The Rage You Are Feeling

 "[We] have known hope and joy and kindness

like [we} have known water."

Drink deeply of those moments and the memories.

Make more of them. Notice their frequency.

"Justice is a river that demands [we]

not give up on it."

We must not give up on justice, (or the river)

though it lies shreaded to bits,
longing to be woven whole again.

It still breathes among the broken pieces.

"The rage [we] are feeling comes 

from the same place inside [our] heart

as the love."

I tend to shy away from the rage...

in fear of losing control to it

and saying or doing something irreparable.

It is a mighty power to be conducted wisely.

I don't know how to do that...

yet.

May I/we find the way to  transmute

the energy of rage into goodness.

Namaste'

When We Drop Fear

 bell knew what she was talking about.

"Dropping fear" is no small feat these days.

It is being used as a weapon of domination

which also means we are in fertile territory

to practice dropping it.

Fear is contagious but fortunately so is bravery.

So is joy.

So is decency.

Giving in to fear is not an option.

We can do this. 

We are doing this.

Namaste'

We're Full of Seasons

"Those tiny big feelings we tend have a funny way 

of shaping the world we wake up in."

Isn't this a delicious way of saying

thoughts matter?

"I like to think of each of us as a walking library."

All our thoughts and ideas, our loves, memories, dreams,

unspoken desires, passions, as yet unrealized hopes,

people and events we've forgotten and imagined, all there resting inside 

available for review.

"...those stories we never open, they don't vanish.

They somehow pile up, shaping who we are, even if we might

never fully understand."

Who are the characters visiting our library...

the inner companions accompanying our way?

What stories are being written as we live out our days?

Namaste'

 

The Tug of Autumn

"I would like to be wiser, calmer,  more at home in the world."

A large a(wo)men to this statement.

The world these days reminds me of 

walking through one of those haunted houses

at the state fair where every turn contained 

something designed to be terrifying popping out 

to frighten the wits out of my young self.

"I'd like to give my days the delighted artfulness

of courtship, merging, lingering, bearing witness, offering praise."

I believe sanity lies in this strategy. 

Courtship was an interesting choice of words as it suggests

a period of time to get to know another to assess marriage compatability.

If you think about it, aren't we are already married...

to ourselves, in particular, as well as to the world, for better or worse?

Let's make it better AND worse and focus on better.

Merging, lingering, bearing witness and offering praise

speak to taking it slowly, tenderly and with awareness...

to lessen the need to rush...why do we do that?

"I want to hold what holds us."

This is where words fail me.

There is simply no adequate way to

describe this sense of being accompanied

by an unnameable presence.

Not only holding us but knitting us

together on our inside terrain as well

as our outside landscape. 

Most evident in the intricate earthen beauty 

we so often take for granted.

Namaste'

 

At One Point

A taste of spring as autumn arrives.

"Only in springtime, it seemed,  does gravity work backward here, 

the dandelion pollen rising in great squalls,

 the flower buds shooting up, further from the ground, 

as if pulled by the sky's sudden need for them..."

Love this idea of gravity working backwards.

 There's also something beguiling about the 

fragile delicacy of pollen and flower buds,

opposing the power of gravity.

It makes me think of dandelion 

and milkweed "fluff" rising up

with their cargo of seed at this time of year,

letting the energy of the wind deposit them

wherever they land.    

This piqued my curiosity:  Other plants that disperse seeds on fluff, similar to dandelions and milkweed, include cattails, cottonwood trees, asters, thistles, goldenrods, willows, and salsify. 

These plants, often in the aster family (Asteraceae), develop a fluffy, parachute-like structure called a pappus that catches the wind, allowing their seeds to be carried to new locations.  

I got a wee taste of what it must feel like for the fluff and the seeds

to be picked up and taken away just off the coast of Ireland in Kerry recently.  

I was holding onto fence posts for dear life as the mighty wind threatened to carry me aloft!! 

Namaste' 

 

Words Cast Spells

I love this thought!

As "ripened" as I am, I never put spelling, 

as in spelling with ABC's, with casting a spell.  

An enticing perspective.

Here's someone casting a stunning spell, in my opinion.

Namaste'

 

Dear Mr. Whitman

"Any singer knows being louder just makes discord, and harmony

needs constant attunement to every other singer."

How many of us live in "constant attunement to every other singer?"

My first response is "Who out there is singing?"  

Those are the ones I want to attune to.

I especially love,

"I want to hear America listening."

And even more

"I want a new song that begins with a silence that stretches

from sea to sea—like the silence right before the curtains part

when the whole body leans in to wonder what comes next."

Aren't millions of us doing this?  Individuals doing everything

we can to listen and understand so we can "do something" 

to participate in creating a new song?  

"And when the many parts do arise, glorious in their differences,

I want to hear inside them the careful attention that tunes

them to each other, I want to hear in our song the deep listening

that makes even dissonance beautiful."

Dare I say, it seems we were on our way to this...

listening to each other, respecting each other's point of view,

learning from those who were different, allowing for respectful dissonance,

expanding our understanding of our world and each other, 

admitting our mistakes and doing what we could to correct them,

Many of us were doing our best to embrace diversity, 

working for true equality, and being inclusive?

