Safe Flight

From Tao Te Ching # 15

Those who flow as life flows know
They need no other force:
They feel no wear, they feel no tear,
They need no mending, no repair.

- Lao Tzu, trans. Witter Bynner


High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor even eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

- Fl. Officer John Gillespie McGee


Look to This Day

Look to this day!
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities of your existence:
The bliss of growth;
The glory of action;
The splendor of achievement;

For yesterday is but a dream,
And tomorrow is only a vision;
But today, well lived, makes every yesterday
a dream of happiness,
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

- Kalidasa


Even the gorgeous royal chariots wear out and indeed this body too wears out, but the teaching of goodness does not age and so Goodness makes that known to the good ones. Even the gorgeous royal chariots wear out and indeed this body too wears out, but the teaching of goodness does not age and so Goodness makes that known to the good ones. Even the gorgeous royal chariots wear out and indeed this body too wears out...