June 1

When the body sinks into death, the essence of man is revealed. Man is a knot, a web, a mesh into which relationships are tied. Only those relationships matter. The body is an old crock that nobody will miss. I have never known a man to think of himself when dying. Never.

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Flight to Arras, translated by Lewis Galantiere

June 2

Phenology (phenomena plus logy) represents the human eye, the human grid, within the long-playing figure 8 of the sun’s seasons. It is the observation and application of relationships within repetition, relationships between the advance of the season and the timing of its particulars. In its purest forms phenology has always been found in the simple correlated memoranda of rural people: “Plant corn when oak leaves are the size of a squirrel’s ear.”

Phenology is also a gambit against omnivorous abstract time, a human placement within the cyclical, within the drone of the hammered-home. Phenological time is a flexible external time, luxuriant and practical, with no sharp edges. It moves through a matrix of full-bodied particulars infinitely more viscous than calendar time. It is rendered in the eyes and ears and body rather than fermenting in the mind.

The co-incidences on which phenological time rests invite, demand, the inclusion of space. As the Pawnees ranged the upper Smoky Hill country on their annual summer hunt, someone, the women no doubt, watched the progress of the milkweed pods. When the pods reached a certain stage of maturity the Pawnees knew it was time to return to their villages on Loup River, 400 or 500 miles northeast, to tend to their corn fields. This is lush, concrete time in a perfect plains setting: kneeling in the wind, checking the milkweed time; doing one thing in reference to a distant other.

— Merrill Gilfillan, Magpie Rising

June 3

One should never direct people towards happiness, because happiness too is an idol of the market-place. One should direct them towards mutual affection. A beast gnawing at its prey can be happy too, but only human beings can feel affection for each other, and this is the highest achievement they can aspire to.

— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Cancer Ward

June 4

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically.

— Henry David Thoreau, Walden

June 5

Still, I think our old, good woman Earth, though torn by political conflict, is the only world we have and we’re all her tenants depending in one way or another on each other. … I want to be a mail boat for everyone divided by the ice of estrangement, a craft before the coming of large navigation, moving through the drifting ice with letters and parcels.

— Yevgeny Yevtushenko, “Being Famous Isn’t Pretty,” the introduction to Stolen Apples.

June 6

If sometimes our poor people have had to die of starvation, it is not that God didn’t care for them, but because you and I didn’t give, were not an instrument of love in the hands of God, to give them that bread, to give them that clothing; because we did not recognize him, when once more Christ came in distressing disguise, in the hungry man, in the lonely man, in the homeless child, and seeking for shelter.

God has identified himself with the hungry, the sick, the naked, the homeless; hunger, not only for bread, but for love, for care, to be somebody to someone; nakedness, not of clothing only, but nakedness of that compassion that very few people give to the unknown; homelessness, not only just for a shelter made of stone, but that homelessness that comes from having no one to call your own.

— Mother Teresa, A Gift for God

June 7

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

— Matthew 25: 34-40 in the King James Version of the Bible

June 8

My son changed me. Once you bring life into the world, you must protect it. We must protect it by changing the world.

— Elie Wiesel, in a 1978 interview with John Friedman

June 9

You have been told also that life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.

And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart,
even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection,
even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy,
even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead
are standing about you and watching.

… Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.

— From Kahlil Gibran’s “On Work”

June 10

So, let us not be blind to our differences–but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.

— John F. Kennedy, “Commencement Address at American University, Washington, D.C., June 10, 1963”

June 11

I can feel free only in the presence of and in relationship with other men. In the presence of an inferior species of animal I am neither free nor a man, because this animal is incapable of conceiving and consequently recognizing my humanity. I am not myself free or human until or unless I recognize the freedom and humanity of all my fellowmen. Only in respecting their human character do I respect my own. … A slave owner is not a man but a master. By denying the humanity of his slaves he also abrogates his own humanity …

I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation. It is the slavery of other men that sets up a barrier to my freedom, or what amounts to the same thing, it is their bestiality which is the negation of my humanity. For my dignity as a man, my human right which consists of refusing to obey any other man, and to determine my own acts in conformity with my convictions is reflected by the equally free conscience of all and confirmed by the consent of all humanity. My personal freedom, confirmed by the liberty of all, extends to infinity.

— Mikhail Bakunin, “Man, Society, and Freedom”

June 12

Compassion has no place in the natural order of the world which operates on the basis of necessity. The laws of necessity are as unexceptional as the laws of gravitation. The human faculty of compassion opposes this order and is therefore best thought of as being in some way supernatural. To forget oneself, however briefly, to identify with a stranger to the point of fully recognizing her or him, is to defy necessity, and in this defiance, even if small and quiet … there is a power which cannot be measured by the limits of the natural order. It is not a means and it has no end.