Isn't this what we're still doing? 

Isn't that what makes our singing glorious?

I'm listening.  Keep on singing!

Namaste'

 

Midsummer-Eve

 

Midlife

 

Lady Liberty

 

Holocaust

 

Empire of Chaos

 

Child Of Our Times

 

Cure Is Needed

 

As I Contemplate Precarity

"Each moment is an invitation extended for an instant--"

Isn't this the truth of "our one precious life"?

"Life moves through me, asking me in,

opening the present like a window."

A window opening up to landscapes...

both inside and outside of us.

What is real which is magnificent

and what we imagine which can be even

more magnificent.

Layer upon layer of potential for 

gratitude and goodness...recognizing

the bounty we take for granted.

We can be "tender with ourselves".

Making room for all our humanness....

what hurts entwined with what helps.

Full with the "wildly, messy,"

extravagant beauty of who we are.

Namaste'

PS: There will be a break in the pattern over the next days. I'm going on a treasure of a trip with my three grown daughters.  Poems by Irish poets will be posted on the blog which you can reach by going here https://dailythoughtsmatter.blogspot.com/. 

May your days be filled with wild and messy beauty and an embarrassment of joy in this crazy, mixed up world. 

 

The Words You Bury Inside Your Head

It's also possible for words someone else says

to get buried in your head.  Those are the ones

we must be on the look out for to be sure they're

extinguished if they're not ones we can blossom with.

It's more than ok to have a blow torch on hand

to transform the rot into vapor.

Blossom away my friends, blossom away.

Namaste'

 

 

We Begin To Find

What a spectacularly joyous way to begin the week.

I'm going to put it on repeat and visit it every day upon waking.

Carry it with me vibrating on my skin and in my hair.

Always remember. Never forget.  

Always Remember. Never Forget.

Namaste'

 

In The Airport

"Could they ever be enough, these stumbling attempts to

bring kindness into the world?"

A question I suspect we are all asking ourself these days.

We believe this as we stretch beyond the end of our rope

 to remain sane and decent humans.

We are being called to reach into the furthest corners

of our souls to trust this is so...to act as if it matters.

Because it does.  I am convinced it does.

We are in the trenches feeling the barrage of 

a cruel type of artillery...witnessing ghastly injustices

being perpetrated in our name;

yet we are standing up and fighting back.

Together, we are finding our way

 to vanquish the wrongdoing.

We must hold fast to our resolve

and continue to resist.

We can do this...we are doing this.

We may feel small and insignificant

but we are mighty in our determination.

Thank you for your efforts on behalf

of decency and dignity for all.

Namaste'

 

In Passing

"as if what exists, exists so that it can be lost

and become precious."

I've read over this many, many times

debating whether I want to engage.

I decided to give it a go.

"the closed bud shrugs off its special mystery

in order to break into blossom."

How many of us hover in this closed bud stage?

Is the "special mystery" waiting to be shrugged off,

 the idea we must meet some standard of perfection,

imposed by some tyrannical criteria someone else designates,

before we can "break into blossom"?

I'm all in on shrugging that off vigorously.

 What I'm highly resistant to is the thought

that something or someone must be lost 

in order to become precious.

Am I simply in denial about reality?

Everything and everyone is in the process of becoming lost.

I'd like to think we have the power to make

them precious before they depart.

This is all so briefly gorgeous.

Namaste'

 

Swaddling The Sorrow

“because when something feels safe enough to be what it is, 

it can't help but lift, drift, 

can't help but slip into something 

more comfortable.”

Letting things be what they are

is the key, I’m thinking.

Even when they’re super

uncomfortable, painful ,

irritating, unwelcome.

I love the idea of swaddling

the sorrow.  

Like a crying newborn...

vulnerable and full of misery 

that cannot be explained.  

Swaddle and rock...

swaddle and rock.

It comforts both the participants.

Namaste’

 

Briefly Gorgeous

Who decides what's/who's gorgeous?  And who designates how long?

"This feels like a highly subjective and judgmental viewpoint",

she says judgmentally and subjectively.

How about if everyone and everything is gorgeous?

Then no one would have to hunt anything or anyone.

With beauty everywhere, wouldn't we only need to open our eyes to see

and become intoxicated with the spirits of gorgeousness?

Namaste'

 

What Comes Next?

"War comes so quickly.  Peace comes so slow."

Why is this?  You can't tell me the first time a human

kills another human, they don't have a monumental shift of perspective.

Why can't it stop at that moment? (I know I'm being unrealistic, but, still?)

Why can't we express our discontent and return to a place of peace

as quickly as the violence erupts? 

Why do we get stuck in the horror of war? 

"I want to believe there's a place in all of us where hate won't grow."

I have planted countless seeds that did not grow.  

Why can't hate be one of those??

"I want to feed that place in myself. 

 I want to listen to that place in you."

Yes.

Yes.

Please and thank you.

Humanity has to find our wisdom and our decency.

We have too much evidence of what cruelty and violence can do

not to learn and grow and act accordingly.

I believe with every cell in my body there is a way.

Namaste'