Making The Mental Space

The book has examples of this to give one practice

at "not jumping to easy human conclusions."

I found it to be an extravagance of amazement.

May our mental areas grow in spaciousness

and the generosity of creativity.

Namaste'

 

Plant Personhood

I'm chagrined at how deeply conditioned I am to see plants

and animals and all creatures living in the wild as objects.

It keeps circling back around to remind me...

I wish I could wave a magic wand and change it to my core, instantly.

Reading superb nature writers, a list too long to include here,

has been instrumental in helping me make progress in this matter.

They keep me "stupified with gratitude". 

Namaste'

 

We Forget

Isn't this spot on?

Rachel W. Kimmerer's Serviceberry echoes this sentiment.

"And maybe we have to forget or we would be too stupified 

with gratitude for every raindrop and eyelash to get through the day..."

I love the phrase "stupified with gratitude". 

There are plenty of unworthy things to be stupified by, aren't there?

So let's "cast upon ourselves, a spell against indifference."

It's possible to be aware of things without succumbing to numbness

or burying our heads in the sand.

Let's "move through the world with an inner bow at every littlest thing

that prevailed against the odds of otherwise in order to exist."

Let the noise and chaos exist in its layer of temporary.

We will keep on adding layer after layer of wonder 

at what is enduring and extraordinary, 

existing in even the tiniest forms of magnificense.

Namaste'

 

Science's Biggest Flaw and Biggest Virtue

What I love about science is that in its most ideal sense,

it admits to and even encourages being wrong...

(that's my impression, anyway.)

learning more about our world broadens our horizons.

Being open minded expands our boundaries while at the same time,

checking ourselves against other's experiences

and experiments is healthy and wise.

Making mistakes is one of the best ways we learn, isn't it?

Curiosity, questioning things and,

what is really being revealed to me these days,

is not taking things at face value or for granted.

I'm learning to note my assumptions.  

Preferably, as soon as they arise,

and they arise so frequently it's disconcerting.

Seems like there's always more to know about countless topics.

It requires pausing my tendency to classify and file things;

mindlessly deeming them as worthy or unworthy

of my time and attention.

Isn't this how one can miss the delights and enchantments

that make life worth living?

Namaste'

 

It Is Never Too Late

Blooming is something I relish in the middle of winter.

And I adore the idea of being a lifelong bloomer.

No matter what kind of mayhem is happening,

blooming continues and will continue long after we are gone.

Namaste'

 

Writing Poems in the Middle of a Catastrophe

 This is one extra poem for this dark week.

Thank you for your presence as we traverse these times.

May we all find our way to joy, delight and love

as we endure the ominous landscape unfolding in our country.

May we hold tight to our dignity, our values, and our decency.

May the river of goodness dilute and cleanse what is unworthy of us.

You are very dear to me.

Namaste'

I Am My Own Country Now

"patriotic only for my own quiet tenderness,

a citizen of loss and finding again a reason to hold on."

Finding the quiet tenderness...I know is here

beneath the upheaval and incredulous disbelief.

"I am the only homeland I know.

No one can govern my life."

When we find this homeland,

let us remember we share it with each other.

Our homelands intersect, co-mingle, 

entangle with others.

"I am my own country now. An individual revolution."

This is a place to start...

from here ...

I'm going to share words from Valarie Kaur 

inspired by MLK's Strength To Love, on inauguration day.

Let us vow to protect our hearts. Let us protect our strength to love — 

to refuse to go numb to suffering, to alchemize pain into energy and action, 

to fight for our humanity. One act of love at time. Let us pull each other out of rubble.

 Let us listen when it’s hard. Let us refuse to hate. Let us practice the world we want in the space between us — with every choice, every word, every encounter, every breath. 

Let us make the meal, pour the tea, lay the brick, plant the tree. 

Let us sleep and dream. Let us dream of the world we are laboring for

 and trust in our role in the labor

Today I vow to stay in the long labor with you. Even with ash in my mouth, 

I vow to breathe and push with you — so that seven generations from now, 

they will remember how we labored through the dark with a love so bright, 

it birthed a world of sweetness and connection, from the soil to the stars.

Imagine thousands of us making our vows together. 

It is our own People’s Inauguration. 

Today we inaugurate our dignity and courage, our belonging and joy. 

Today we inaugurate love. Love will make us brave. Valarie Kuhr

I believe this is how

"we populate ourselves with those who can hold us,

and who we can hold, landlocked together..."

"We will stay close to our land, to the trees,

to our small circles of love...close to the poets,

hold [their] words as Light."

High praise and appreciation for the poets

who accompany us through the fertile darkness.

Namaste'

Here is the entire poem: I Am My Own Country Now

 

Tikkun Olam

"make flowers grow from our insides."?

What an enchantment would that be?

This poem carries such rich images and imaginings...

becoming richer with each reread.

