(c) Joseph Holmes 

Landmannalaugar, Icland

(c) Jennifer Jesse

Somewhere
a black bear
has just risen from sleep
and is staring
 
down the mountain.
All night
in the brisk and shallow restlessness
of early spring
 
I think of her,
her four black fists
flicking the gravel,
her tongue
 
like a red fire
touching the grass,
the cold water.
There is only one question:
 
how to love this world.
I think of her
rising
like a black and leafy ledge
 
to sharpen her claws against
the silence
of the trees.
Whatever else
 
my life is
with its poems
and its music
and its glass cities,
 
it is also this dazzling darkness
coming
down the mountain,
breathing and tasting;
 
all day I think of her -—
her white teeth,
her wordlessness,
her perfect love.

-Mary Oliver, Spring

{photo by Chris Gray }

(c)Madalina Cristina Lupascu

(c)marconi

“jewels”

(c)Mikhail Mendelevitch

Skylark
sings all day,
and day not long enough.

-Matsuo Basho

{photo by Mariann Rea}

(c) Uros Florjancic

(c)Uros Florjancic

“White Bride”

(c) Janez Tolar

(c) Phil Turner

“The labyrinth, like the spiral, contains a sacred center or still point to be reached by traveling a winding but guiding pathway. Like life’s journey, there are twists and turns, but the pathway leads always to the center. In the ancient tradition of sacred art, the entwined branches and serpents are meant to entice the eye and help induce a meditative state. Combined with the tree, a powerful archetype for life and ascension, this image a tool for finding your own path of grace and sacred center.”

Labyrinth Tree by EtherealArt