Tuesday, December 31, 2024

Just Another Square


 "Let all be flooded by the shimmer of present mystery."
Another beautiful way to say enchantment, I'm thinking.

There is so much here. Even my pericardium* is a revelation.
Forgiving myself...for all of the above.
Touching the darkness, feeling my smallness, exposing my fear
and my pain and let them all be flooded.
Sunday, after the torrential rains, the river was running
high and swift...full of heavy flotsam...stunning in its speed and power.
The thought of being flooded with forgiveness for myself
and everything else brings moisture to my eyes
and a catch to my chest. 
From now on, when I think of forgiveness,
I will remember the mighty river, 
speeding past me, carrying those giant logs and branches 
 as if they were light as fallen leaves.

"trust that our kindness matters always."
I'm thinking sometimes kindness has to be fierce.
Firm in its sense of justice and truth. 
Yet, it is never, ever cruel.
Not in my book of definitions.
 
May this new year bring us softer fronts, stronger backs
and wilder hearts** and enchantment at every turn.

Namaste'





  • *The pericardium's functions include:
    • Holding the heart in placeThe pericardium's outer layer of connective tissue holds the heart in place in the chest. 
    • Protecting the heartThe pericardium protects the heart from inflammation and infection. 
    • Preventing overfillingThe pericardium prevents the heart from stretching too much and filling with too much blood. 
    • Reducing frictionThe fluid between the pericardium's inner layers reduces friction as the heart moves. 
** thanks to Brene Brown

Monday, December 30, 2024

One's Destination

Seeing things in new ways often gives me a thrill.
 And yes, there are times it feels distressing;
at least initially, before any sense of delight enters the room.
Change is hard...traveling can be arduous.
Focus seems to be key...
focus on every tiny sliver of goodness.
Magnify it liberally and often.

It seems to me, there's a fine line between
accepting yourself just as you are 
and recalibrating certain aspects 
in the interest of living a fuller, richer life.
(That's richer in spirit not coins.)

Here's to enjoying the fine line!  

Namaste'



 

Saturday, December 28, 2024

Yearning


I'm yearning for my loving self.

The one who’s not so critical and filled with self defense.

The one who doesn’t take other’s ill moods as aimed at her.

The one who pauses before launching counter attacks;

and smiles with a disarming rejoinder.


The one who spends time on the other side of the steel doors

guarding her tender heart...

until she can wear her fragile organ closer to her sleeve

where even the nay sayers can see.



I’m yearning for my brave, fierce self.

The one who doesn’t stand down in the face of ridicule.

The one who uses disagreement as fertilizer

for growing abundant nourishment and beauty

even in decay...envisioning herself cloaked in spider webs.


The one who doesn’t panic at intimidation and chaos

the one who stays alert for small gestures she can contribute

to the river of goodness flowing through tragedy.

The one who sees things as they are and 

looks for ways to transmute the unsavory into learning 

how to transfigure human failings into kindness and generosity.


I yearn for the one who remembers 

here in my own heart is the only place to begin.

 

Friday, December 27, 2024

Light



Light takes on an other-worldly quality
when you're consumed by darkness
 either in reality or the darkness of thoughts, doesn't it?

I think of this when I turn on a lamp...
or light a candle in a very dark room.

There's also situations where surrendering yourself to  darkness
reveals an inner light of consolation, inspiration and solace.
This is where the spiritual quality presents itself, I'm thinking.

Namaste'




 

Thursday, December 26, 2024

What If

Pollinating the gold in our hearts?
I'm loving this idea...the image of gold
coming alive...NOT connected to money...
but connected to the massive capacity
we humans have for care, concern, compassion;
for love so vast it flows beyond loss, beyond death. 
Expanding us to places beyond our limited imagination.
Causing love to spread like dandelions.

Namaste'






 

Wednesday, December 25, 2024

When Giving Is All We Have

It occurs to me how many ways we give to each other.
It's not always about tangible, wrapped up items.
We give our time, our attention,
our care and concern.
We give our energy, our spirit, our passions.
Our creativity, our moods, our growing.
We give our talents and our knowings.
Our wonder and our yearnings.
Our questions and our learnings.
It's a steady river of gift exchange.

