Poem: Mary Oliver, Work, Leaf in the Clouds

I will sing for the veil that never lifts.

I will sing for the veil that begins, once in a lifetime,
maybe, to lift.
I will sing for the rent in the veil.
I will sing for what is in front of the veil, the
floating light.
I will sing for what is behind the veil –
light, light and more light.
This is the world, and this is the work of the world.

Photo: On a Perch

 

Prayer: Wendell Berry, from The Loved Ones, 2025

The loved ones we call the dead

depart from us and for a while
are absent. And then as if
called back by our love, they come
near us again. They enter our dreams...

Photo: November Sky

 

Spirituality: John O'Donohue, "For Death" in To Bless The Space Between Us

 ...when destiny draws you

into these spaces of poverty,
and your heart stays generous
until some door opens into the light,
you are quietly befriending your death;
so that you will have no need to fear
when your time comes to turn and leave,
that the silent presence of your death
would call your life to attention...
to the urgency to become free
and equal to the call of your destiny.

Spirituality: Linus, Charlie Brown

 “Tonight the Great Pumpkin will rise out of the pumpkin patch. He flies through the air and brings toys to all the children of the world.” — Linus, “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”

Photo: Happy Halloween

 

Spirituality: Halloween Quotes

 

• “All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.” — Edgar Allan Poe, “A Dream Within a Dream”
• “Evil has only the power that we give it.” — Ray Bradbury, “Something Wicked This Way Comes”
• “By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes.” — William Shakespeare, “Macbeth”
• “Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble.” — William Shakespeare, “Macbeth”
• “I knew nothing but shadows and I thought them to be real.” -Oscar Wilde, “The Picture of Dorian Gray”
• “Life itself is but the shadow of death, and souls departed but the shadows of the living.” — Thomas Browne, “Garden of Cyrus”
• “I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.” — Henry David Thoreau

Photo: Rockport's Harbor

 

Poem: “A Maple Leaf” by Margaret E. Sangster

So bright in death I used to say,

So beautiful through frost and cold!

A lovelier thing I know to-day,

The leaf is growing old,

And wears in grace of duty done,

                                                    The gold and scarlet of the sun.