Live Deliberately

I Went to the Woods (M.A. Reilly, 2011)

Beginnings, even the annual ones, offer us a moment to reconsider, to start new and to do so, differently.   

I wish you the confidence to pierce beneath the skin of the everyday.   

Two contemplative pieces to get you on your way: one familiar, one less so.                                                      

Mary Ann, 12:46 a.m. 1/1/13

I. The Familiar

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion." - Henry David Thoreau

II. The Less Familiar

from Nic Askew: Concerning Choice