Joy Conditioning

"So do this in your next joyful moment--take pause

pay attention to the constellation of light 

shining singularly into your life."

Practice, practice, practice...

this is not automatic behavior in my world.

I suspect it might be the same for you.  

Work the muscle of pause...

perform repetitions of paying attention to the sparkle.

"Let this memory embed itself into your body

as a fiber of truth you return to when all alone

and full of self-doubt, . . .even if all you have

to hold on to is this one twitch of joy..."

Turn that twitch into an inner tattoo 

maybe on the back of your hand so you see it often?

Let it repeat itself over and over with your breath.

Recall it whenever you sit down or change position.

Remember it when your joints object to your movements.

Let it reverberate with every step you take.

There are numerous ways to embed it into our bones. 

It's more than worth the effort...to harness joy;

to carry our inherent goodness on our sleeves

where all can see....especially ourselves.

 

i have met women

"stretching bridges across ravines

everyone else called endings."

I have at least two women inside me...

the one who stretches bridges over ravines, 

and tells herself she's being naive and pollyanna,

but stretches anyway;

and the other who stares into the ravine and says its over.

They're slowly learning to walk hand in hand with

a lean toward the bridge while recognizing endings 

are real, with something unseen beyond them 

which just might surprise us. 

". . .a wilderness where scars are simple treerings

. . .one touches to see time."

The idea of recalibrating scars to treerings intrigues me.  

I am thinking of the treerings as the tree's journal...

a unique record of one individual's circle through time.

 

The Journey

This piece is so fitting right now,

"You knew what you had to do,. . .

though the melancholy was terrible"

as I travel through journals from the past.

It was already late enough. . .

With my usual instinct, my first thought is

"it's pretty late, isn't it" but that's exactly the voice

I'm no longer listening to.  

It is right on time.

But little by little. . .there was a new voice, 

which you slowly recognized as your own,

that kept you company. . .

determined to do the only thing you could do. . .

Maybe it takes seven decades to recognize your own voice.

Maybe it takes that long to realize its been there all along...

hidden away underneath the melancholy 

and the voices that need to be left behind.

With a lump in my throat and

a giant thanks to M.O.

I leave you with her stunning words.

 

World Dance

"Everything dies, sooner or later.

Winning or losing, everything dies."

Truth, no matter my attempts to ignore,

deny, avoid this fact.

"The game of pain plays and stays and repeats 

that everything dies sooner or later. 

But the sky behind the sky tells you its secret 

close in your ear and warm against your lips: 

everything lives."

The sky behind the sky...

how I love this way of putting it...

what we can not see or wrap our head around

yet somehow we know it exists.

Everything lives... defies my small mind to understand.

In some cases I can accept this as fact.

We all die little deaths and bigger deaths 

over and over and over.

But there are areas from this vantage point,

where dead is dead as in gone.

Mom's physical hands to hold,  dad's physical hugs...

alive in my memory, yes, but generations to come

will not have that physical memory to recall.  

Perhaps when I myself am dead, 

I will be able to see a truth in this?

"The world is to big to lose."

Is it?

 

All The Night Stars

"The stars shine forever, even when dead.

So do we."

I confirmed that some stars do continue to shine after death.

The idea that we will too, is delightful. 

Whether real or metaphorical,

I'll take it.

"Ignore the background noise of wars. . .

Fear is a sheer nighty on a skeleton."

I adore the image of fear as a nighty on a skeleton.

It reduces it to comical in a grim kind of way.

"Sorrow is wild flowers in a graveyard

over our tomorrows.

Another "haunting" image which does 

 not reduce to comical but defines

in a bittersweet way that matches a sad reality.

"Always remember to shine."

 

Mountains On The Inside

If words could be volcanos, this is close...metaphorically speaking.

I confess, I prefer softer language, steely eyed spider webs

and water smoothing rock simply by flowing. 

That being said, it's exhilarating to consider this 

amount of power inside of our skin and bones...

the magnificence of mountains... 

the vastness of oceans...

the crowd of people awaiting our directions...

"Open your mouth the way the volcano opens its mouth.

There's an ocean inside you, the ocean that covered the earth once.

Call out the mountains inside you and let everything begin."

May all that is not serving goodness be turned to cinders.

Let the volcanos roar.

 

Homeless Is The Wrong Word

"Don't define people by what they don't have

as if the home that isn't there was realer

 than the person who isn't in it."

Isn't this a splendid way of thinking?

It humbles me.

"People don't talk to places: not imaginary places,

not controversial places,...People talk to other people

who have mouths and who can talk back."

I'm not proud of my immediate response

upon encountering someone we could consider 

"homeless" (unhoused?).

Mother Teresa I am decidedly NOT.

I do not see an individual person, I see someone I 

feel sorry for which fills me with guilt and shame; 

immediately followed by the strong urge 

to depart, and avoid the entire situation. 

I fear engaging with them as I assume 

it leads to expectations 

I am unwilling and unable to fulfill.