Happy New Year

https://www.victoriaerickson.com/

 A gentle way to welcome the new year.

kastilwell

Edges

 Loving yourself over making others comfortable.

How's that for a challenge in the new year?

I'm feeling some serious edges just thinking about it.

Being so well indoctrinated in tending to others,

its like visiting foreign territory 

before the telegraph was invented;

without a map, and no GPS.

Like being on the Starship Enterprise

exploring a whole new landscape.

kastilwell

Song For The Turtles of the Gulf

 I I heard this poem in a podcast on Christmas Eve and it leveled me. 

"old great mother, ... the mosaic growth of shell so detailed,

no part of you simple, meaningless, 

or able to be created by any human,

only destroyed." 

"Forgive us for being thrown off true..."

My heart longs for the answer 

to saving our home.

My heart longs for true.

kastilwell

Still Possible

Each morning, I gift myself the experience 

of the next poem in David Whyte's book, Still Possible.

This quote is the final stanza 

of the title poem from today's reading.

It choked me up.

I would change the last words to

of being "felt and" said.

He is exceptionally skilled 

at doing just that.

May your Christmas Eve 

be deeply felt.

kastilwell

 

What Hope Is

This is a gigantic shift of perspective for me.

Hope has always been a nebulous abstraction.

Similar to faith and hope and love, even.

What do they really mean in organic 

and messy human terms?  

They are like some faraway galaxy 

we can only gaze at from afar and 

HOPE to achieve.

This turns it into a concrete, actionable power.

This thought has produced a seismic shift

in my understanding and in my reality. 

On this note, I wish you everything you hope for.

kastilwell

 

We Need Hope

 As I've come to expect and deeply appreciate, 

Brene gives a new perspective

and increases the nuance of words and thoughts

that have become fixed in my brain. 

They expand and deepen 

with new ways of seeing and feeling their meaning.

Interesting tributaries are discovered

and open for exploration.

A pilgrimage with hope.

kastilwell

It Just Let Her Breathe

 The first part of this was 

a clever way of expressing 

something many of us are 

intimately familiar with.

For me, the glory arrived

with the last six lines.  

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

With deepest gratitude, 

I'm becoming intimately familiar with that!

kastilwell

Everything Will Be Ok

Oh, to take these words and etch them 

on a permanent plaque inside my skin.

Keep looking 

for the small signs,

the quiet voices.

Believe in their heralding.

Trust in their promise.  

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

kastilwell

 

Confusion

 How many times, when paralyzed with confusion,

would this thought have given me a new perspective?

A way to see providing open windows rather than closed doors.

So many. 

So very many.

Now I have it as part of my repertoire.

kastilwell

I Wonder

 This is so powerful, it must be shared.

It speaks eloquently to the state of things.

kastilwell

Think of Me

 Expanding on the theme of the river...

I contemplate our local Little Tennessee River

which stretches through our small town

providing companionship for 

those walking on the Greenway,

(thanks be to those who make this possible;)

I marvel at its beauty; 

its way of presenting 

a different scene each day;

how it reflects the light of the sky;

the trees,  plants,  people, and buildings,

(as well as the lumber yard and debris)

while carrying or concealing 

all kinds of intricate life and death

in its depths.

I prefer to ignore the darker elements

but they exist and the river endures.

This line of thought gives additional texture

to my inner river reflection.

kastilwell

To The River

 To live by a river is something I dream of.  

I'm fortunate to have powerful creeks and rivers running close by.  

I'm also contemplating an inner river.

Flowing often unnoticed beneath the surface.

Silently replenishing and renewing my interior terrain.

kastilwell