If you ever lose heart and the earth seems as distant as stars fading into the noise of your busy mind, know this. That a tiny island exists in the blue hands of the ocean. That a tree grows upright into the salted clouds. That two eagles love each other enough to spend their lives greeting the morning sun together. That two eaglets stand in their nest, gazing at the heavens. Looking down to the forever ground. They eat and sleep and flap their wings. And one day in July, one by one, they will jump into the air. They will know the difference between existing and what is beyond. They will hold onto nothing. The hurricane will come, courage catching their pinions on fire, as they mount the wind, climbing ladders into realms of the invisible.


--T.L. Stokes






Thursday, February 17, 2011

More Movies

The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill.

My latest pix. Oh so delightfully done.
Original, true, real.

Even kept watching to the very end
of the credits...it's that good.

T.

eagles and earthquakes

It is the time of the eagles mating,
the season passing into us here in front
of our blue windows, we go out the door
into the moving breath and white lace
of the earth's thinking.

I stand with the dogs in the slow presence
of trees hardly moving, patient in winter,
uncomplaining. Their thick toes curving
new thoughts.

The earth keeps stretching her arms
and the shiver along her hem of sleeping
muscles appears as quakes in other countries.
Some here too. Do you feel the movement?
The people are restless and find a unified
voice more powerful than fear. So they
come together and grow their energy so large,
fierce, it overthrows governments. Then
the voice, like a gunshot rises.
We hear it here. The earth
is changing.

Lately I read books who remind me
like friends of spirit's original purpose,
my own deep history, my first voice, and work
to uncover it. In the darkness behind
these eyes I reach with both hands and
feel the earth's soul inside of me. I remember
the dreams of truth I was born with. It is easy
to love then, like the eagles off the island
of Vancouver. On the jagged small island
of tall trees. I watch the snow come down.

In this place I know I know nothing.
Embraced in this moment it is everything
and I do not have to hold onto the ground
so hard--this is what it feels to be weightless.
I am a part of you. The air, great rivers
moving or still. The soft voices of hope
filling the fields with their loud
and abundant silence.

New Film - The Last Lions

from the Nature Conservancy:

The Last Lions

The latest film from National Geographic, tells the powerful—and true—story of a lone, outcast lioness who must overcome extraordinary danger to protect her three cubs. The Last Lions releases in theaters February 18. Click the photo at right to view the UTube preview.