“Three-fourths of philosophy and literature is the talk of people trying to convince themselves that they really like the cage they were tricked into entering.”

—Gary Snyder

apoetreflects:

(via journalofanobody)

"Dōgen is not concerned with ‘sacred mountains’—or pilgrimages, or spirit allies, or wilderness as some special quality. His mountains and streams are the processes of this earth, all of existence, process, essence, action, absence; they roll being and nonbeing together. They are what we are, we are what they are. For those who would see directly into essential nature, the idea of the sacred is a delusion and an obstruction: it diverts us from seeing what is before our eyes: plain thusness. …

This, thusness, is the nature of the nature of nature. The wild in the wild."

Gary Snyder, The Practice of the Wild (via proustitute)

Milton by Firelight →

pushcomestolove:

“O hell, what do mine eyes         
        with grief behold?”
Working with an old
Singlejack miner, who can sense
The vein and cleavage
In the very guts of rock, can
Blast granite, build
Switchbacks that last for years
Under the beat of snow, thaw, mule-hooves.   
What use, Milton, a silly story
Of our lost general parents,         
eaters of fruit?

The Indian, the chainsaw boy,
And a string of six mules
Came riding down to camp
Hungry for tomatoes and green apples.   
Sleeping in saddle-blankets
Under a bright night-sky
Han River slantwise by morning.   
Jays squall
Coffee boils

In ten thousand years the Sierras
Will be dry and dead, home of the scorpion.   
Ice-scratched slabs and bent trees.
No paradise, no fall,
Only the weathering land
The wheeling sky,
Man, with his Satan
Scouring the chaos of the mind.
Oh Hell!

Fire down
Too dark to read, miles from a road   
The bell-mare clangs in the meadow   
That packed dirt for a fill-in   
Scrambling through loose rocks   
On an old trail
All of a summer’s day.

   -Gary Snyder,Piute Creek, August 1955

(Source: poetryfoundation.org)

crashinglybeautiful:

Photo of Gary Snyder by Allen Ginsberg

Click through to read: Just One Breath

Excerpt:

“In This World of onrushing events, the act of meditation—even just a “one-breath” meditation—straightening the back, clearing the mind for a moment—is a refreshing island in the stream. Although the term meditation has mystical and religious connotations for many people, it is a simple and plain activity.”

Thank you for the gentle reminder:  onmyowntwohands & constantflux.

(via buffleheadcabin)