It is raining lightly and the sheep are standing still in the wet field, stopped by beads of water from the sky on their ears, their eyes, their mouths. They look like statues breaking their trance. Alive for the first time, they wonder, what is this magical place where the very air kisses you everywhere. Falling in love with the world is like this. Read more
March 15, 2010
Lesson Plan
March 15, 2010 By Mark Nepo
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The lost bird remembers how to sing as it splashes in a puddle and forgets how to fly. This was the teacher’s answer to his student’s complaints about living on earth. Read more
March 8, 2010
Human Migration
They say we began before we could speak, that whether running from some woolly mammoth or squinting to see into the sun, we stood erect and began to search. They say this was a million years ago. Some- where in Africa, as the long wind with a thousand scents swept through the high grass. What they don’t say is that it’s all been one nameless soul using many lives in one endless search. It’s been forty thou- sand generations, skin… Read more
March 1, 2010
Life Around the Fire
March 1, 2010 By Mark Nepo
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My neighbor and I wave to each other through the trees; though we don’t even know each other’s name. After a snowstorm, we worm our way out. I admit it’s comforting to see another in the open, leaning on his shovel, his breath clouding as he looks again to the sky. There’s something primal in knowing that we each have a fire we huddle around. I love clearing the path to our door and leaving the light on. Of course,… Read more
February 24, 2010
The Sublime Disturbance
February 24, 2010 By Mark Nepo
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As the wind makes a different song through the same tree as its branches break, God makes finer and finer music through the wearing down of our will. Read more
February 16, 2010
Being Here
February 16, 2010 By Mark Nepo
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Transcending down into the ground of things is akin to sweeping the leaves that cover a path. There will always be more leaves. And the heart of the journey, the heart of our own awakening, is to discover for ourselves that the leaves are not the ground, and that sweeping them aside will reveal a path, and finally, that to fully live, we must take the path and continually sweep it. Read more
February 8, 2010
Coming Out
February 8, 2010 By Mark Nepo
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While there is much to do we are not here to do. Under the want to problem-solve is the need to being-solve. Often, with full being the problem goes away. The seed being-solves its darkness by blossoming. The heart being-solves its loneliness by loving what it meets. The tea being-solves the water by becoming tea. Read more
February 1, 2010
Small Light and Timeless Light
February 1, 2010 By Mark Nepo
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Everything is lighted. In the beginning, this is clear. In nature, we tip our face to the sun and our small light is renewed by the timeless light. Often, as we enter the realm of others, our small light serves as a lantern softening and illuminating everyone we look at; especially the dark ones who are blocked from their own light. Of course, we take turns being blocked and dark or open and lighted. This is the power of kindness,… Read more
January 25, 2010
I Shout Their Names
I’m at an age where those I’ve known for years are dying. Some go quick, like snow on a warm day. Some more slowly; as if every week is a tide that takes them farther and farther away. To lose someone you know is to be seized by an invisible hand that pulls a clump of earth from your heart. Only after months is it possible to realize—there is more room to feel. Now I see your faces in the… Read more
January 15, 2010
Outlasting the Storm
January 15, 2010 By Mark Nepo
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The island of self I return to is washed of all edges, completely smooth, as if all the loss and struggle never happened. When a stranger asks how I came to be here, I have no way to light the stories of being saved from myself into a fire that can warm us. No way to paint the joy of being here across the sky. I only know that no island is separate below. Only an island in what it… Read more
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