Namaste'







 

Tuesday, December 24, 2024

We Have Art

I get a kick out of this...
However, may I suggest that
art makes reality bearable?
It reminds us of our own agency
to create a world of beauty and grace
in the midst of all that appears vacant of either.
Art is powerful.
It can send you over the edge...
(hopefully temporarily,)
and return you to sanity;
sometimes both simultaneously.
I say embrace your art.
Namaste'



 

Monday, December 23, 2024

We Have Not Long To Love


 "The tender things are those we fold away."
Why do we do that?  Why do I do that?
Reminds me of Pink's song.
Coming across this recently, 
it touches me in a surprising kind of way.
The sense of yearning reverberates inside.
A yearning to capture all the sweet goodness
and hold it tight...make it stay...
which we cannot...it slips away.
"We have not long to love."
Namaste'

Saturday, December 21, 2024

Season's Greetings

Season's Greetings!
In hopeful joy.

sending love and the light of kindness.
Tom and Kathy Stilwell
 

Friday, December 20, 2024

I Want To Go Back

This strikes a chord in me I am reluctant to own.
It conjures up my mother's "I'm sorry's".  A consistent refrain
 I hear echoed in my own speech, making me cringe.

I also remember her frequent admonishment about
catching more flies with honey than with vinegar.

Still today, I wince at the "vinegary" thoughts
running through my head as a result of tamping myself down;
not to mention what comes out of my mouth at times.
It makes accepting myself as I am difficult. 
My astrigent tendencies repel me.  

This made me wonder about the combination of the two.
Here's what AI says about mixing honey with vinegar:
"When combined, honey and vinegar create a taste that is both sweet and tangy
with the honey's sweetness balancing out the vinegar's acidity, 
often described as a "balanced" or "complex" flavor profile; 
this mixture is commonly called "honey vinegar" 
and is often used in salad dressings and marinades."

I can take "balanced" and "complex".

Namaste'







 

Thursday, December 19, 2024

But What Can We Do?

"To be aware is already something."

May our awareness lead us 
to our own particular movement.
May we find our way to respond.

Namaste'



 

Wednesday, December 18, 2024

Legacies

I'm wondering. 
 
How often do we say what we mean?
How often do we even know for ourself 
what we mean?

I'm wondering 
how we humans, 
with our countless complications,
multi faceted dispositions,
and ever changing temperaments 
manage to convey any meaning at all?

It strikes me how the artists of the soul
who are the ones most often translating it for us.
 
It seems pretty darn remarkable!


Namaste'





 

Tuesday, December 17, 2024

You Will Not Know

Sometimes you know right away when those last times are.  
And sometimes, you think you're in the midst of one
and it turns out different than expected,  You're granted bonus time.
Yet, we take her point.
We most often don't know which reminds us to
"linger a little longer in each moment."
I believe this is important even when its not the last time.
Each moment gives us that possibility.
To luxuriate, 
to sink down into, 
to memorize every sensation...
So much treasure lies within easy reach.
Namaste'

 

Monday, December 16, 2024

Never The Same

This poem is helpful in shifting perspective.
I get impatient with myself when things are blurry and unclear...
particularly with creative projects and purpose and "DOING something.  

"Let me trust how essential it is to stumble
into the trough of the unknown."

Stumbling around is something I'm intimately familiar with.
To the point of being laughable or worthy of a good cry.
The key, I believe, is not to shut down...to plow along
even when it feels like going nowhere.
Isn't nowhere still somewhere?
May our not knowing be abundant and fruitful.

Namaste'



 

Friday, December 13, 2024

Night Fall

"There is no hope for it then but to ignite the more, 
that our lights might make a circle, a bonfire even."

Each time I read this, I feel it more deeply.
"solitary sentinels on a hill" 
is how I think of trees. 
Now I think of us.
Each with our particular light, 
glowing gently yet vigorously in the dark.

How to ignite our more? 
Isn't it already ignited?
I think showing those who can't see their own light
how they, too, shine, might be a way to strengthen the bonfire?
It's possible the bonfire is banked temporarily.

"What is the need for fear, for loneliness?
The darkness giving way to [our] weight--
the light of [us]."

Namaste'


 

Thursday, December 12, 2024

The World Rising

Fierce and even brutal with honesty,

"we must be done with cruelty especially to ourselves".

That being said, how does each one of us
"show we've reached the end of polite moves
to repair and recreate the Earth."?

It's extremely tempting to think we're too late 
and there's nothing we can do.  
We must turn this thinking around,
not in a panicking way, but in a
way that cracks open possibility. 

I confess this all makes me feel very small.
And then I think of the earthworm.

"No matter how desperate the situation,
the worm does not tunnel faster
nor burrow more.
[The worm] knows it can take decades
to build fine soil.
To whatever is compacted,
the worm offers good worm work,
quietly bringing porosity
to what is trodden, compressed.

