I lounge on the grass.  That’s all.  So simple.  Then I lie back until I am inside the cloud that is just above me but very high, and shaped like a fish.  Then I enter the place of not-thinking, not-remembering, not-wanting.  When the blue jay cries out his riddle, in his carping voice, I return.  But I go back, the threshold is always near.  Over and back, over and back.  Then I rise.  Maybe I rub my face as though I have been asleep.  But I have not been asleep.  I have been, as I say, inside the cloud, or, perhaps, the lily floating on the water.  Then I go back to town, to my own house, my own life, which has now become brighter and simpler, somewhere I have never been before.

Source of opening reading unknown — Chosen and read by Amy W.

I didn’t lounge on the still-soaked grass, but I did make my way to a bench in the gardens.  As I lay there, I looked up into the bluest blue clouded sky, and opened.  At first my gaze took in the whole sky and the pattern of the clouds moving like a slow wave.  Then I focused on the tall glass sculpture of dandelion and how clouds became its fluffy blown seeds.  Each moment, the clouds changed; as I moved my head a fraction, the image above me changed.  I lay still and watched, and watched, mesmerized by the constant of change.  The final image given me before I left the bench was that of a child emanating light.  I smiled.  Though this image, too, will shift, I took note of the invitation here, right now.

— Photos and reflection by Amy W.

The morning was sultry and still. My attention was drawn to both the macro and micro today … all the wonder filled bounties of the Earth.

Tall pines reaching for the cloud filled sky.

Sunlight radiating through fern and leaf,

The positive energy of the heart shaped leaves.

The magnificent magnolia bloom.

The threshold is always near.

— Photos and reflection by Nancy L.