One ought every day at least to hear a little song, read a good poem, 

see a fine picture and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1749-1832

-o0o-

-o0o-

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body 

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the 

wild geese, harsh and exciting –

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

- Mary Oliver b.1935

-o0o-

-o0o-

A Zen Story

The wife of a man became very sick. On her deathbed, she said to him, "I love you so much! I don't want to leave you, and I don't want you to betray me. Promise that you will not take another woman after I'm gone, or I will come back to haunt you."

For several months after her death, the husband did avoid other women, but then he met someone and fell in love. On the night that they were engaged to be married, the ghost of his former wife appeared to him. She blamed him for not keeping the promise, and every night afterwards she returned to taunt him. The ghost would remind him of everything that had happened between him and his fiancee that day, even to the point of repeating, word for word, their conversations. It upset him so badly that he couldn't sleep at all.

Desperate, he sought the advice of a Zen master who lived in the village. "This is a very clever ghost," the master said upon hearing the man's story. "It is!" replied the man. "She remembers every detail of what I say and do. She knows everything!" The master then told him what he should do the next time the ghost appeared.

That night the ghost returned. The man responded just as the master had advised. "You are such a wise ghost," the man said, "You know that I can hide nothing from you. If you can answer me one question, I will break off the engagement and remain single for the rest of my life." "Ask your question," the ghost replied. The man scooped up a handful of beans from a large bag on the floor, "Tell me exactly how many beans I have in my hand."

At that moment the ghost disappeared and never returned.

-o0o-

-o0o-

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say.

- J.R.R. Tolkien 1892-1973

-o0o-

"Elegy for the victims of the earthquake and tsunami" 

composed and played by Nobuyuki Tsujii, the Japanese pianist who has been blind from birth.

-o0o-

TAKING THE ONE LESS TRAVELLED BY
 updated every Saturday, Tuesday and Thursday

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-