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'

 

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

 are the ones most often translating it for us.

 

It seems pretty darn remarkable!

Namaste'

 

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'

 

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'

 

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'

 

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.

(https://ahundredfallingveils.com/2022/11/13/lumbricus-terrestris)

"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'

 

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'