If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs, and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you;
But make allowance for their doubting, too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting.
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can think, and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster,
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken
And stoop and build them up with worn--out tools.
If you can make one heap of all your winnings,
And risk it on one turn of pitch--and--toss,
And lose, and start at the beginning
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone;
And hold on when there is nothing in you,
Exact the Will, which says to them ``hold on!''
If you talk with crowds and keep your virtue
Or walk with Kings, nor lost the common touch;
If neither foes nor living friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth, and everything that's in it,
And -- which is more -- You'll be a man, my son!
--Rudyard Kipling, If, from Waite Phillip's Epigrams
While we are born with curiosity and wonder
and our early years full of the adventure
they bring,
I know such inherent joys are often lost.
I also know that, being deep within us,
their latent glow can be fanned to flame again
by awareness and an open mind.
--Sigurd Olson..
Experimenting . . .
I hung the moon
on various
branches of the pine
--Hokushi -- The Four Seasons: Japanese Haiku..
The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them but to
be indifferent to them -- that's the essence of inhumanity.
--George Bernard Shaw
And a youth said, Speak to us of Friendship.
And he answered, saying:
Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for
peace.
When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the ``nay'' in your
own mind, nor do you withhold the ``ay.''
And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;
For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all
expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his
absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
And let there be no purpose in friendship. Save the deepening of
the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of it's own mystery is
not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.
And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and
sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is
refreshed.
--the prophet, Kahlil Gibran
Keep your mouth closed.
Guard your senses.
Temper your sharpness.
Simplify your problems.
Mask your brightness
Be at one with the dust of the earth.
This is primal union.
I am in love with this world. I have nestled lovingly
in it. I have climbed its mountains, roamed its forests, sailed its waters,
crossed its deserts, felt the sting of its frosts, the oppression of its
heats, the drench of its rains, the fury of its winds, and always have
beauty and joy waited upon my goings and comings.
--John Burroughs..
Since water still flows, tough we cut it with swords
And sorrow returns, though we drown it with wine,
Since the world can in no way answer to our craving,
I will loosen my hair tomorrow and take to a fishing boat.
--Li Po..
There is more to life than increasing it's speed.
--Ghandi
I did not read books the first summer; I hoed beans.
Nay, I often did better than this. There were times when I could not afford
to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the
head or hands. I love a broad margin to my life. Sometimes, in a summer
morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from
sunrise till noon, rapt in a reverie, amidst the pines and hickories and
sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around
or flitted noiselessly through the house, until by the sun falling in at
my west window, or the noise of some traveller's wagon on the distant highway,
I was reminded of the lapse of time. I grew in those seasons like corn
in the night, and they were far better than any work of the hands would
have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but so much over
and above my usual allowance. I realized what the Orientals mean by contemplation
and the forsaking of works. For the most part, I minded not how the hours
went. The day advanced as if to light some work of mine; it was morning,
and lo, now it is evening, and nothing memorable is accomplished. Instead
of singing like the birds, I silently smiled at my incessant good fortune.
As the sparrow had its trill, sitting on the hickory before my door, so
had I my chuckle or suppressed warble which he might hear out of my nest.
My days were not days of the week, bearing the stamp of any heathen deity,
nor were they minced into hours and fretted by the ticking of a clock;
for I lived like the Puri Indians, of whom it is said that ``for yesterday,
today, and tomorrow they have only one word, and they express the variety
of meaning by pointing backward for yesterday, forward for tomorrow, and
overhead for the passing day.'' This was sheer idleness to my fellow--townsmen,
no doubt; but if the birds and flowers had tried me by their standard,
I should not have been found wanting. A man must find his occasions in
himself, it is true. The natural day is very calm, and will hardly reprove
his indolence.
--Henry David Thoreau..
