The Cure For It All

"Go gently, don't hurry or think about the next thing."

This is something to whisper to yourself often.  

It may sound simple but in a world of plans, calendars,

and activities with others, it's no small feat.

"Walk with the quiet trees."

I think of the countless times I walk among them,

and miss their magnificence. 

Yet, they stand present to me whether I notice or not.

"Forgive yourself for not meeting your unreasonable expectations."

And forgive yourself for having these unreasonable expectations.

"Allow the river of it all to pulse through eyelashes...

fingertips...bare toes."

These are all smart suggestions although, 

in my world, some things do need to be different.

It's a conundrum I cannot escape. 

It's reminders like these that provide balance

and sanity amidst the turmoil.  

It's reminders like these that will lead

to a better world for all inhabitants.

 

Instead of Lamenting

How does it feel to shift your thinking from aging to transformation? 

I feel like it's going to take some getting used to.

When I notice the incredible diversity and exquisite, raw beauty 

of decaying logs and stumps, it becomes somewhat easier...

especially when there is new life growing from decaying wood.

Aging calls for its own kind of grace.

A seesaw between accepting the creaks and groans and relinquishing to them;

and refusing to let them rule your days...moving anyway, staying young hearted.

Not giving in to the age old (no pun intended) story

that we diminish as we age.  Rather, making our story 

one of transformation into something vibrant, fertile and lively.

 

 

I Hope You Make The Time

 Let the "soft wind knock you over and destroy

all the partts of you that you never really needed anyway."

Considering the parts of me I never really needed anyway

is a fertile place for contemplation.

I don't know about you but my focus is getting things right,

doing the best I can, lamenting my forgetfulness, and wishing my body

would cooperate with all the physical things that need doing...

not to mention practicing the inner qualities I desire, 

such as patience, kindness, generosity, and good will toward all.

I dare say, the longer the length of your stay on earth

the more likely circumstances knock you over and destroy parts

you may not need, making this message pertinent and comforting.

"It's okay to not be strong sometimes."

May we give ourselves and each other the grace

to release the requirement to 

cover every base and scale every mountain...

to ugly weep in public without embarrassment...

to express sorrow without being labeled "debbie downer"...

to rage at injustice...

to laugh when things are somber...

to be flawed to perfection.

PS: I struggled with adding, to respect those who disagree with us...

I  wrote it several different ways and erased it each time.

I don't have the strength in this moment to say it with conviction.

This makes me sad from the inside out.

That being said, I still think its something worth pursuing...

even if it means scaling a very steep mountain to get there.

After Grief

 "having sensed the barest hint of sun still buried

like a bulb beneath the horizon, and decided

that's all the proof it needs to say its own

small yes to life in this new season."

This...these words describe how it 

feels to be alive in this vast universe...

yes, minuscule as we may feel,

we can sense the barest hint of sun

and murmur our own small yes to life...

Each one of us is doing this in our own unique manner.

Eeking our way through our days with

everything in us as fuel toward the sun of goodness...

We know who we are and who we wish to become.

We will not be deterred from our goal.

We're in this together.

We are not alone.

Like the crocus,

in our reach toward the sun...

we find ourselves in a field of blooming.  

Hope

There is a catch in my breath every time I read this.

It describes how hope feels these days...

dense and dark and sorrowful

and utterly beautiful.

"It lands in my body with all the fragile gravity

of mist suspended in light."

This description is so precise it steals my breath

and steels my resolve to cherish it 

beyond every ounce of strength I possess.

Yes, hope is the thing I'll follow 

in the darkest times, a living root I'll cling to

as it tenderly threads through the rich soil of my sorrows."

Oh my heart...a living root as it tenderly threads through

the rich soil of my sorrows.  

Everything inside me sighs in recognition of this truth.

It touches the sorrows I hide from and lets them breathe.

It reminds me how this "living root" also threads tenderly

through the rich soil of my drudges and my delights...

If I concentrate, I can almost detect its slow, steady winding...

circling and spiraling...

 grounding and centering me in the mist of hope.

 

 

Wage Kindness

"Wage your sorrows as blankets for the shivering.

