Divine Nature

Join the Pack

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony F. Chiffolo) — Thu, 10 Sep 2015 12:06:00 +0000

See America

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony F. Chiffolo) — Thu, 10 Sep 2015 11:58:00 +0000

"Turn again to life"

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony F. Chiffolo) — Wed, 08 May 2013 14:49:00 +0000

"Turn again to life"

by Mary Lee Hall

If I should die and leave you here a while,
be not like others sore undone,
who keep long vigil by the silent dust.
For my sake turn again to life and smile,
nerving thy heart and trembling hand
to do something to comfort other hearts than thine.
Complete these dear unfinished tasks of mine
and I perchance may therein comfort you.

"Part of the One Life"

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony F. Chiffolo) — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 04:52:00 +0000

"You are not separate from nature. We are all part of the One Life that manifests itself in countless forms throughout the universe, forms that are all completely interconnected. When you recognize the sacredness, the beauty, the incredible stillness and dignity in which a flower or a tree exists, you add something to the flower or the tree. Through your recognition, your awareness, nature too comes to know itself. It comes to know its own beauty and sacredness through you."

--Eckhart Tolle

Photos by Anthony F. Chiffolo

"You need nature as your teacher"

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony F. Chiffolo) — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 04:46:00 +0000

"You need nature as your teacher to help you reconnect with Being. But not only do you need nature, it also needs you."

--Eckhart Tolle

Photos by Anthony F. Chiffolo

"The whole world belongs to you"

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony F. Chiffolo) — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 04:37:00 +0000

"Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you."

--Lao Tzu

Photos copyright Anthony F. Chiffolo

"Lady butterfly"

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony F. Chiffolo) — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 13:07:00 +0000

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.

--Maya Angelou

“Just living is not enough,” said the butterfly, “one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower.”

--Hans Christian Anderson

Lady butterfly

perfumes her wings

by floating

over the orchid.

--Basho

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.

--Richard Bach

Real Cost of Bottled Water

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony F. Chiffolo) — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 15:13:00 +0000

Bottled Water: wholesale price/gallon in 2011: $1.21 (http://www.bottledwater.org/economics/real-cost-of-bottled-water )

Poland Springs home delivery: $1.93/gallon (http://www.polandspring.com/#/home ).
Crystal Springs home delivery: $1.20/gallon (http://www.water.com/shopping/budget-plan-select-quantity.jsf ).

"I decided to do a little math to see exactly how much the cost of bottled water purchased on the street compares to what comes out of the tap in New York City. By my calculations, filling a 16.9-ounce bottle with genuine NYC tap water costs about 1.3 tenths of a cent, compared to $1 to buy bottled water (95 cents if you return the bottle for the deposit, which, based on the number of bottles I see in the city's trash bins, not many people do.) If you were to refill a 16.9-ounce bottle with city tap water every day for a year, you'd pay 48 cents. Let me repeat that: That's 48 cents for the entire year! (Okay, it might be a little higher if you run the water until it gets cold.) In comparison, buy a $1 bottle of water every day, and you'd pay $346, sans the deposit. That's more than 700 times the cost of tap...."
--Anthony Giorgianni, July 12, 2011, http://news.consumerreports.org/money/2011/07/a-dollar-for-a-bottle-of-water-what-would-martians-think.html

Photos by Anthony F. Chiffolo

Comparative Prices

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony F. Chiffolo) — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 14:32:00 +0000

U.S. Gasoline Prices (http://gasbuddy.com/GB_Price_List.aspx ):
--Low: $3.579/gallon--Mississippi and South Carolina
--High: $4.325/gallon--Hawai'i

U.S. Milk Prices (http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost ):
$3.428/gallon U.S. average in July 2012

Photos by Anthony F. Chiffolo

There Is No "Easy" Button

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony F. Chiffolo) — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 14:03:00 +0000

"The hard facts are these: If we sum up the easy, cost-effective, eco-efficiency measures we should all embrace, the best we get is a slowing of the growth of environmental damage ... Obsessing over recycling and installing a few special light bulbs won't cut it. We need to be looking at fundamental change in our energy, transportation and agricultural systems rather than technological tweaking on the margins, and this means changes and costs that our current and would-be leaders seem afraid to discuss. Which is a pity, since Americans are at their best when they're struggling together, and sometimes with one another, toward difficult goals ... Surely we must do the easy things: They slow the damage and themselves become enabling symbols of empathy for future generations. But we cannot permit our leaders to sell us short. To stop at 'easy' is to say that the best we can do is accept an uninspired politics of guilt around a parade of uncoordinated individual action."