So often, in my rush to repair,
I end up exhausted.
Let my gift to the world be
my constancy, a devotion to openness,
my willingness to be with what is.
Let my gift to myself be patience 
as I tend what is dense and dark.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Rather than "pressing hard",
I will gently but firmly nudge
"those parts of myself that 
insist on remaining oblivious and asleep."

Namaste'



 

Wednesday, December 11, 2024

For The Heartbroken


Heartbreaking and heartwarming simultaneously.

Even if you don't believe in angels, 
this beautiful poem makes you want them to
"gather you in their great and tireless arms,
their tears mixed with yours as they whisper,
...feel everything.  We feel it all, too."

Seems to me feeling everything, while excellent advice,
 leads to an overwhelm that results in shut down.
As I write these words, I hear, 
"let yourself feel things one at a time; not all together. 
Stop trying to take everything in at once. 
Touch each one lovingly as it enters your field of attention."

This is an entirely new view.
I'm not sure if this is even possible, yet
 I'm willing to experiment. Why not?

Namaste'







 

Tuesday, December 10, 2024

The Greatest Part of Our Happiness


My current focus is to refrain 
from using the word "or" in an effort to
undo my strong bias toward dualistic thinking.
So I changed Martha's "or's" to [and].
If you haven't, I encourage you to read
about the recent happenings in South Korea.
I find them inspiring.

We're all aware of how our thinking
affects our bodies and the tenor of our lives.
My strong temptation is to completely banish
those parts of myself that trouble me.
Yet, banishing parts of myself is not possible.
 They do not depart. They remain;
 even when hidden, buried and denied.
They remain and they break through the barriers.
This is where things get exciting.
The goal, I believe, is acceptance and forgiveness.

I can't tell you how strongly I cringe
when I think about the parts of our world
I want to banish forever with every fiber of my being.
I'm not sure I can reconcile treating the outside world
with all the cruelty and injustice
as if it were an unwanted part of myself.

So, for now, I'm placing my lens of attention
on my unsavory parts and doing whatever I can
to accept, to understand, to forgive
and ultimately to integrate them
with love into my inner cast of characters.

Namaste'

PS:  I had no idea Martha Washington's words
about seeds would take me where this lead me!











 

Monday, December 9, 2024

At A Better Time

At A Better Time
Enter the voice of paradox.
First of all, we have not lost everything.
Although it sure can feel like we're losing much.
The longer I'm here, the more I wonder if anything is ever absolute?
Death is the only thing that comes to mind and
since none of us has experienced it even that is a question mark. 
What if all those who have died
are in an alternate universe partying by
doing whatever they love most?

We're finding our way...each of us...
with our own particular flavor...
through pain and sorrow;
intricately entwined with joy,
growth and celebration.

Namaste'





 

Friday, December 6, 2024

A Seed

We can forget that darkness
is as important as the light.
This serves to remind us.

Namaste'
 

Thursday, December 5, 2024

It Is The Sense

It Is The Sense 

I had something else selected for today
until I read the news from South Korea.
May we all take note we are 
"not yet beaten into submission or oblivion
by those who kill everything they touch with money."

May we all find our way to keep speaking out and showing up
for the things that matter.
Things that don't go on sale.
Things that can't be purchased with any amount of money.
These are what we are working for.
A  Liveable Earth and Equality.

Onward!

Namaste'






 

Wednesday, December 4, 2024

Remember

We are such multi-faceted and multi-layered beings.
It's comforting to be reminded of the basic elements
we are made of.
They may be basic but they are not minor.
Our "basic" framework is a magnificence.
Namaste'
 

Tuesday, December 3, 2024

The Saddest Thing

https://www.juliafehrenbacher.com/

There is such beauty here.  
I want to send it to every young person out there.
And every growing person as well, no matter the age.

"I am certain the saddest thing is stuffing the stuff
that makes you most you."
Pull out any stuffing you might have stuffed...
give it some air, some light, some music,
even from there in the darkest corners.

And this....this.... this....
"The saddest thing is leaving, leaving the mud,
the soil, the seeds, the sea of of what's here--
leaving your own skin, your own certainty."

This is an amulet for around your neck...
a tattoo on the back of your writing hand,
an engraving on your beating heart.

Make it a screen saver...embroider your pillow 
or a throw across your bed,
on your coffee or tea cup, 
your water glass, your wine glass...
you get the point.
Cherish "the mud, the soil, the seeds,
the sea of what's here."

Namaste'








 

Monday, December 2, 2024

How Can We Not?

This is so thick and sweet and fierce with the truth.
It's such a tender testimony to our tiny blue dot of a planet
in this vast and magnificent universe.

"How can we not try to save it?"

"with world with its hopelessness and,
or dare to say it, its hope."

Namaste'