— John Berger, Portraits

June 13

We can best exemplify our love for our God by living our religion. It is vain to profess a love for God while speaking evil of or doing wrong to His children. The sacred covenants we have made with Him strictly impose upon us the duties we owe to one another; and the great office of religion is to teach us how to perform those duties so as to produce the greatest happiness for ourselves and for our fellow-beings. When the obligations of our religion are observed, no words are spoken or acts are committed that would injure a neighbor. If the Latter-day Saints lived as they should do, and as their religion teaches them to do, there would be no feeling in any breast but that of brotherly and sisterly affection and love. Backbiting and evil-speaking would have no existence among us; but peace and love and good will would reign in all our hearts and habitations and settlements. We would be the happiest people on the face of the earth, and the blessing and peace of Heaven would rest upon us and upon all that belongs to us.

— Wilford Woodruff, “An Epistle to the Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”

June 14

But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.

But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

— James 1: 22-27, from the King James Version of the Bible

June 15

One should first earnestly meditate on the equality of oneself and others in this way: “All equally experience suffering and happiness, and I must protect them as I do myself.” Just as the body, which has many parts owing to its division into arms and so forth, should be protected as a whole, so should this entire world, which is differentiated and yet has the nature of the same suffering and happiness. Although my suffering does not cause pain in other bodies, nevertheless that suffering is mine and is difficult to bear because of my attachment to myself. Likewise, although I myself do not feel the suffering of another person, that suffering belongs to that person and is difficult to bear because of his attachment to himself. I should eliminate the suffering of others because it is suffering, just like my own suffering. I should take care of others because they are sentient beings, just as I am a sentient being. When happiness is equally dear to others and myself, then what is so special about me that I strive after happiness for myself alone? When fear and suffering are equally abhorrent to others and myself, then what is so special about me that I protect myself but not others? If I do not protect them because I am not afflicted by their suffering, why do I protect my body from the suffering of a future body, which is not my pain?

— Santideva, A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life

June 16

As Goswamy writes, we are dealing with “a world of silence in which one has to strain very hard to pick up whispers from the past … a layered world that does not reveal all its treasures immediately … One has to fall back on one’s own resources … to piece things together, the willingness to construct a narrative, the imagination to flesh it out … One needs to make an effort to receive from these paintings all the riches that reside within.” But if we strain hard, he says, it is still possible to “feel the breath of those times – even if lightly – upon our skin”, and so gain access to the highest state of pure aesthetic pleasure – to experience what Indian aesthetic theory describes as romaharshana, meaning literally: “the hair on my body has become happy.”

— The Guardian‘s review of The Spirit of Indian Painting by BN Goswamy

June 17

A purple thistle
that has no sting,
a fossil snail
that’s still crawling.

An upside-down
drop of rain,
a talking fish,
a frog soprano.

A wave in a cave
the size of your thumb,
an agate marble
as big as the sun.

Keep them in
a treasure box
made of live oak trees
with a blue-sky lid.

And live oaks twisting
and blue sky shining
and yellow hills uncurling
as you rush forward.

— Naomi Replansky, “Presents for Ian”

June 18

A Russian man on NPR
yesterday spoke almost perfect

English, though his full
sounded like fool

twice, once in fulfilled
and once by itself. I thought

of him saying to someone
You are fool of shit

and that made me happy.
I’m often easy to please.

I’m generally happy
to be alive. Fool of life.

Five-fingered thief, those three
words come to me for no

particular reason, as if
they rhymed with

Fool of life. As a child I imagined
finding a green bottle on the beach

with a message in it
from someone alone on an island and then I’d

tell everyone and he’d be saved.
It was always a man

and always a green bottle.

— John Levy, “Happiness”

June 19

I

It’s seven in the morning
and I swing between two desires:
go back to bed for half an hour
or sit here with this sun
that smells of summer

II 

Right now, that plane
will be high above the clouds
but up there the sun has no smell
even though it’s so much nearer

III

I went into the bedroom:
where time has stopped,
the same warm, seductive darkness
of half an hour ago

IV

I made myself breakfast
the old-fashioned way: jams
and butter etc
and all the rest

like a bright additional
detail on an embroidered cloth,
freshly washed ashtray, freshly washed sun
and summer pouring in through the window

V

It’s seven in the morning
give or take
and my pendulum desire
has swung towards the sun

— Ana Luisa Amaral, “Minor Epic (in Five Movements),” translated by Margaret Jull Costa

June 20

The only way to give finality to the world is to give it consciousness. For where there is no consciousness there is no finality, finality presupposing a purpose. And, as we shall see, faith in God is based simply upon the vital need of giving finality to existence, of making it answer to a purpose. We need God, not in order to understand the why, but in order to feel and sustain the ultimate wherefore, to give a meaning to the Universe.

— Miguel de Unamuno, The Tragic Sense of Life, translated by J.E. Crawford Flitch

June 21

But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things. Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.

— 2 Nephi 2: 24-25, from the Book of Mormon, translated by Joseph Smith, Jr.

