you look at the tree and you allow it

“When you go out into the woods, and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree.

The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying ‘You are too this, or I’m too this.’ That judgment mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.”

Ram Dass

the floorboards

Sometimes love feels like the momentous, impassioned act itself, and sometimes love is the floorboards and the nails that make up the stage for which life happens on. The latter has always scared me— it’s so forgettable, the stage… the stage that’s there when the actors take their bow, the stage that’s there when the curtains close, when all go home. When all are already home.