Friday, September 28, 2012

"Each succeeding year..."



"Each succeeding year
unfolds wisdom,
beauty,
and holiness."


- Mary Baker Eddy




Like the leaves
I am
starting to
change
colors

brown to
white,
pale
to something as
mottled as the
fragile shell of a
woodthrush
held softly
beneath a feathered
breast

like the blossoms
I am beginning to
change texture

from firm,
to delicate

plump-lipped,
to lined and
deckled
all along
each petal's
fine edge
unblighted,
and
still ripe with the
fragrant first kiss of that summer,
long after morning's dew
retreats to
touch the
sun

bright days,
busy with the bustling pace
of earlier seasons --
diaper bags,
snacks for soccer,
the hurried meal before
rehearsals,
give way to
shorter days
and longer nights
filled with
quiet gratitude,
reflection,
remembering...

my steps,
once brisk with
self-determination and
sure intent,
have slowed to
a pace
less driven by
a future I can only,
almost,
grasp

less haunted by a
past I
once ran from

If I spend
countless hours
looking out to sea,
it is because the soft
ebb and flow of
timeless days
soothes me with her
rhythmic reliability,
comforts my
fear of endings
with this
promise,
"there is more,
there is more..,"

my branches
once limber and willowy
are
now
strong from
years of holding on
while they
-- like Isis --
reached for the sun

today,
I'm learning the
gift of
self-compassion

of letting go
without pain,
regret,
or sorrow --
I am ready

to give birth to,
yet,
another season's
colors

the
new
blush
of
another
rose...

"...seedtime
has come
to enrich earth
and enrobe man in righteousness;
may its sober-suited autumn
follow with hues of heaven,
ripened sheaves,
and harvest
songs."



- .ibid


Monday, September 24, 2012

"no darkness, at all..."


"God is light, 
and in Him
is no darkness
at all..." 

  -  I John 


I think 
of a pitch black 
night 

a darkness so 
impenetrable 
that the 
I cannot see
my hand
before my face, 
no pinprick 
of starlight, 
no 
streetlamp 
to distract, 
no shadows 
to dream by... 

now, 
i try to 
think of light 
void of its absence, 
a light 
without 
the any darkness 
at all... 

and it is 
almost 
unimaginable... 

no shadows to 
give 
texture, 
establish distance, 
nearness, 
the juxtapositioning of 
hierarchy...
who's on first, 
who's on second... 

all things in the 
clear,
Light-saturated,
present-tense,
in the
all  
Beingness
of 
now...
His 
I AM

no foreground of 
importance, 
nothing falling into 
the distance...

I try to
to imagine it
but it is 
without precedence
on this 
timeline of 
past, 
present, 
future... 

this bar graph 
of good, 
better, 
best...

I can only 
know...

light without 
any 
darkness

Love without 
any 
hesitancy 

Health without 
any fear
of the unknown 

Peace without 
any 
hidden threat
of 
chaos

Trust without 
any 
lingering 
doubts 

Giving 
without 
any 
expectation of 
receiving... 

Light without 
any 
darkness

at 
all... 

"...no darkness
at all..." 


― ibid. 

Monday, September 17, 2012

"What evaporates is never lost..."



"As a drop of water,
is one with the ocean..." 

- Mary Baker Eddy

If a drop of
water is one with
the ocean...

is it also one
with
the cloud?

and if
one with the cloud,
then what of the
mist,
the dew,
the drenching rain,
the steam that
turns raw
dough into
dumplings for the
evening meal,
hard grains of rice
into a
banquet for
the
starving...

two molecules of
hydrogen
bonded to a single
oxygen
molecule

a family
so
small
that what
we see as
"a drop"
is actually a
tiny collective,
a small
community,
a village of
molecular adoption...

individual
elements
coalescing,
uniting,
converging,
cooperatively
working side-by-side to
feed,
cleanse,
sate,
assuage,
refresh,
buoy,
energize,
lift
a
world...

and when they dance
apart
into
a swirl of
vapor

rising from the
boiling pot,
the steaming bamboo...

