For this month’s meditation, I want to move away from Buddhist quotes and take a look at some of my most favorite quotes by chilean poet Pablo Neruda. My reason for this is quite simple, since Philipe Noiret, the French actor who passed away in late November, played him in Il Postino, I thought this would be a nice tribute. Yes, yes, actors are not their characters, but why not indulge in that fantasy for a little bit?
“And one by one the nights between our separated cities are joined to the night that unites us.”
There is something about the night, that makes separation hard and this quote resonates with me. I have friends, most of my closest friends in fact, that do not live near me. And somehow, though we have all the communication devices at our disposal and we call, email, text all we want, being close is always hard.
“You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.”
No matter how much we want to stop something from happening, it will happen no matter how much energy we push against it.
“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way.”
And this quote, well, it actually is similar in a way, to the one about spring. Love is something so vast, so overwhelming (in the good sense) and we cannot stop it, no matter how much we try.