Instructions

Toronto 8 (2013. 10.27), a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


      Instructions for living a life:
     Pay attention.
     Be astonished.
     Tell about it.

        Mary Oliver

The Miracle

Bramalea, Ontario, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     The miracle is that we are here,
     that no matter how undone we've been the night before,
     we wake up every morning and are still here.  
     It is phenomenal just to be.

        Anne Lamott, Stitches 

Who Am I?

RIC_0475-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

Now that I am free to be myself, who am I? 

Mary Oliver, Blue Iris

To live

Community 2, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the times comes to let it go,
to let it go.

Mary Oliver, In Blackwater Woods

When Death Comes

RCC_9838, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

... and I look upon time as no more than an idea,

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common

as a field daisy, and as a singular ...

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

Mary Oliver, When Death Comes

Remembering Rhea Hildegarde Whitehead (January 22, 1936 - June 14, 2011) on a day of her funeral.

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Look and See

DSC_6179
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Oh Lord, how shining and festive is your gift to us, if we
only look, and see.

Mary Oliver, Look and See

Saving the world

RCC_0736
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Before we move from recklessness to responsibility, from selfishness to a decent happiness, we must want to save our world. And in order to save our world we must learn to love it – and in order to love it we must become familiar with it again. That is where my work begins, and why I keep walking, and looking.

Mary Oliver

Life?

RCC_1077
Originally uploaded by rchoephoto

Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?

Mary Oliver, Have you Ever Tried to End the Long Branches