Tuesday, February 28, 2017

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...

Monday, February 27, 2017

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...

Friday, February 24, 2017

Truth #4


Truth...

Thursday, February 23, 2017

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...



Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Beyond Thought

new place to
meditate
star gaze

be
beyond
thought 

 
 







Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Truth #3


always...

Monday, February 20, 2017

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


Sunday, February 19, 2017

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






Saturday, February 18, 2017

Spiritual Comfort

 did both today
a comfort
when i am caught between
my broken mind
and fragile
heart




Thursday, February 16, 2017

Fly

this
 how it feels
 bipolar
up...down
neither easy
tonight...
i just want to
fly




Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Truth #2





Monday, February 13, 2017

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"

Sunday, February 12, 2017

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"



Saturday, February 11, 2017

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




Friday, February 10, 2017

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

Thursday, February 9, 2017

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



Tuesday, February 7, 2017

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



Monday, February 6, 2017

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




Sunday, February 5, 2017

Truth

truth....


Saturday, February 4, 2017

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




Friday, February 3, 2017

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

Thursday, February 2, 2017

Sing Me Home


memories
worn like a
favorite blue coat
torn
tattered
from too much
love
all the warmth
needed
to sing me
home
  








Wednesday, February 1, 2017

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...