June 22

Everyday
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for —
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world —
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant —
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these —
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

— Mary Oliver, “Mindful”

June 23

The opposite of play is not work — the opposite of play is depressions. Respecting our biologically programmed need for play can transform work. It can bring back excitement and newness to our job. Play helps us deal with difficulties, provides a sense of expansiveness, promotes mastery of our craft, and is an essential part of the creative process. Most important, true play that comes from our own inner needs and desires is the only path to finding lasting joy and satisfaction in our work. In the long run, work does not work without play.

— Stuart Brown, Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul

June 24

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Sonnets from the Portuguese 43”

June 25

Rare are the leaders and reformers who succeed for long by ignoring, twisting, or suppressing the proven lessons of the past. The most successful understood their place in time and invoked the past against both its worst self and the contemporary world they would change …

For a modern age faced with a family crisis, there is good news from the recovered history of the family: this smallest and seemingly most fragile of institutions is proving itself to be humankind’s bedrock as well as its fault line. Its strength lies in the cohesion and loyalty of the parent-child unit around which the larger worlds of household and kin, community and nation, and the global village necessarily revolve. Among these various social worlds, only the family creates itself virtually from nothing and gives life and stability to the others. The family is the great survivor amid the changing ages and cultures that envelop, shape, and test it for a while, only to run their course and pass away. Far from obstructing the modern family’s future, the family of the past is an eternal spring from which present generations may draw their truest knowledge of self and the courage to soldier on.

— Steven Ozment, Ancestors: The Loving Family in Old Europe

June 26

Everything Good between Men and Women

has been written in mud and butter
and barbecue sauce. The walls and
the floors used to be gorgeous.
The socks off-white and a near match.
The quince with fire blight
but we get two pints of jelly
in the end. Long walks strengthen
the back. You with a fever blister
and myself with a sty. Eyes
have we and we are forever prey
to each other’s teeth. The torrents
go over us. Thunder has not harmed
anyone we know. The river coursing
through us is dirty and deep. The left
hand protects the rhythm. Watch
your head. No fires should be
unattended. Especially when wind. Each
receives a free swiss army knife.
The first few tongues are clearly
preparatory. The impression
made by yours I carry to my grave. It is
just so sad so creepy so beautiful.
Bless it. We have so little time
to learn, so much… The river
courses dirty and deep. Cover the lettuce.
Call it a night. O soul. Flow on. Instead.

— C.D. Wright, “Everything Good Between Men and Women,” from Steal Away: New and Selected Poems

June 27

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as one loves certain obscure things,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries
the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,
and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose
from the earth lives dimly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you directly without problems or pride:
I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,
except in this form in which I am not nor are you,
so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,
so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

— Pablo Neruda, “One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII,” translated by Mark Eisner

June 28

And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?

Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.

The neighbours therefore, and they which before had seen him that he was blind, said, Is not this he that sat and begged? Some said, This is he: others said, He is like him: but he said, I am he. Therefore said they unto him, How were thine eyes opened?

He answered and said, A man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash: and I went and washed, and I received sight.

Then again called they the man that was blind, and said unto him, Give God the praise: we know that this man is a sinner. He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.

Then said they to him again, What did he to thee? how opened he thine eyes? He answered them, I have told you already, and ye did not hear: wherefore would ye hear it again? will ye also be his disciples? Then they reviled him, and said, Thou art his disciple; but we are Moses’ disciples. We know that God spake unto Moses: as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is.

The man answered and said unto them, Why herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes. Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth. Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. If this man were not of God, he could do nothing. They answered and said unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out.

Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him? And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee. And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him. And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.

— John 9: 1-11, 24-39, from the King James Version of the Bible

June 29

There are so many ways of becoming blind. We are blind to small things and small people. … My great fear is that we are all suffering from amnesia. I wrote to recover the memory of the human rainbow, which is in danger of being mutilated.

— Eduardo Galeano, describing why he wrote Children of the Days

June 30

Perfectionism is a self-destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, live perfectly, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment,  and blame.

Perfectionism is self-destructive simply because there is no such thing as perfect. Perfection is an unattainable goal. Additionally, perfectionism is more about perfection – we want to be perceived as perfect. Again this is unattainable – there is no way to control perfection, regardless of how much time and energy we spend trying.

Perfectionism is addictive because when we invariably do experience shame, judgment and blame, we often believe it’s because we weren’t perfect enough. So rather than questions the faulty logic of perfectionism, we become even more entrenched in our quest to live, look and do everything just right.

Feeling shamed, judged and blame (and the fear of these feelings) are realities of the human experience. Perfectionism actually increased the odds that we’ll experience these painful emotions and often leads to self-blame: It’s my fault. I’m feeling this way because “I’m not good enough””.

To overcome perfectionism, we need to be able to acknowledge our vulnerabilities to the universal experiences of shame, judgment, and blame; develop shame resilience; and practice self-compassion.

— Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection