Monday Book Nook: My Garden

So, the Monday Book Nook came about from my weekly Shabbat readings, which are often inspiring and worth telling others about. But not every Shabbat do I read or listen to something. In fact, I recently passed a Shabbat listening…. not to a DVD or an audio book, but to the sounds in my garden. At one point I heard the sounds of the birds there change, and it felt as if a warning was being issued. I walked all around looking up in the trees imagining the birds were trying to lead my dogs away from a nest. But in fact, my search yielded a hawk, very high up in the telephone lines, intently watching my garden as much as I was (or more). He flew to the top of my Eucalyptus tree and then suddenly was off… and just as suddenly the finches quieted. All day I attuned myself to the dramas of my garden, and the stories of my own breathing and sensing. What I gleaned was far more than any book. Sometimes the best teachings, and the most inspirational, come from quiet being-ness.

This Shabbat brings to mind a quote a dreaming friend posted on my timeline recently, and so a quote is today’s Book Nook recommend:

“I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.”

– Hermann Hesse