--Michael Maniates, Professor of Political Science and Environmental Science, Allegheny College

Photos by Anthony F. Chiffolo

"It's Not Easy Being Green"

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony F. Chiffolo) — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 13:50:00 +0000

"For starters, let's remember what we're trying to do: We're trying to change the climate system--to avoid the unmanageable and manage the unavoidable! We are trying to affect how much the rain falls, how strong the winds blow, how fast the ice melts. In addition to all that, we're trying to preserve and restore the world's rapidly depleting ecosystems--our forests, rivers, savannahs, oceans, and the cornucopia of plant and animal species they contain. Finally, we are trying to break a collective addiction to gasoline that is having not only profound climate effects, but also geopolitical ones. It doesn't get any bigger than this. This is not something you do as a hobby, and the adjective 'easy' should never--ever, ever--acompany this task.

"The truth is: Not only are there not 205 easy ways to really go green, there isn't one easy way to really go green! If we can pull this off, it will be the biggest single peacetime project humankind will have ever undertaken. Rare is the political leader anywhere in the world who will talk straight about the true size of this challenge."

--Thomas L. Friedman, Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America

Photos by Anthony F. Chiffolo

Biodiversity

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony F. Chiffolo) — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 13:36:00 +0000

"Indonesia is the second-richest country in the world in terms of terrestrial biodiversity, after Brazil, and first in terms of marine biodiversity. Though covering only 1.3 percent of the earth's land surface, Indonesia's forests represent 10 percent of all the world's tropical forest cover and are home to 20 percent of all the world's species of flora and fauna, 17 percent of the world's bird species, and more than 25 percent of the world's fish species. Just ten hectares in the Indonesian island of Borneo contains more different tree species than are found in all of North America--not to mention a raft of plants, insects, and animals that don't exist anywhere else on earth. In fact, little Borneo, with less than 1 percent of the earth's land surface, reportedly holds 6 percent of the world's total bird species, mammal species, and flowering plant species. The whole Caribbean has only about one-tenth the marine biodiversity of Indonesia, which sits at the confluence of the Indian Ocean, the South China Sea, and the Pacific Ocean, and is nourished by all three."

--Thomas L. Friedman, Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America

Photos by Anthony F. Chiffolo

More Peonies

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony F. Chiffolo) — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 15:18:00 +0000

I'll make it

my bed in the next world

this peony

--Issa

Visit to the Hermit Chui

Moss covered paths between scarlet peonies,

Pale jade mountains fill your rustic windows.

I envy you, drunk with flowers;

Butterflies swirling in your dreams.

– Qian Qi (Tang Dynasty)

One poem

per blossom is not enough

for a peony

--Ryumin

"It's this big!"

Tiny stretching arms

Form her peony.

--Issa (trans. Joy Norton)

Peonies bloom

and the world is full

of liars.

--Kyoroku/Kyoriku

Peonies at Jixing Temple

Springtime radiance, gradually, gradually where does it go?

Again before a wine jar, we take up a goblet.

All day we’ve questioned the flowers, but the flowers do not speak.

For whom do they shed their petals and leaves, for whom do they bloom?

–Emperor Yang (Sui Dynasty)

Bow low

if you really want to see

the peony

--Taigi

Drinking with Friends Amongst the Blooming Peonies

We had a drinking party to admire the peonies.

I drank cup after cup till I was drunk.

Then to my shame I heard the flowers whisper,

“What are we doing, blooming for these old alcoholics?”

–Ling Huchu (Tang Dynasty)

Matching Premier Linghu’s “Taking Leave of the Peonies”

In my official mansion, a balustrade of flowers.

But when it’s time for them to bloom, I’m always away from home!

Do not say the Twin Capitals are not far distant parted.

The springtime brilliance beyond my gate is the very abyss of Heaven.

