I heard a whisper
Coming from the trees
And, in that moment
I was gone,
Gone away
To return, to where I’d come from
By Athey Thompson
Do You Hear It, Too?
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Tag Archives: Literature
ChildLIKE / ChildSOUL: Thoughts by Hermann Hesse
There’s a huge difference between being childlike and childISH. I’ve been (wrongly) accused of being childish or of not “growing up” (whatever THAT means) when the truth is that I’ve retained the quality of childlike wonder and joy regarding the world we inhabit — especially when it comes to simple things like a butterfly or a seashell or whales or stargazing or a spectacular beach sunset. At the end of the day, these things are what’s important, at least for me.
Hermann Hesse, poet and author of “Siddhartha”, wrote about this same character trait:
“All children, as long as they still live in the mystery, are continuously occupied in their souls with the only thing that is important, which is themselves and their enigmatic relationship with the world around them.
Seekers and wise people return to these preoccupations as they mature.
Most people, however, forget and leave forever this inner world of the truly significant very early in their lives. Like lost souls they wander about for their entire lives in the multicolored maze of worries, wishes, and goals, none of which dwells in their innermost being and none of which leads them to their innermost core and home.”- Hermann Hesse
We should never ever lose the part of us that points up to the sky and says, “Look at the moon!”
Here’s another point of view; not so sweet, but wild and ferocious…
Art curated on Pinterest. Credit to the owner.
Word of The Day: Tsundoku
This is the post I planned for Monday before we had that 5.2 earthquake. Since then, terra firma has been quiet around here, but I did finally install the earthquake warning app to be ready for the next one.
Here’s the word of the day…tsundoku.
I had no idea there was a specific word to describe a pile of unread books.
In Japanese, “tsundoku” means collecting books and letting them pile up, not for neglect, but for the joy of knowing they’re there, full of untold stories.
The word “tsundoku” is a combination of “tsunde-oku” (to let things pile up) and “dokusho” (reading books).
My professor son has stacks of books all over his house and is guilty of acquiring as many books as he does plants for the garden. Half of them are for teaching and the others are for pleasure, he says. They live sort of near the guy who won a lot of money on Jeopardy, Tom Nissley, and he opened Phinney Books, which is cool. Both of the kids have shelves of books, too, so it runs in the family.
Here’s what’s on my bedside table. I confess that I actually NEVER read AB’s book in its entirety, but since I proofed the first draft, there’s a bit of me in there somewhere. Of course there’s Leon (I know, I’m so predictable) and gifted books about crystals and gardening. I didn’t include all my chick lit books because they’re immediately devoured. I get most of those secondhand from DIL because we enjoy the same authors. She’s a neuroscientist and those reads are a way for her brainy brain to unwind.
My stack of ladies-in-waiting.
What titles are in your tsundoku?
Three Butterflies
The people of this world are like the three butterflies in front of a candle’s flame.
The first one went closer and said: I know about love.
The second one touched the flame lightly with his wings and said:
I know how love’s fire can burn.
The third one threw himself into the heart of the flame and was consumed.
He alone knows what true love is.
Butterfly photo by Enchanted Seashells
Small Delights | Kleine Freuden
“Accustom yourself every morning to look for a moment at the sky and suddenly you will be aware of the air around you, the scent of morning freshness that is bestowed on you between sleep and labor.
You will find every day that the gable of every house has its own particular look, its own special lighting.
Pay it some heed…you will have for the rest of the day a remnant of satisfaction and a touch of coexistence with nature.
Gradually and without effort the eye trains itself to transmit many small delights.” –Hermann Hesse
The 1946 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the German author Hermann Hesse.
Photos by Enchanted Seashells
Reach For The Light
When things are as bad as they appear to be here in the US, and with growing anxiety every day, sometimes all we can do is breathe and reach for the light wherever we can.
Light is the thing we seek
Within the darkest of day,
let it show us the way.
Little words by Athey Thompson
“Reaching for that Star” by Florian Ceglarek
Divine Transmutation
“Once every people in the world believed that trees were divine, and could take a human or grotesque shape and dance among the shadows; and that deer, and ravens and foxes, and wolves and bears, and clouds and pools, almost all things under the sun and moon, and the sun and moon, were not less divine and changeable.” — W.B. Yeats
Artist~ Jody Bergsma
To Live Among The Stars ⭐
These are such exquisite words, it almost hurts my heart to read them.
“And at night you will look up at the stars. My star will just be one of the stars, for you. In one of those stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night. And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me. I shall not leave you. There is sweetness in the laughter of all the stars….and in the memories of those we love.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince ⭐
Goethe’s Wisdom
I’m not sure there’s a whole lot to celebrate this year; I don’t feel entirely full of the joy of the holidays, and I’m not all that excited about buying presents for anyone. The depressing election results seem to have cast a pall on our future and what’s going to happen in just a few short weeks.
I found these Goethe quotes which make a lot of sense to me right now. Even though I really only know about Goethe because of my German professor Angel Boy, and despite the fact that Goethe died in 1832, his words are timeless…
“Man sieht nur das, was man weiß.” (You only see what you know.)
“We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.”
“The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.”
“You must, in studying Nature, always consider both each single thing and the whole.”
It is said that the following words were Goethe’s last as he lay on this deathbed, “More light, more light! Open the window so that more light may come in.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is widely regarded as the greatest and most influential writer in the German language, his work having a profound and wide-ranging influence on Western literary, political and philosophical thought from the late 18th century to the present day.
A Little Fairy Magic
I don’t know about you, but I need some fairies to perform a little magic right about now.
The Fairy Forest
The faery forest glimmered
Beneath an ivory moon,
The silver grasses shimmered
Against a faery tune.
Beneath the silken silence
The crystal branches slept,
And dreaming thro’ the dew-fall
The cold white blossoms wept.
Sara Teasdale
Art credit: Midsummer Eve by Edward Robert Hughes
Enchanted Seashells | Princess Rosebud 