Shannon's Books
Book of Water
The river is flowing, flowing and growing
The river is flowing, back to the sea
Mother Earth will carry me, her child I’ll always be Mother Earth will carry me, back to the sea ~Suzanne
Book of Everything and Nothing
“I saw the endless steppes, which, although they appeared to be nothing but desert, were, in fact, full of life, full of creatures hidden in the low scrub. I saw the flat horizon, the vast empty space, heard the sound of horses’ hooves, the quiet wind, and then, all around us, nothing, absolutely nothing. It was as if the world had chosen this place to display, at once, its vastness, its simplicity, and its complexity. It was as if we could—and should—become like the steppes—empty, infinite, and, at the same time, full of life.
I looked up at the blue sky, took off my glasses, and allowed myself to be filled by that light, by the feeling of being simultaneously nowhere and everywhere. We rode on in silence, stopping now and then to let the horses drink from the streams that only someone who knew the place would have been able to find. Occasionally, we would see other horsemen in the distance or shepherds with their flocks, framed by the plain and by the sky.
Where was I going? I hadn’t the slightest idea and I didn’t care. The woman I was looking for was somewhere in that infinite space. I could touch her soul, hear the song she was singing as she wove her carpets. Now I understood why she had chosen this place: there was nothing, absolutely nothing to distract her attention; it was the emptiness she had so yearned for. The wind would gradually blow her pain away. Could she ever have imagined that one day I would be here, on horseback, riding to meet her?
A sense of paradise descends from the skies. And I am aware that I am living through an unforgettable moment in my life; it is the kind of awareness we often have precisely when the magic moment has passed. I am entirely here, without past, without future, entirely focused on the morning, on the music of the horses’ hooves, on the gentleness of the wind caressing my body, on the unexpected grace of contemplating sky, earth, men. I feel a sense of adoration and ecstasy. I am thankful for being alive. I pray quietly, listening to the voice of nature, and understanding that the invisible world always manifests itself in the visible world.” ~ Paulo Coelho - The Zahir
Book of Trees
If I should enter a forest of pines moderately high, whose tree trunks are elongated, I would have before me, to my right and to my left, these innumerable columns created by tree trunks. I would always have around me these vertical lines, repeated infinitely. Whether they stand out in high value against a background of lower values or against the deep blue of the sky, the dominant element, the impression results from the parallelism of these pine trunks... In the clothes that cover our physical frames have we not, at the shoulders, the same folds; in the two knees the same imprints - all reflecting our unique movements? If we compare these decorative phenomena to those of our lives, we are surprised to find once again the principle of parallelism. We all know from experience that what unites us is greater than what differentiates us. ~Ferdinand Hodler
