heaven’s secret is motherly love

support sheldrick wildlife trust

 

Everyone

under heaven says that

my tao is great, but inconceivable. 

It is its very greatness that makes it inconceivable! 

If it could be conceived of, how small

it would be! 

 

I have three

treasures to hold and protect: 

The first is motherly love. The second

is economy. The third is daring

not to be first in the

world. 

 

With motherly

love one can be courageous. 

With economy one can be expansive. 

With humility one

can lead. 

 

To be

courageous without motherly love, 

To be expansive without practicing economy, 

To go to the front without humility — 

this is courting death. 

 

Venture with

love and you win the

battle. Defend with love and you are

invulnerable. Heaven’s secret is

motherly love. 

 

Tao te Ching of Lao Tzu,

Chapter 67

 

constant companion and guiding star

 

this is what you shall do

fluid awareness

 

This

is what you

shall do: Love the earth

and sun and the animals, despise riches,

give alms to every one that asks, stand up for

the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor

to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have

patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat

to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men,

go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young

and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open

air every season of every year of your life, reexamine all you

have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss

whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall

be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only

in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and

face and between the lashes of your eyes

and in every motion and

joint of your

body.

 


Walt Whitman