menu Language Is A Virus

(From) May Sarton's Well

... if one looks long enough at almost anything, looks with absolute attention at a flower, a stone, the bark of a tree, grass, snow, a cloud, something like revelation takes place. Something is "given," and perhaps that something is always a reality outside the self. We are aware of God only when we cease to be aware of ourselves, not in the negative sense of denying the self, but in the sense of losing self in admiration and joy.

Whatever peace I know rests in the natural world, in feeling myself a part of it, even in a small way.

For us who have no religion in the old-fashioned sense, who can say no prayers to a listening God, nature itself — nature and human love — polarize, and we pray by being fully aware of them both.

One thing is certain, and I have always known it — the joys of my life have nothing to do with age. They do not change. Flowers, the morning and evening light, music, poetry, silence, the goldfinches darting about. . .(pp. 43-46)