Thoughts exhausted, I return to the woods.
Painting: Pancake Bay
Thoughts exhausted
I return to the woods.
By a stream winding
through mossy rocks
In the old forest
I too turn
clear and transparent.
Empty of thoughts
Quiet finds me.
- Ryōkan (1758-1831), a Japanese poet and Zen hermit monk. Heron Dance translation.
Ryōkan spent much of his adult life in a small hut on Mount Kugami, returning again and again to the forest when the noise of thought became too loud. His poems rarely argue or instruct — they record what the woods do to a mind willing to be still: the slow clearing, the transparency that arrives not through effort but through cessation. This poem belongs to that tradition of Taoist and Zen hermit verse in which nature is not backdrop but teacher, and emptiness is not absence but arrival.
The Pausing For Beauty Poetry Diary
This beautiful undated diary contains dozens of poems selected to inspire thought about the nature and meaning of life and our connection to the natural world. The poems are accompanied by dozens of Roderick MacIver watercolors, some in full color, some watercolor sketches and delicate washes.
The Poetry Diary contains plenty of room for your journal notes and own poetry.
88 pages in total.
$44 print version. Order here.
$9.99 PDF. Order here.
The Tao Te Ching Journal: A Path To Inner Quiet
Zen Mountain Journal blends Taoist hermit poetry, contemplative art, and reflections drawn from a lifetime shaped by wilderness, solitude, and decades doing creative work on the outer boundaries of our culture. These journals are companions for seekers — guides in the reconnection with inner quiet, beauty, and the “soundless music” of a life lived with simplicity and meaning.
• Size: 9.25 × 8.5 inches — convenient size for desk or lap.
• Hardcover — the book can be written in without a table or desk.
• Double wire-o bound to lay flat.
• Printed on Mohawk Superfine, a premium uncoated paper for a beautiful writing surface.
• 160 pages.
