this spirit of now....

This time of year...this year...feels like it's more about settling in. The Christmas spirit....the season of giving...I would have to say that that "spirit" is something that has become part of my nature every day of my life. I believe it's about living from my heart; going deeper and deeper still. It's that groundless place from which all things are possible in every moment and a lifetime in every moment.

Acres bear corn and cost money.
Meadows are surrounded by barbed wire,
Terrible need and avarice laid side by side,
Everything looks wasted and closed in.

But here in my eye another order of things
Goes on living; violet ebbs away
And the purple flows on its throne, and I sing
My innocent song.

Yellow by yellow, and yellow next to red.
Cool blue turns to the color of rose.
Light and color leap from the world to world.
Arch and echo away in a surging of love.
 

The spirit reigns, healing all sickness,
Green sings out from newborn springs,
The world will share in freshness and meaning,
And hearts grow glad and light.

~Herman Hesse (Wandering, 1920)

(a special thanks to Ms. Papic for finding this early work of Hesses's)