The Thread of All Sorrows

Kindness

naomi shihab nye

Before you know what kindness really is

you must lose things..

feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand..

what you counted and carefully saved..

all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be

between the regions of kindness.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside..

you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

You must wake up with sorrow.

You must speak to it till your voice

catches the thread of all sorrows

and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore..

only kindness that ties your shoes

and sends you out into the day

to mail letters and purchase bread..

only kindness that raises its head

from the crowd of the world to say:

It is I you have been looking for..

and then goes with you everywhere

like a shadow or a friend.

today finds me feeling loss

deep in my bones as i watch

the thread of all sorrows

unravel...

The Night Has Eyes To Recognize Its Own

when your eyes are tired

the world is tired also

when your vision has gone

no part of the world can find you

time to go into the dark

where the night has eyes

to recognize its own

there you can be sure

you are not beyond love

the dark will be your womb

tonight

the night will give you a horizon

further than you can see

you must learn one thing:

the world was made to be free in

give up all the other worlds

except the one to which you belong

sometimes it takes darkness

and the sweet confinement of your aloneness

to learn

anything or anyone

that does not bring you alive

is too small for you

                                                                                        ~ david whyte

yes...

Truth #4

Truth...

Stay Away

"the japanese have a beautifully quiet and sculptural

way of saying "stay away" or "no access" by tying a 

rock with black twine and using strategic placement."

i love this...

Beyond Thought

new place to

meditate

star gaze

be

beyond

thought 

 

 

Truth #3

always...

Someone's Praying Lord

today was spent burning brush from yesterday's work

there is something soothing about sitting by fire

all afternoon my feathered ones flitted from tree to tree

diving low over my head...across the fire

and they sang

not the warning song of hawks visit

but

chittering

chattering

happy sounds

i know what they were singing...

 

kumbaya my lord...kumbaya

kumbaya my lord...kumbaya

 

 at the end of the day

with a good cup of coffee

i sang too

What the Heart Knows

after my morning prayer/meditation i sat with a realization.

prayers for friends included three with heart attacks...two

with hip surgeries...all a little older than my 63

revolutions around the sun. each of these friends require daily

medications for their quality of life. 

i don't...i do heavy work outside daily and welcome

the spent muscles come night fall.

i also realized that i identify with being bipolar.

it's through no fault of my own that i have this mental disorder...

but it is NOT who i am. i spent this day "observing" the entity

that chatters in my mind and saw that "I" am something separate.

when all the "monkey mind" cranked up i focused on being

present...my breathing...the birds singing...the sensation of my
fingers rubbing together...how the sun felt like a warm hug...this

was "me"...not all the angst and "not good enough" feelings being

whispered in my head. my mind seems to be addicted to pain...
playing movies of what has happened...may or
may not ever happen again.

but my heart knows

it knows...

me

so...tonight i sit...

a little long in the tooth

but truly blessed

looking forward to

getting reacquainted with

me

Spiritual Comfort

 did both today

a comfort

when i am caught between

my broken mind

and fragile

heart

Fly

this

 how it feels

 bipolar
up...down

neither easy

tonight...

i just want to

fly

Truth #2

What The Night Does To Me

"i fear mostly my inability to capture all the things that come

i fear their mysterious source...i fear their fate

i fear me

this is true

it's like finding a river of gold when you haven't even

got a cup to save a cup full

you've but a thimble

and that thimble is your pathetic brain

and labor

and humanness

i like too many things and get all confused

and hung up running from one falling star

to another 

till i drop

this is the night

what it does to me

i have nothing to offer anybody

except my own

confusion"

Wearing Only My Questions

"i knock on the doors of the universe

asking:

what makes the swirl of love songs?

and the parallel singing of loss?

and the choice to live life alone?

i have nothing

except a fierce hunger

to fathom this world

naked

i knock on the door

wearing only my questions"

The Face of God

                             last night                              

full Snow Moon

eclipse

comet

beckoning

 my 

soul

"the soul can split the sky in two

and let the face of God shine through"

and so it

was

The Eating of Pain

i watched a small winged one

eat fire ants today

kindred
feathered
soul
we
whose

insatiable hungers
precipitate
 embracing

 the eating
of

pain

Wanderings

                                                                                       photo by chris burkard

sleeplessness

my spirit an essence of color

the eye can not see

i do not recognize my mind

these nights of planetary wanderings

greeting the dawn

a hardship

once you have walked

among the

stars

Written On the Heart

                                                              artwork by deborah sheedy

 

the shape that wears me

peering through the mirror

fears not dark

nor death

but the loneliness

written on it's heart

in a tongue

it cannot 

speak

Zero

if you look at zero 

you see nothing

but look through it

and you will behold the

world

behold

not see

there is a

difference

Truth

truth....

Celestial Tears

                                                                           original artwork by gabriel guerrero

                                                                      

at my lossness

angels

always found

girding

my seeking soul

celestial tears

purge 

haze covered eyes

til the light 

returns

Even The Trees Cried

there is a story
of great sadness

lives deep
in my bones

that can't be read
 in the sun

under a blanket
 of grey

a crow sang it
 out loud
even the trees
cried

Sing Me Home

memories

worn like a

favorite blue coat

torn

tattered

from too much

love
all the warmth
needed
to sing me
home

  

My Saving Grace

                                                image via the wild unknown instagram

meditation
on and off for years
over this past year...

daily

twenty minutes upon rising

forty in the noon hour

at monkey mind's knock
requiring a thirty seven hundred

 word essay 

who 

what

why

 breathe in the chatter

acknowledge it's presence

release

 let it go

it has been my saving

grace...