I often get in the right frame of mind, as you know, by listening to or reading an On Being program. Today I tuned into the Listening Party celebration. Kind of hard not to get teary-eyed listening but as always, worth the emotions. I’ve been inspired by On Being and so grateful to Krista Tippett et al for what they have shared. I’ve been inspired to share things here in part because of that whole mode, you know? And of course by other stuff too. One can’t work in a library and not be a person who shares. Also inspiring are book blogs, like Kerry Clare’s, and blogs like The Marginalian, and then while social media can be a lot, it also offers up some beautiful inspiration for me in the form of poetry, quotations, etc. Today’s post is just going to be a selection of things I’ve found lately, thoughts inspired from my online wanderings, and maybe a couple of poems thrown in for good measure, alongside the backdrop of this photo of a mix of peonies from our garden, and some flowers from our favourite florist.

Let’s start with a quotation from Susan Cain’s book, Bittersweet.

“If you’re having a great day and don’t feel like plumbing your depths, write down something that elevates you. Over my writing desk, I keep a post-it note that reads: “It’s urgent to live enchanted.” It comes from a poem by the Portuguese author Valter Hugo Mãe, and it reminds me to focus on the wondrous.”

So, to repeat:

A poem:

Patience

by Anna Kamienska

Patience it is music
unfolding slowly
It must play out until the end
without committing anything
like a quiet happiness that comes
climbs up a path and descends
down the hills of days and nights
difficult fragile unaware

In a dream I was reminded of this by Brahms
with a finger on his lips

And by the same poet:

Difference

Tell me what’s the difference
between hope and waiting
because my heart doesn’t know
It constantly cuts itself on the glass of watiing
It constantly gets lost in the fog of hope

Emily Dickinson has kept me company with her words:

From Lucie Brock-Broido:

“Earth is heavy, & I made no wish, save being
Merely magical. I am magical

No more. This, I will remember well.”

And who but a poet could have said that? To wish to be merely magical. And then with the line break and stanza break…she both is magical and magical no more. Which is how it goes.

Joan Didion:

“I'm not telling you to make the world better, because I don't think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I'm just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment.”

Leonard Cohen:

“Do not be afraid to be weak. Do not be ashamed to be tired. You look good when you’re tired. You look like you could go on forever.”

Next I’m going to quote myself quoting Ernst Hass in a post from 2016:

The photographer Ernst Haas said, “A picture is the expression of an impression. If the beautiful were not in us, how would we ever recognize it?” In a practice of photography, one cultivates an inner light. I don't suppose I can really prove that statement but it seems true to me. For the impression of a photograph to come through to the viewer, it's something the photographer had to wait for, to create, to seek out. If the light is not in us, how can we recognize it?

I think I always have this quotation in the back of my mind:

“I think everything in life is art. What you do. How you dress. The way you love someone, and how you talk. Your smile and your personality. What you believe in, and all your dreams. The way you drink tea. How you decorate your home. Or party. Your grocery list. The food you make. How your writing looks. And the way you feel. Life is art.”

— Helena Bonham Carter

To return to the On Being podcast, there was an excerpt of an interview with Robert Macfarlane. And he’s been similarly quoted elsewhere: “The question at the book’s core is: “Are we being good ancestors?” Mostly, I found the answer to be “no”. But I did find hope too. I found it in people – visionaries, altruists, scientists, activists – and in their refusal to settle for despair.”

There’s a theme running through this collection of words by others, and it must be: how to live now? How to be a good ancestor? How to make of your life art? How to live recklessly? How to find light, magic, enchantment? Let’s not forget patience, wild or otherwise.

I hope these questions are good for you and help you lean toward the answers, even as we might be continually modifying what those answers happen to be.

I hope reading through these words by others have helped re-calibrate your soul a bit, filled you up with some of the good juice, which is what I’m trying to do for myself these days. I think that the good beauty of the world helps us to reset our souls a little, realign our spirits. And who does not need that right now?

And on that note, just a reminder that if you become a patron / subscriber to my Beauty School, you’ll get an email in your inbox each Monday morning (if I can manage to hit the dials properly…bit of a learning curve on that platform still haha) which will help you do just that. If you’d like to seek beauty through your week and would like a prompt and some ruminations to go with, I think my Beauty School might give you a bit of a boost in that direction.

July 14, 2022