Our lives – as Poems, Prayers, Temples, Gardens.
Poem today – Sunday.
Where Does the Temple Begin. Where Does it End?
by Mary Oliver – Sunday in the Temple. It could be Saturday in the Temple too –

The Poem
There are things you can’t reach. But you can reach out to them, and all day long. The wind, the bird flying away.
The idea of God.
And it can keep you as busy as anything else, and happier.
The snake slides away; the fish jumps, like a little lily,
out of the water and back in; the goldfinches sing
from the unreachable top of the tree.

I look; morning to night I am never done with looking.
Looking I mean not just standing around, but standing around
as though with your arms open.
And thinking: maybe something will come, some
shining coil of wind, or a few leaves from any old tree–
they are all in this too.

And now I will tell you the truth.
Everything in the world comes. At least, closer.
And, cordially.
Like the nibbling, tinsel-eyed fish; the unlooping snake.
Like goldfinches, little dolls of goldfluttering around the corner of the sky of God, the blue air. – Mary Oliver –

And so…
Thoughts on my mind today, this Sunday.
August 31, 2025 – our last day of August.
Thoughts all jumbled together seeking a common theme.
Today is Sunday, & with the poem today by Mary Oliver, it could be Saturday too.
A temple is a temple – it’s a cathedral, a synagogue or a tent in the wilderness, it’s nature itself. It’s ourselves.

The thoughts today – creativity, observation, prayer, temples, gardens. Finding their common theme…maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe all week.
And so…
1. that we are to continue God’s creation (that is a new thought).
2. that we begin our days outside, in nature, with a poem or a spiritual sentence or something from the bible.
3. that we find garden references in the bible.
4. that we find where the sun, moon, mercury, venus, mars are each day & apply them to our charts…then we have knowledge of the journey each day.
5. our inner temple – St. Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle.
The Soul as a castle of many spacious rooms (like each area of life in an astrology chart).
The castle with its rooms (the astrology chart w/ its houses) is the Soul’s journey, the illuminated Way, from darkness (the Soul imprisoned in matter) to light.
More on this later – maybe another day.
Maybe not.
On this Sunday – observing & listening. love, Risa
Mary Oliver was born w/ Sun Venus Neptune Ceres in Virgo.
See her chart below….