I Thich Nhat Hanh talks about the folly of a Guru who never gets around to planning a picnic. Look it up. The students kept asking for a picnic. Yes, the teacher would say, we will have a picnic, but then he would never plan the picnic. Year after year, so much mindful industry, so much building and working, so much mind turning, so much retreat. Year after year, event after event, so much devising the new world they would have after the mind's revolution, but no picnic. Then

I just finished an Earth Day Weekend retreat, based in the dharma teachings of the pāramitās, the psychotherapy modalities of IFS and ACT, and what I called "eco-principles". Below I am sharing the poem prompts that were shared over the retreat. In part I am sharing here for the retreatants, AND I hope these poems help anyone investigating how to live a more fully awake life, while also caring fully for the planet. The following poem by Vicente Aleixandre, Who I Write For, is