Light The Torches of Others

Imagine yourself lighting the torch of every person you meet with your smile, your dignity, and your presence.  Something we can all do for each other to light the way back to sanity, truth, and justice for all.  KAS

Things Fall Apart-- Better Thing Come Together

This adds a spark of hope and even joyful anticipation to those times when good things are falling apart or falling away.  KAS

Box Full of Darkness

I'm sitting with these words and this thought.  As someone prone to visit the dark side; seeing it as a gift takes some adjustment since my goal is to seek the light.  This invites me to remember feeling and expressing the emotions of darkness is wholehearted exercise.  There is a rhythm between light and dark, joy and sorrow, hope and despair on this human plain. However, there is a giant difference between what is sorrowful and what is wrong.  Wrong is not a gift.  KAS

A Brave and Startling Truth

This is long.  And strong.  Take the time if you can.  If not, skip to the last two stanzas.  KAS

A BRAVE AND STARTLING TRUTH

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth 

And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms 

When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil 

When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze 

When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse 

When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets 

Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world 

When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe 

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines 

When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear 

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.

“A Brave and Startling Truth” was published in a commemorative booklet in 1995 and was later included in Maya Angelou: The Complete Poetry (public library).

Anything Can Be

Let there be True Democracy.  True Liberty and Real Justice for All.  KAS

Own Your Power

I like to think we are all "great" already.  What does being "great" mean to you?  These words and the thoughts they invoke can serve to remind us.  KAS

Our Own Best Ally

We have to make sure we ARE our own best ally.  In my inner world, the harshest critic is most often myself.   Why?  I work diligently to catch myself and change the narrative to one of understanding, empathy, and forgiveness even when it feels super awkward.  Being kind to yourself is vital.  KAS