AOM Meditations: 052518

The Rhodora Flower (Rhododendron canadense)

Thanks to a Friend of AOM for sending us his favorite poem

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The Rhodora:  On being asked, whence is the flower

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

"In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,

I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods, 

Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,

To please the desert and the sluggish brook. 

The purple petals fallen in the pool

Made the black water with their beauty gay; 

Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,

And court the flower that cheapens his array.

Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why

This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,

Tell them, dear, that, if eyes were made for seeing,

Then beauty is its own excuse for Being;

Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose! 

I never thought to ask; I never knew;

But in my simple ignorance suppose

The self-same power that brought me there, brought you."

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

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I added the following quote
To go with my discussion in the Music section.

"Your duty is to be and not to be this or that. ‘I am that I am’ sums up the whole truth. The method is summed up in the words 'Be still’. What does stillness mean? It means destroy yourself. Because any form or shape is the cause for trouble. Give up the notion that 'I am so and so’. All that is required to realize the Self is to be still. What can be easier than that?"

~Sri Ramana Maharshi