Silence Is The Seed

I love the thought of growing and rising in "old, wild places".  kas

Molding yourself?

Do You Trust Yourself?

An Individual Worthy of Respect

Are We Sleepwalking?

What if we're wide awake doing everything we can while watching in abject horror?  kas

Stereotype circular cycle

Substitute any label for "angry black woman" and

you land at the root of so many of today's problems.  

An entire segment of the population gets painted with the

same narrow minded brush based on the actions of a few individuals. 

We are better than this.  Be brave enough to face your biases. 

Be brave enough to examine your stereotypes.  kas

Your Body

I confess to turning a deaf ear to my body much of the time.  

I'm in the process of changing that.  May she forgive me my previous abuses. kas

Social Media--Fire

Beyond Anything We Can Now Imagine

Only One Of You In All Time

Take a deep breath and ponder this truth.  Then, go be you! kas

An Old and Unspoken Invitation

It Doesn't Interest Me

Encircled by an Invisible Ring

This is especially poignant today as my 93 year old mama grapples with quarantine. kas

Barriers?

Where are we "armored up"?  What fortresses are we hiding behind? kas

Everyone Is A Beauty

The Purpose of Art

Raising a glass to living!  kas

Presence Becomes Absence

Or a pile of debris which can make something new and better?  

The author is referring to the destruction of cities after WW2. 
The destruction of our norms and values and expectations comes to mind.  

I'm also thinking of a bulldozer in the middle of a city taking out

an apartment building.  kas

Speak Truth To Bullshit

I need this reminder frequently these days.  Keep speaking truth to bullshit!!  kas

Freedom

Gulp!  This takes on a different flavor then it would have

not that long ago given the way freedom is bandied around these days.  

I'm thinking of masks...and when one person's "freedom" endangers or oppresses another's.   kas

As We Are

Something I want to keep sight of. 

Especially after listening to Talking To Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell.  

It was illuminating.  See if you can catch yourself making assumptions.  kas

Tell Me The Truth

Do Not Bring An Ocean To A River

Building A Work Life

Motivation to tap into one's creativity and uniqueness in every aspect of life.

Be bold, be brave, be YOU!  kas

Solitary Saunter

Time to evacuate
Arise from your cushion
Shed what is no longer needed
Compost what has fed you
Lace up your hiking boots
Today’s itinerary continues 

Note the blooming hydrangeas
The Oakleaf drupes, the snowballs
and the lady in red...with its blue blossoms
Consult your compass, designate your direction.
Fulfill your promises set your course.

The small stream burbles. 
The larger one flows hidden in the undergrowth 
contentedly moving downward. 

Tenderly moisten your knees, hips and ankles… 
The aging joints carrying you along your path.

Invite the inner chorus…
the ones often unseen but still present,
occasionally directing traffic.
Hear the soft steady syncopation of your feet upon the ground.

Ignore your snarl at an interruption and disruption
as an SUV invades the morning leaving its putrid scent in its wake.

Now, another stream with a longer fall and a heartier voice. 
The return disturbance of the vehicle. 
The driver waves. He didn’t used to. 
He averted his gaze, stony expression avoiding connection.

This softened demeanor a testimony.
Testimony to the change driven by my hand raised in greeting 
after a relaxation of my annoyance surely written across my features.
A small gesture with significant echoes of warmth and welcome.

Return to the solitary saunter Listen to the trills, whistles and chirps…
Birds I cannot name like the same people one passes every day
on their way through their daily routine.
You recognize each other through familiarity
but you seldom venture closer
than the brief nod of recognition.

The lethal virus fades into the horizon.  
A physical respite from the heightened onslaught 

raging across our country’s hospitals and morgues. 

Rather than allowing its magnified presence
within the theater of my mind, 
I return my focus and my attention to my solitary saunter.

Bugs can be a bother to my eyes and ears.
But the sound of the birds
with the rhythm of my feet brings me back to center.
The team inside is watchful and quiet.
One or another leaning forward slightly.
Adjusting position. Registering their presence.
Familiar yet unexplored. Taciturn and watchful. 

We approach each other with tender curiosity.

A touch to the branch of the Basswood tree, with a U Turn
to my solitary saunter back toward home.

Yet home is here within my spirit,
vibrating in my belly,
throbbing in my throat. 
The forest encloses me in a soft circle of recognition and mutual respect.
Its as if a gentle arm is laid across my shoulders
to accompany me as I journey.
It acknowledges and gives weight to the forest within
where the critters and the insects and the plants and the trees maintain an ecosystem…
a universe as magnificent and mysterious and astonishing as that which lies above. 
They seem to join and merge and coalesce into a single entity of splendor… A complex simplicity… A symphony of synchronicity.

Gazing downward into the pool at the base of the tree,
I see what lies above me in the same measure of infinity.
An endless row of reflections beginning and ending through me…
The ebb and flow of the ocean currents,
the weather patterns of earth’s atmosphere,
the dark, dense silence of outer space.
Endless mystery, never ending possibility, ongoing potential…
Let it be good, let it be wise, let it be equal and fair.  

May the words flowing from of me travel downward through infinity,
expand outward soaking Into the soil of humanity.

The return journey has a lilt to it.
A sense of joyful familiarity,
a cohesive bonding with what has gone before…
a celebration of the prodigal… a welcoming… a gathering in…
a festival...a feasting...a happy reunion.
 A place where all are welcome and all are fed, renewed, rejuvenated. 

The scent of honeysuckle drifts like a cloud entering my senses with a silent celebration from the physical, organic, bodily connection with here and now.  

A seam is sewn… pieces stitched together. A fabric is constructed and continues.  
My physical, sensate, organic vessel moves on the shore of a vast new wilderness…
The exploration continues. I am home. I am here. I matter. My matter matters.  kas

Warmed by the Life

I find this to be a reasonable and worthy hope even as its quite

different from what I might have hoped a few years earlier. 

I would add "with a smile on my face".  kas

Rich Off Sadness

I'm thinking there's a vast number of us who can 

appreciate this sentiment in stark, 

bone deep, all encompassing proportions.  kas