Instead

Instead—seven alternatives.

1)

Be still does not mean don't move.

It means move in peace.

—Eyen A. Gardener

2)

I wanted to start the day writing of waterbirds and agency and mountains sacred to the Coast Miwok; to say what’s been most vivid for me in the past few weeks. 

Instead, I clear my writing room, and end writing of Hopi vases, empty of their corn, and my own turquoise vase, a gift of clay and grace.

(my notes from Saturday)

3)

…the way that trees, rather than compete for light, sometimes withdraw from their neighbors' shade and grow instead toward any available brightness

—Jane Hirshfield, discussing “Optimism”

4)

Instead of slouching in a café ignorant of the word for ice,
I will head down to the coffee shop and the waitress
known as Dot. I will slide into the flow of the morning
paper, all language barriers down,
rivers of idiom running freely, eggs over easy on the way.

—Billy Collins, from “Consolation”

5)

Try not to resist the changes that come your way.  Instead let life live through you.  And do not worry that your life is turning upside down.  How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?

—Rumi

6)

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.

—Anton Chekhov

7)

Instead of Christmas cards—T.S. Eliot’s The Cultivation of Christmas Trees.

image:  Initial I, Melchior Lotter