One aspect of the machine world which has not had
sufficient attention is the relation of the machine age to the mystery
of human joy. If there is one thing clear about the centuries dominated
by the factory and the wheel, it is that although the machine can make
everything from a spoon to a landing--craft, a natural joy in earthly living
is something it never has and never will be able to manufacture. It has
given us conveniences (often most uncomfortable) and comforts (often most
inconvenient) but human happiness was never on its tray of wares. The historical
result of the era has been an economic world so glutted with machine power
that it is being shaken apart like a jerry--built factory, and a frustrate
human world full of neurotic and ugly substitutes for joy.
Part of the confused violence of our time represents, I think, the
unconscious search of man for his own natural happiness. He cannot live
by bread alone and particularly not by sawdust bread. To speak in paradox,
a sense of some joy in living is one of the most serious things in all
the world.
--Henry Beston..
The old people came literally to love the soil and they sat or reclined
on the ground with a feeling of being close to a mothering power. It was
good for the skin to touch the earth and the old people liked to remove
their moccasins and walk with bare feet on the sacred earth. Their tipis
were built upon the earth and their altars were made of earth. The birds
that flew into the air came to rest upon the earth and it was the final
abiding place of all things that lived and grew. The soil was soothing,
strengthening, cleansing and healing.
--Chief Luther Standing Bear..
I feel . . .
we could be happy in the mountains.
Everybody's talking about the place of their dream,
where they can find peace of mind.
I'm not sure, but I think it seems
I've finally found mine. . .
in the mountains
--Hoyt Axton
Nature shows us only surfaces, but she is a million fathoms deep.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Let us dance in the sun, wearing wild flowers in our hair
and let us huddle together as darkness takes over
We are at home amidst the birds and the trees, for we are
children of nature.
--Susan Polis Shutz
Learning is finding out what you already know.
Doing is demonstrating that you know it.
Teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you.
You are all learners, doers, teachers.
--Richard Bach, from Illusions
The frog does not drink up the pond in which he lives.
--Indian Proverb..
In the woods, too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough,
and at what period soever of life is always a child.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Do not try to satisfy your vanity by teaching a great many things.
Awaken people's curiosity. It is enough to open minds; do not overload
them. Put there just a spark. If there is some good inflammable stuff,
it will catch fire.
--Anatole France..
Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in life; Glory
in your strength and beauty. Rejoice in the fullness of your aliveness.
Seek to make your life long and full of service to others, to your people.
And prepare a noble Death Song for the day when you are about to cross
the Great Divide.
--The Twelfth Commandment of the Redman
Don't be dismayed at good--byes.
A farewell is necessary before you can meet again.
And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes,
is certain for friends.
--Richard Bach
''. . . and so there ain't nothing more to write about,
and I am rotten glad of it, because if I'd a knowed what a trouble it was
to make a book I wouldn't a tackled it and I ain't agoing to no more. But
I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because
Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize and I can't stand it. I
been there before.''
--Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckelberry Finn
I also knew there would be some things that would
never be dimmed by distance or time, compounded of values that would never
be forgotten. The joys and challenges of the wilderness, the sense of being
a part of the country and of an era that was gone. The freedom we had known,
silence, timelessness, beauty, companionship and loyalty and the feeling
of fullness and completion that was ours at the end. . .
--Sigurd F. Olson
I thought the earth remembered me,
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.
I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they flowed light as moths
among the branches of the perfect trees.
All night I heard the small kingdoms
breathing around me, the insects,
and the birds who do their work in the darkness.
All night I rose and fell, as if in water,
grappling with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.
--Mary Oliver, Sleeping in the Forest
Men go back to the mountains, as they go back to sailing ships at sea,
because in the mountains and on the sea they must face up, as did men of
another age, to the challenge of nature. Modern man lives in a highly synthetic
kind of existence. He specializes in this and that. Rarely does he test
all his powers or find himself whole. But in the hills and on the water
the character of a man comes out.
--Abram T. Collier
There are beginnings and there are endings. What meaning and effect
your experience here will have in your life only you will ultimately know.
The responsibility as always, is yours to make of it what you will. Bon
Voyage, my friends.