To bleed water, air, diamonds, music,

color, words...what a symphony.

It feels like the imaginings I'm doing these days,

to comfort and console myself in the face of grim reality.

If you're feeling aghast and overwhelmed, you're not alone.

We're in this together.  We will not look away, 

we will stand up for what is decent and fair,

we won't be numbed out by the constant barrage.

We will not stop doing everything we can to make this world better.

Namaste'

 

Frederick Douglass

I am so grateful to the poets and writers

who can articulate the whirlpool of emotions

spinning through my body and soul;

not only when I'm upbeat, confident and optimistic,

but also, maybe especially when, I'm heartbroken,

disbelieving, enraged and dismayed.

I hear the trope, "all words and no action"

and I feel a rush of shame until I realize,

words matter.  Thoughts matter.

We cannot give in to what is unworthy of us.

My steadfast appreciation goes to those 

who continue to use their words 

and those who use their actions

to protect, defend, heal, and restore what is broken.

Namaste'

Via  Phyllis Cole Doyle for today's poem.

In A Dangerous Time

I love that this poem speaks of bones and the ribcage...

Isn't it said that we women are to have been formed from that structure?

Is that true?

Who knows? 

It works well for this discussion.

Is it because we were made from a rib that so many of us are

 adept at the "way we protect the heart."?

Is that why we are well practiced at how we 

"engage with other ribs to expand, to contract,

and do our solid work to allow the heart to float"?

Now we are being called to 

"be a rib in this body of our country

to make a safe space for love."

Aren't we doing this already?  

Haven't we been doing it since childhood?

"To be that flexible, that committed to what is vital,

that unwilling to yield."

I have no doubt we can do this, 

each of us, in our own particular way,

together...

it's in our bones.

Namaste'

When Our Days Become Dreary

"There is a creative force in this universe,

working to pull down mountains of evil,

a power that is able to make a way out of no way

and transform [disastrous] yesterdays 

into bright tomorrows."

I want to believe this with every fiber of my being.

I changed the word dark to disastrous because

my thinking has changed in regard to darkness.

Darkness can be fertile and creative and constructive.

Darkness reigns right now in vital layers of our world.

I want to believe we are being transformed by the darkness.

That even with despair breathing down my neck,

there is "a way out of no way".

I will not stop searching.

I will not stop believing in the power 

of creative force, of connection, of working together.

I believe in waging decency, dignity and equality.

Namaste'

 

Uncommon Advice

 My mother would not agree with this advice.

She would advise, "doing something for others comes first."

It seems counterintuitive but I believe by pursuing yourself,

you will end up serving others in a way that fits your unique qualities.

So, I respectfully disagree with my mother,

I encourage "becoming the healthiest, 

most healed, 

most present, 

most confident

version of yourself."

Trust it will guide you to your own way.

 Namaste'

Don't Speak Negatively

I owe Bruce Lee an apology.

Because of his movies, I associate him 

with brute strength and little else.

(I owe an apology to martial arts as well).

I fell into the bias of simplifying him into a caricature

which was incomplete and dismissive.  "All muscle/no brain".

Looking back, I've shared a quote from him every year since 2022!

I didn't even notice this until now. 

I did not know he's written many volumes,

including ones on philosphy and quantum physics.

So this quote today is a reckoning for me.

A reckoning with the assumptions I make

and the bounty I miss due to prejudgment. 

It's much more "efficient" to

deem something or someone as

unworthy of time or attention;

to label and dismiss 

rather than to be curious and open to learning.

It feels like opening a window I didn't know was there.

Namaste'

 

Pause

We've all heard this.

I require frequent reminders

in order to make it stick.

"there is power...in a pause before you respond."

I would welcome the power of a tiny shock

to wake me in the moment, 

perhaps a strong nudge would be kinder.

May our pauses be frequent and fruitful.

Namaste'

 

Knowing The Earth

"Each plant alive with the mystery of beginnings."

I am reading The Light Eaters: 

How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence

Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth by Zoe Schlanger.

It has me captivated as she explains and expands

the magnificent world of plant's incredible capabilities 

toward evolution and adaptation.

"Observe the journey of an ant and imitate its path

of persistence in a world of bigger things."

Isn't that what each of us is doing 

in whatever small way we find before us?

"The journey begins on a path made of your old mistakes.

Of which we have plenty, don't we, regarding our Earth?

It is deeply painful to contemplate.

I welcome the idea that a right path can be made from past wrongs.

"The journey continues when you call Earth by her name."

To see and honor Earth and all who live within her ...

this is what I consider as my most important purpose.

The roots of human superiority are deep and strong.

They must be altered...(as in placed on the alter of intention)

and transformed in order to grow equality and kinship with every creature.

There is much work to do. To save what can still be saved.

Namaste'

 

Chunky and Noisy

It was on a trip to Indiana when I got to see this performance.