–Liu Yushi (Tang Dynasty)

Peonies blooming,

the last cherries might as well

not exist

--Kiichi

All Moments Are Key Moments

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony F. Chiffolo) — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 20:38:00 +0000

“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments and life itself is grace.”

--Frederick Buechner

Photos by Anthony F. Chiffolo

God in Me Can See

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony F. Chiffolo) — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 20:32:00 +0000

Once I can recognize the divine image where I don’t want to see the divine image, then I have learned how to see. It’s really that simple. And here’s the rub: I’m not the one that is doing the seeing. It’s like there is another pair of eyes inside of me seeing through me, seeing with me, seeing in me. God can see God everywhere, and God in me can see God everywhere.

--Richard Rohr

Photos by Anthony F. Chiffolo

Find Life in Your Heart

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony F. Chiffolo) — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 20:27:00 +0000

"You’ve got to get out of your head and into your heart. Right now your thoughts are in your head, and God seems to be outside you. Your prayer and all your spiritual exercises also remain exterior. As long as you are in your head, you will never master your thoughts, which continue to whirl around your head like snow in a winter’s storm or like mosquitoes in the summer’s heat.

"If you descend into your heart, you will have no more difficulty. Your mind will empty out and your thoughts will dissipate. Thoughts are always in your mind chasing one another about, and you will never manage to get them under control. But if you enter into your heart and can remain there, then every time your thoughts invade, you will only have to descend into your heart and your thoughts will vanish into thin air. This will be your safe haven. Don’t be lazy! Descend! You will find life in your heart. There you must live."

---St. Theophan the Recluse

Photos by Anthony F. Chiffolo

Having New Eyes

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony F. Chiffolo) — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 20:20:00 +0000

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

--Marcel Proust

Photos by Anthony F. Chiffolo

Know How to See

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony F. Chiffolo) — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 20:15:00 +0000

"By virtue of the Creation and, still more, of the Incarnation, nothing here below is profane for those who know how to see."

--Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Photos by Anthony F. Chiffolo

Days of Our Lives

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony F. Chiffolo) — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 20:09:00 +0000

“How we spend our days, is of course, how we spend our lives.”

--Annie Dillard

Photos by Anthony F. Chiffolo

Reintegration

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony F. Chiffolo) — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 20:01:00 +0000

The worst thing that can happen to a person who is already divided up into a dozen different compartments is to seal off yet another compartment and tell him that this one is more important than all others, and that he must henceforth exercise a special care in keeping it separate from them. . . The first thing you have to do, before you start thinking about such a thing as contemplation, is to try to recover your basic natural unity, to reintegrate your compartmentalized being into a coordinated and simple whole, and learn to live as a unified human person. This means that you have to bring back together the fragments of your distracted existence so that when you say "I" there is really someone present to support the pronoun you have uttered.

--Thomas Merton, The Inner Experience

Photos by Anthony F. Chiffolo

"Devotion Is the Source of Success"

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony F. Chiffolo) — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 23:45:00 +0000

"There is a difference between doing something with great devotion and doing something without rest. Without great devotion, you cannot become immersed in the here and now; your mind wanders off to the past and the future, and you cannot achieve what you desire."

--Ilchi Lee

"The bee emerges..."

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony F. Chiffolo) — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 23:34:00 +0000

How reluctantly

the bee emerges from deep

within the peony

--Basho

"Summer Grasses"

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony F. Chiffolo) — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 23:21:00 +0000

Summer grasses:

all that remains of great soldiers'

imperial dreams

--Basho

"On the Road"

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony F. Chiffolo) — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 23:15:00 +0000

Long conversations

beside blooming irises--

joys of life on the road

--Basho

"With flowers You write..."

noreply@blogger.com (Anthony F. Chiffolo) — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 23:01:00 +0000

With flowers You write,
O Giver of Life;
With songs You give color,
with songs You shade
those who live here on the earth.
Later You will erase eagles and tigers,
we live only in Your book of paintings,
here, on the earth.

Poem from Miguel Leon-Portilla, ed. and trans., Native Mesoamerican Spirituality: Ancient Myths, Discourses, Stories, Doctrines, Hymns, Poems from the Aztec, Yucatec, Quiche-Maya and Other Sacred Traditions (New York: Paulist Press, 1980).