The thought that my sorrow could be useful to another

is something I have not considered. I would like it to be true.

This lets sorrow have its full range,  even though it seems a stretch 

to actually end one's shivering.

"Wage your despair [to] feed the fire of hope."

Yes, feeding the fire of hope.

My despair is plentiful and ready to blaze.

"Build bridges for the repentants, for the returning.

Yes, even them. Wage an open hand in forgiveness."

These are the lines that propel me to share this poem.

I confess to a certain amount of cynicism given

our history in this country.  May our forgiveness

bring about truth and fairness.

May it not feed a fire of revenge.

Wage yourself against the evidence of dying,

and give life to another."

We are all in the process of dying...

bringing joy and gratitude

into the gravest of situations

is resistance of the bravest kind.

It is everything.

 

Lives In My Chest

I don't know about you but this "messy, howling creature"

has been acting this way for quite some time now.  

I'm not sure it's necessary to calm her down...

better to give her a magic carpet and a map to places 

that need to hear her roar.

Perhaps lend her a band with trumpets playing reveille

to gather goodness into one giant song 

weaving us into one boisterous chorus,

with speakers reaching every heart...

to reconnect us and put an end to indecency, 

 so we remember the forgotten,

 rebuild and strengthen fairness...

applying it generously...leaving no one out.

 Return honest justice to our lands and people.

Then we can begin repairing what's been broken...

 healing what is ailing...

 reconnecting neighbors...  mending divisions...

 honoring lost lives...  comforting those hurting...

letting teachers teach... evening the playing field...

ripening what is unripe in ourselves and our world.

Let's welcome this "messy, howling creature".

We need her.

We need us.

 

Sing From Your Soul

". . .over every holy place of death

 in your story."

This quote touches 

a very tender place for me.

There have been deaths 

in holy places in my story, 

so excruciating I can no longer resurrect them,

 leaving blank places where I long 

to hold vivid, precious, memories.

"Serenade the dry, cracked pieces..."

My serenade is

 the opposite of musical...

it's a circling around, 

focusing my mind

on what shards of memory are there...

and peering through the haze 

hoping my body will help

 my mind recall the treasures 

of when my girls were small.

The wonder of it is this...

the wild beauty exists 

in their presence today...

and that's what matters most...

for which I’m infinitely grateful.

In Case You've Forgotten

"There are waterfalls that exist beneath the ocean, 

larger than any on land and places 

where no light has ever reached, 

yet life still exists there. "

How I would love to explore beneath the ocean.

That fact that "no light ever reaches yet lift still exists" 

fills me with amazement.

". . .jellyfish that can return to an earlier stage of life instead of dying."

This is something I was not aware of.

If the T. dohrnii jellyfish is exposed to environmental stress, physical assault, or is sick or old, it can revert to the polyp stage, forming a new polyp colony.^[5] It does this through the cell development process of transdifferentiation, which alters the differentiated state of the cells and transforms them into new types of cells.

Theoretically, this process can go on indefinitely, effectively rendering the jellyfish biologically immortal,^[3][6] although in practice individuals can still die. In nature, most Turritopsis dohrnii are likely to succumb to predation or disease in the medusa stage without reverting to the polyp form.^[7]Wikipedia

" . . .animals that can sense the earth's magnetic field, 

navigating entire continents without getting lost,

. . .your own heart has a magnetic field that extends beyond your body."  

Of course Monarchs come to mind

and many, many other creatures who navigate the globe by instinct.

"You live on a planet where your senses filter out most of reality

 just so you can function, meaning you are always 

living inside a version of it and never seeing it all."

While this sounds comforting, especially if we would be

nonfunctioning if we were able to take it all in,

it would be interesting to experience, for a minute or two.

If one could tolerate it that long?

Life these days in this country might be a tiny taste of it?

It's easy to become stagnant and numb 

when things are overwhelming and threatening.

I'm happy to be reminded of the astonishing happenings

going on mostly unnoticed in the universe and

feel enormous gratitude for those who study and explore

and share their findings, letting us in on the marvels they encounter.

It's why I want to do whatever small thing I can to 

treat our planet the way it deserves to be treated.

