
Maya Angelou Quotes
American
Poet
Oscar Wilde Quotes
Irish
Poet
Ovid Quotes
Roman
Poet
T. S. Eliot Quotes
American
Poet
Walt Whitman Quotes
American
Poet
William Butler Yeats Quotes
Irish
Poet