Today’s blog is a poem from Dorland, CA and a couple of quotes from:
The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and The Art of Living by Ryan Holiday & Stephen Hanselman. The “quotes” from Marcus Aurelius, who was an early Roman emperor and a Stoic, return as old friends I first met in a throwaway book at a retreat at Dorland Mountain Arts Colony in Temecula, California. First the poem:
Dorland at Night
It is all I can do on those
cold coming-up-on-full moon nights
in the mountains to get myself
in my cabin. Jack rabbits come
to play in new mown yellow bands.
California quail stand nervous
head plumes following their eyes.
Whispers of baby chirps and sounds
I could sleep to, or perhaps die.
Pink in the West fades pale as sin
leaving the wind to moan all night
on its own. I’m ready to throw
myself into this desert of
mountains, flowering mesquite. I could
become moon and moon and me gone
into the whispering shadows.
<h3> <a href="https://amzn.to/3RJvLyP" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Jo Ann Lordahl, Collected Poems</a>, p 48 </h3>
Quotes from, The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and The Art of Living, from Ryan Holiday & Stephen Hanselman.
The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. p 9
This morning, remind yourself of what is in your control and what’s not in your control. Remind yourself to focus on the former and not the latter. p 20 Jo Ann Lordahl, 9-29-23
