After another incredible few days in NYC recently where I met with friends and cousins and took in some wonderful museum shows that left my aesthetic antennae all aquiver, I left the house a few days ago en route to an Alexander lesson and was struck by how the early sunlight on the houses made them look like a Hopper painting, how interesting the texture in the concrete of the sidewalk was, how alive the air.
On On Being, this morning, Krista Tippett reran an interview she did several years ago with Irish poet and philosopher John O'Donohue, who died in his sleep at the age of 52. I posted the wonderful blessing he quoted in a previous post and thought I'd add a snippet from today's broadcast that resonated with me. Here's the quotation from Mr. O'Donohue:
"I think it makes a huge difference when you wake in the morning and come out of your house. Whether you believe you are walking into dead geographical location, which is used to get to a destination, or whether you are emerging out into a landscape that is just as much, if not more, alive as you but in a totally different form. And if you go towards it with an open heart and a real watchful reverence, that you will be absolutely amazed at what it will reveal to you. And I think that was one of the recognitions of the Celtic imagination: that landscape wasn't just matter, but that it was actually alive. What amazes me about landscape, landscape recalls you into a mindful mode of stillness, solitude, and silence where you can truly receive time."
Today's picture is of the Cloisters that I took on Jan. 20th 2012 on a journey to my old stomping grounds after almost a quarter of a century.
