Continuing my train of thought from yesterday, I just thought I would share a couple of my favorite occasions from favorite books of mine, examples of being totally present in mind and body to the very moment...moments of integration and oneness:
"Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb mountains in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you're no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn't just a means to an end but a unique event in itself. This leaf has jagged edges. This rock looks loose. From this place the snow is less visible, even though closer. These are things you should notice anyway. To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top...." ~Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Pirsig may be talking about mountains, but he's talking about so much more too.... It should not be much of a stretch to see how the above can apply to all we do in our lives....
"Of course, now I am too old to be much of a fisherman, and now of course I usually fish the big waters alone, although some friends think I shouldn't. Like fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.
Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
I am haunted by waters."
~Norman Maclean, the closing paragraphs of A River Runs Through It, bold emphasis mine.
"Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb mountains in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you're no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn't just a means to an end but a unique event in itself. This leaf has jagged edges. This rock looks loose. From this place the snow is less visible, even though closer. These are things you should notice anyway. To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top...." ~Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Pirsig may be talking about mountains, but he's talking about so much more too.... It should not be much of a stretch to see how the above can apply to all we do in our lives....
"Of course, now I am too old to be much of a fisherman, and now of course I usually fish the big waters alone, although some friends think I shouldn't. Like fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.
Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
I am haunted by waters."
~Norman Maclean, the closing paragraphs of A River Runs Through It, bold emphasis mine.
9 comments:
Very, very nice. Thanks for sharing these quotes. It is good to feel inspired. BTW, I love your blog.
With Metta,
Molly
In some ways, Pirsig and MacLean couldn't be more different—in their thinking, lives, and writing, not to mention their ages when each wrote their respective quotes. A brilliant but seriously flawed father sharing a long road trip with a doomed son; and an old professor, successful, beloved, in the twilight of his life, reflecting on a lost brother and the river and fish and life and land which shaped and consumed them.
Poetic and metaphysically practical, and oddly unified in certain aspects. Favorite books of mine, too. But I'd have never thought of juxtaposing them so.
Molly,
Thank you so much.
With Metta indeed. :)
Grizzled,
Well then, I am glad I juxtaposed the quotations. I got the connection--actually more "felt" it, I guess--immediately upon reading the books.
I, in turn, had not considered what you point out about the differences between Pirsig and Maclean.
I am glad we make each other think.
Good quotes here. I have read both, but it has been so long I hardly remember.
I made an effort at having a mindful moment tonight. I went running right around sunset, when the light was this wonderful blue and pink and mauve and light orange. It was beautiful on the snow and in the spruces and pines, but somehow the noise of my shoes on the snow distracted me. I stopped to listen for a moment, and my breath distracted me. Maybe dying is losing the noise of the breath, and becoming one with the silence. Which would not be a bad thing.
Deb, I'm glad you made the effort. :)
I'll have to ponder what you say about dying. Thanks.
Excellent quotes, and especially meaningful to me at the moment!
Thank you, Montucky. I am really glad you stopped by.
"A River Runs Through It" has been an important book for me and I've read it out loud several times, most recently to my daughter.
I'm haunted by the last line, haunted by waters.
Thank you!
Barry,
You;re welcome, and thank you!
Yes, I find that whole ending so haunting, so beautiful.
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