 

 

Dear Peace

"You are one of the few things left that cannot be purchased,

but must instead be cultivated and shaped over time."

This hurts my heart with the decades spent cultivating

peace in the world destroyed in a rash act of aggression.

We all find ourselves like the Spring Beauty, with 

"mouths searching for the right words to speak or sing."

We are still cultivating and shaping precious peace

whether we're doing so quietly through simple acts

of gentle kindness, or loudly with posters,

phone calls, and solidarity with decency.

Even when it seems futile, we know it is not.

It matters.  We matter.  ALL of us matter.

 

To Be Wild

"Love of nature,

delight in silence,

a voice free to say spontaneous things,

exuberant curiosity in the face of the unknown"?

Sounds like heaven,

sounds like nirvana,

sounds like paradise.

Sounds like Earth as it should be.

 

Inner Acreage

"Sometimes I forget this inner world is there.

I start believing only in the outer world. 

How exhausting life is then."

Don't we all know how mind numbing it is out there.

The more often you set your GPS for your inner terrain,

the easier it is to navigate the journey, right?

I keep setting the GPS against outside interference.

Sometimes, it's agreeable, others, decidedly not.

The practice continues.

". . .when I still. . .I'm out of the way. 

Then everything is the way."

Key phrase being, when I still.

"There are no words there, but look at me,

trying anyway to explain this nothing to do

and nowhere and nothing to experience

which is everything."

This is a life long tendency...it started with

trying to explain eternity to myself in second grade.

". . .like a traveler trying to take a dozen photos

to represent a whole country, only to discover

they're all blank."

Because, no matter how many layers you apply,

you simply cannot capture the majesty and the mystery

of that liminal space where truth and goodness reside.

It's there...it simply refuses to be "proven".

 

Sweet Light

What makes you burn?

Pay attention.

Let it guide your actions.

Some burnings glow beneath those surface

of outrages designed to distract

and temporary tantrums over 

momentary annoyances.

Notice the difference. 

Listen for the deep burnings...

the ones that stay smoldering,

the ones that spark back time after time,

sometimes for decades.

Ask yourself: "if no one you respect

is watching, what would you do?"

Follow that thought.

It matters.

 

Everything

"What is time to the spider knitting her intricate

angles and outlines against the trusting morning sun?"

I love this line...thinking of the spider's legs as 

wee knitting needles spinning the yarn from her saliva

as she weaves her delicate, bullet-proof web.

"Any day is made up of what's spent--

the brief surge and the wane of curiosity,

the stretch to accept the temporary.

Temporary is coming to my attention often

these days.  How fleeting everyone is,

how precious the time they are here.

Luxuriating in who and what crosses my path.

"To kneel and look closely at everything

is everything."

The marvels brought to us by microscopes

and telescopes testify to the human desire

and ability to "look closely".

Yet, the only instruments necessary are our eyes

and/or our imagination.  The wonder of "seeing"

what is not tangible or physical in the moment

is another way of seeing.

Live is everything.  

 

Dear Mother Earth

"dear mother earth,"

because of you...

I notice bluets growing 

amidst thick grass and feel delight.

A cooling breeze 

on a hot day brings a sigh of pleasure.

Bodies of water, of many sizes, always presenting

 a different image are an endless  marvel.

I whoop at my first sighting  of a hummer 

of the season on the honeysuckle.

The return of the bloodroot, the trillium, the trout lilies,

remind me how reliable you are.

You provide more wonders than I can name.

Add on all I cannot name, and all that hasn't been discovered.

Mother Earth, you are not only an astonishing artist;

you are also a supreme provider 

of all things beautiful, intricate, complex, 

nourishing and necessary.

It's a feast of plenty and everyone's invited.

May we celebrate your generosity

by taking great care of you.

 

Enough

". . .enough of the pointing to the world, weary and desperate,

encough of the brutal and the border, 

enough of can you see me, can you hear me,

enough I am human. . .

enough of the animal saving me, enough of the

high [low] water,

enough sorrow..."

She manages to squeeze so many incidents a person

can identify with, it leaves me breathless and wrung out

even to read it.

And then the gut punch of an ending.