The "theater in the air".  I was mesmerized by the murmuration.

"Ah world, what lessons you prepare for us, even in the

leafless winter, even in the ashy city."

I watched the snow doing a kind of murmuration yesterday...

rising, falling and twirling on the gusts of wind.

"I want to think of dangerous and noble things...

to be light and frolicsome.

I want to be improbably beautiful and afraid of nothing,

as though I had wings."

Perhaps not dangerous...there's too much of that already, isn't there?

but noble and light and frolicsome?  Yes!

What a thrill it would be to have wings.

The light and feathery kind...

sprouting from our shoulders...

carrying us anywhere we wanted to go.

Namaste'

Not To Send You Light

 I changed my mind three times on today's quote.

(I am "stupefied by gratitude"* for Rosemerry's permission

to share her poems widely.)

This poem speaks with exquisite eloquence to how I'm feeling.

It "reminds me such darkness is natural, essential even,

[ ...] in trusting I am part of some great process, 

even though it terrifies me."

I long to skip forward to the history 

my great grandchildren will be studying and learn...

"they came so close to losing everything 

but through combined dedication and persistence,

democracy was saved and equality honored and regenerated."

and

"An about face was made. 

They focused their united power on saving the planet

through creativity and ingenuity;

transforming waste into clean energy;

restoring a relationship to the natural world

and devising ways for all beings to thrive 

with dignity and grace."

This is my page in the dark.

Namaste'

* Maria Popova

Every Day

How many times have I tucked something away for "special"?

No longer.

Using the good silver even when its cold and windy and dreary 

day after day after day.  Even when there's no one here but me.

"Every day IS all there is."

And I am a special guest!

Namaste'

 

All My Life I've Been Waiting

I didn't know about Harold Norse until I ran across this poem

and immediately took note.

"love erupting in the streets" is the line that captured me.

That and politicians telling the truth and

bankers giving away their money.

Far from reality but one can imagine.

I have to go on imagining despite what I see and hear on the surface.

Go on imagining that truth matters and 

our planet will survive us. 

Imagining the river of goodness flowing

steady and strong bringing everyone into its current.

Imagining wounded people with distorted thoughts and ideas

coming to their senses and acting decently.

Imagine fairness reigning strong.

Now, how to make my imaginings a reality?

Namaste'

May Your Coming Year

What would "good madness" look like for you?

For me, its standing at an empty or incomplete canvas/page

learning to listen with patience and reverence...

if I'm stumped, imagine stumps.

There are so many gorgeous ones modeling for me in the woods.

If I'm blocked, consider blocks.

I begin to notice them everywhere.

If I feel clueless,

try looking for clues.

Listen to the conversation between the outside world

and my inner universe. Trust it will show me how to proceed.

Anything is possible.

Namaste'

One Little Poem

This sends chills down along my skin.

"It starts with nothing, or perhaps...more like everything."

Tears well in the corners of my tired eyes.

"a knowing, a nudge, a gnawing...

the need, need, need to breathe

to make (or say) something beautiful."

For your response to what is loud

to what is mean, to what is cruel

to be something kind, and beautiful and true;

quietly fierce...respectfully firm...open to learning.

"And always, always, always,

it starts in the dark."

Again with the chills; again with the tears.

We may feel alone when we sit in the dark.

Yet, if that is so, where do these sprouts of grace come from?

"Nothing" a second ago, becomes something...becomes everything.

The vast void casts out seeds...and you are earth receiving,

rooting, growing, becoming.

Namaste'

 

The Space Between

I am drawn in each time I read this.

"that you rest inside the space, this space

between thought and breath".

The space between thought and breath?

How deliciously intriguing.

Is this where the pause before words resides?

The "empty" darkness of not knowing?  

The nothing containing everything?

"It matters that you listen until you see

that you are not the storm...but the beloved,

badass ocean who holds and holds, who forever holds you...."

Reading Playground by Richard Powers

is giving me a dazzling perspective

of our oceans...it amazes me

to discover how much more there is to learn.

I love when this happens.

Namaste'

 

Unresolution

The idea of unresolution appeals to me tremendously.

The habit is strong.  Fixing, fixing, fixing...myself.

And if I'm brutally honest, fixing others as well.

Not in an unkind way, but certainly an opinionated one.

Like yesterday's thought...what am I carrying forward?

Tiny shifts in perspective and behavior, I'm thinking.

Speaking out where I've been silent...kindly.

Keeping still where I've been vocal...

especially when it comes to complaints.

Dumping them in the compost bin

to eventually fertilize something beneficial.

". . .feel how beautiful it is each time

my hand opens like a morning to what is here."

Namaste'

 

A New Year

What will I carry forward?

What a lovely way to begin again.

Holding my past with kinder hands.

Holding myself with kinder hands.

Holding this mixed up world with kinder hands.

Holding each other with kinder hands.

Namaste'