--John Hurst
Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
--A. Lincoln
The mountains can be reached in all seasons. They offer a fighting
challenge to heart, soul and mind, both in summer and winter. If throughout
time the youth of the nation accept the challenge the mountains offer,
they will keep alive in our people the spirit of adventure. That spirit
is a measure of the vitality of both nations and men. A people who climb
the ridges and sleep under the stars in high mountain meadows, who enter
the forest and scale peaks, who explore glaciers and walk ridges buried
deep in snow -- these people will give their country some of the indomitable
spirit of the mountains.
Today is a new day; you'll get out of it just what you put into it.
If you have made mistakes, even serious mistakes, you can make a new start
whenever you choose. For the thing we call failure is not the falling but
the staying down.
--Mary Pickford
You risked your life, but what else have you ever
risked? Have you ever risked disapproval? Have you ever risked a belief?
I see nothing particularly courageous in risking one's life. So you lose
it, you go to your hero's heaven and everything is milk and honey 'til
the end of time, right? You get your reward and suffer no earthly consequences.
That's not courage. Real courage is risking something that you have to
keep on living with, real courage is risking something that might force
you to rethink your thoughts and suffer change and stretch consciousness.
Real courage is risking one's cliches.
--Tom Robbins
I will act as if what I do makes a difference.
--William James
Live each day as you would climb a mountain. An occasional glance towards
the summit puts the goal in mind. Many beautiful scenes can be observed
from each new vantage point. Climb steadily, slowly, enjoy each passing
moment; and the view from the summit will serve as a fitting climax to
the journey.
--Joe Porcino
Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects
of you. Never excuse yourself. Never pity yourself. Be a hard taskmasker
to yourself -- and be lenient with everybody else.
--Henry Ward Beecher
Winning is realizing you already have won by being in the running.
You may not finish ahead of many other runners, but you already have beaten
the much bigger pack of people who choose to move on wheels instead of
on foot.
Losing is not starting, but being content to talk about what might
be, or what might have been if...
Winning is finishing the distance you set for yourself, however humble
it might be. Speed is a gift your parents either gave you or couldn't.
Your had little to say about it, so the time you take to run your distance
doesn't say much about your spirit. But endurance and persistence are qualities
that are largely trained and learned. Finishing is a victory of strong
spirit over weak flesh.
Losing is dropping out for no other reason than a weak will. Quitting
in the face of actual or potential injury is wisdom, but giving up to moderate
inconvenience or mild discomfort is defeat.
Winning is measuring yourself against yourself. It is learning to take
pride in your improvements, no matter how small. Later it is taking pleasure
in more subtle measures of victory which have little to do with time and
place.
Losing is matching yourself against everyone else who runs. This is
self-defeating, because few people win this way and those who do don't
keep it up very long.
--Joe Henderson
Difficulties and obstructions throw a man back upon himself. While
the inferior man seeks to put the blame on other persons, bewailing his
fate, the superior man seeks the error within himself, and through this
introspection the external obstacle becomes for him an occasion for inner
enrichment and education.
--from I Ching
I was walking with my friend, and American Indian, on a crowded street
in New York City when he suddenly exclaimed, "I hear a cricket."
"You're crazy," I said, as I observed the crowded noon-time street
scene in mid-town. Cars were honking, construction crews working, plans
flying overhead.
"No, I hear a cricket," he insisted, and proceeded to walk to a flower
bed in front of a fancy office building. There, under a leafy plant, he
showed me a cricket chirping with life.
"That's amazing," I responded. "You must have fantastic hearing."
"Not really. It all depends on what you're tuned into," my friend explained.
"I find that hard to believe," I said.
"Watch," my wise friend offered, and he proceeded to drop a handful
of coins onto the crowded sidewalk.
Instantly heads turned, eyes darted, and hands reached for pockets
to see if they were the poor soul who'd lost his or her money.
"See," his eyes twinkled, "it all depends on what you're tuned into."
--Dave Moriah, The Indian & the Cricket, adapted from "Summit Expedition" staff manual