"I am asking you to touch me."

What human, animal, plant, rock isn't hungry for touch?

These words shook me deep in my solar plexus.

Deeper yet,  into that cavern of spirit some call a soul.

A place even a surgeon can't find.

Words can do that, I realize.  Bravo to Ada for proving it to me.

 

Instructions For Having A Soul

This is remarkable.

"from time to time, let it kneel in a place that is holy,

like the simple cathedral of the willows."

Or your favorite spot in the woods, at the river,

in your vegetable garden, a wildflower patch,

a graveside of a loved one, 

next to a puddle mirroring the sky...

make sure to note your own reflection.

"All it wants is to live, to keep becoming."

Stretch ourselves even the tiniest bit.

Applaud vigorously. 

Keep becoming. 

 Let our inside out once in awhile.

"You cannot save the world but you can

open the window for the trapped wren

in the cellar."

We are the trapped wren in the cellar.

"Read a book to a blind man, to your father."

Is your father the blind man?

If not, find a blind man and read to him.

"Tell a child you do believe her anger."

Listen to your own.  Believe it.

Honor it. Let it teach you.

"Make your life the first life you save."

 

In The Hush

"Nature doesn't ask me to toughen up."

It can be a struggle to stay soft when

the world seems gripped by "strong", 

wrong minded humans, attempting to exert

their will upon the rest of us.

"softness is strength, and

that being deeply human is part 

of belonging here."

And we do belong.  We are a perfect fit

no matter who and where we are.

Stay stubborn.

Stay you.

 

Another Morning

Which is exactly why we must remain stubborn

enough to stay.  

PS:  If Hungary can do it, so can we.

 

Hush

"how do hear the wordless, the wise?

. . . the fresh, the new, the true."

I would also include the timeless,

the classic, the enduringly true.

Not the worn out but the worn in,

the time tested.

". . .hush the blast of noise and ask the trees,

the chickadees to point us inward."

What trees do we listen to?

I'd say all of them...the virgin forests,

the sprout, the seedling, the sapling, the mature, the stump...

as well as the fallen, the decomposing, the burning, the ashes and the absent.

The hush within us is where our truest, most alive self resides.

Visiting there is no easy venture yet worth the effort,

even when it leaves you weepy and spent...

truth can be excruciating,

truth can be exhausting.  

Making your own path through it takes

 everything you have been, 

everything you are and 

everything you are becoming

and alchemizes you into the finest, 

supremely intricate, 

endlessly resilient, 

totally irreplaceable 

truly amazing river of goodness 

you already are.

 

Ours Is Not The Task

And here it is: "Any small, calm thing that one soul

can to do help another soul. to assist some portion

of this poor suffering world, will help immensely."

I keep reminding myself of this when things become

so horrifying and unbelievably ghastly.

I repeat any small, calm thing...

any small, calm thing over and over.

It keeps me on the lookout for opportunities.

You never know if your act of kindness becomes 

 the twig that brings down the empire.

It's the accumulation of heartfelt actions

that turn the tide. 

On a slightly different note,

Here is HCR's last statement in her post today

about the end of the civil war.  It's well worth a read.

"The Civil War was won not by the dashing sons of wealthy planters,

 but by men like Grant, who dragged himself out of his blankets and 

pulled a dirty soldier’s uniform over his pounding head

 on an April morning because he knew 

he had to get up and get to work."  HCR

We will not lose our democracy to billionaires.

And every kind gesture to relieve suffering matters.

 

Things Nature Taught Me

Things Nature Is Teaching me...

You can't always trust the weather report...

best to check the sky with your own eyes.

Pay attention to the small things...tiny vignettes

of exquisite art lie in the most unexpected places.

There is beauty in decay.

Soak in the magnificence of the moment.

It can vanish in a heartbeat.

There is always more to learn.

Invisible happenings matter.

There is nothing more astonishing

than a visitation from the wild.

The humblest creature 

is doing mighty work.

There is way, way more going on

than you can see on the surface.

You don't have to remember the name

of something in order to fall in love.

Weeds are in the eyes of the beholder.

There is wonder in the way

things appear and disappear

and appear again, time after time.