CURIOUS

              Villa des Amis

Taking a walk in the garden can be a revelatory act. 

Or not. 

It depends on my state of mind, awareness, openness, curiosity. It saddens me to see how incurious I can be, moving through a space lost in my own story, thoughts, the next sentence, eager to add something while all around is being lost: the church bells, birdsong, the dying rose bloom, an aunt colony, my own breath, how that arbor is shading the hostas now that the winter months are gone, or that the leaves will fall like ripe fruit as the warmth of the days retreat in favor of another season, the wonderment of how many more seasons I have to appreciate the impermanence that surrounds me, while having a desire that this day last in the face of so much evidence it won’t. Look, there’s a blade of grass leaning in the opposite direction from its neighbors. 

LOVE

LPC 2002

       There are drawings that manifest 

       education and there are drawings 

                  that manifest love.

REINCARNATION

Villa des Amis/Autumn 2015

Everything disappears, 

            but nothing ends.

    It all comes back in time.

         I certainly intend to.

                     ---Andrew Greig

Meditation

Quarry Court/North Berwick/Scotland

The fruits of meditation, when it is truly achieved, give one a new lease on life, redouble an individual’s capacity for vigorous and creative action by eliminating all obsession with the pursuit of pleasure or the evasion of pain, and indeed promote the full enjoyment of life with all its good and bad, its beauty and ugliness. It permits one to act instead of constantly reacting. It frees the mind from the eternal conflict of the opposites. Even more, it enhances one’s feelings of compassion so that this freedom cannot be used to the detriment of others and that alone is no small virtue in today’s environment.

 ---from The Quiet Mind by John E. Coleman

SITTING QUIETLY

Labyrinth/Villa des Amis

Sitting quietly, 

doing nothing.

Spring comes, 

and the grass grows

by itself.

                     Zenrin Kushu

GOLF

North Berwick, Scotland 

Golf is a science, the study of a lifetime,

in which you may exhaust yourself but never

your subject. It is a contest, a duel or a melee,

calling for skill, courage, strategy and self-

control. It is a test of temper, a trial of honour,

a revealer of character. It affords a chance to

play the man and act the gentleman. It means

going into God's out-of-doors getting close to

nature, fresh air, exercise, a sweeping away

of mental cobwebs, genuine recreation of tired

tissues. It is a cure for care, an antidote to worry.

It includes, companionship with friends, social

intercourse, opportunities for courtesy, kindliness

and generosity to an opponent. It promotes

not only physical health, but moral force.

                   ---DAVID R. FORGAN