in its wake there
is another
meal,
a day without
hunger,
an opportunity to
share...

but, where
is the grief?

what of the drop
of water...

no longer round and
heavy,
wet with promise,
cool on the
tongue...

is it lost into
the ether

failed of remaining
fat and liquid,
formless and
forgotten

does density of
mass
define purpose,
beauty,
life...

no...

the eternal cycles of
Being
rise and fall,

and
fall

and rise,

they
gather,
adopt,
condense,
surrender,
fall,
be,
give,
evaporate,
rise...and yet rise, again

to
gather,
adopt...

become
a single
family of three...

two hydrogen
one oxygen

ceaseless cycles of
opportunity for
shared
good...

yet
always rising,
ever rising

to fall
and rise again

what is unseen
is not lost

just different

a vertical horizon,
a change of perspective,
a journey of
grace

no loss...
never lost
just liquid,
to solid,
to liquid,
to gas,
to vapor,
to liquid....

a beautiful lake,
an inspiring cloud,
refreshing rain,
steam that unlocks the
grain of
rice...

each stage
a gift of Love
rising,
and yet rising,
on the
wings of
eternity

only to
fall

"...Life is eternal,
and love is immortal,
and death is only a horizon --
and the horizon is nothing,
save the limit of our sight..." 


― Rossiter W. Raymond

I love this Carly Simon version of Raymond's poem,
"Life is Eternal" it has invited me to climb higher so that, perhaps, someday, I can see further.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

"There was a time..."

"There was a time
when men were kind.
When their voices were soft
and their words inviting..."

- Alain Boublil

I have dreams that
are my own,
and dreams I share with
men of vision,
women of
charity,
children who refuse to
give in to the
cynicism of
self.

I've heard their
dreams in
speeches,
seen on them placards,
felt them pounding
under the feet of a million
men
marching for liberty,

dreams I've reached into the
heavy air of
a Washington afternoon
and
grasped so tightly
in heart,
that
my pulse became a
pledge to
never let
go
until we
had overcome...

I've dreamed dreams that
seemed but specters on the horizon of
a thousand fallen hopes,
and dreams that
held the lives of countless in
the balance.

I've fought for the right to
dream of freedom
and wept for the
freedom to dream

I've marched and
rallied,
chanted and sung,

I've prayed for the imprisoned
and wept for the ones who died
never knowing
life without chains...

I dreamed that men from different sides
could build bridges of
kindness towards a common
future,
and that mothers would
never forget to remember
that
for every child we
send to war,
there is another mother whose
son,
or daughter,
faces them
across the
great
divide...

I still dream dreams...
but my dreams are simpler now...

I dream that men will be kinder,
that children will not go hungry,
that women can walk safely on the streets at night,
that all are sheltered,
that when we don't agree,
our words are soft,
and our
hearts are open...

to the power of Love.

for this,

I dream...

"... I dreamed
that love would never die.
I dreamed that God would be forgiving..."
― ibid.

I heard this version of
"I Dreamed a Dream" -- as sung by Anne Hathaway in the trailer for the new release of Les Miserable -- and found it heart-breakingly beautiful, and hauntingly lovely.

Monday, September 10, 2012

"make me a channel...."

"Make me a channel
for thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me hold love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope..."
- St. Francis Assissi

I've been thinking
about this "channel"
I keep asking you to
make
of
me...

a place where
the river of Your pleasures
can flow without
obstruction...

ahhh,
now I see...
that all Your deep carving --
the honing away
of
pride,
self-certainty,
arrogance,
and me, me, me
thinking --
was part of the plan
to
make me
more
useful to You...

only a channel
can carry
waters deep enough to
buoy a sound vessel
towards the sea,
the Source,
the headwaters of
divinity

only a deep and wide
channel can
hold enough water that
one is cleansed in its broad
arms and
not muddied in the shallows
of self-absorbed
churning...

only a broad
channel can bring the
ferried hopeful
home to
"the other side,"
and
navigate the shoals of
time,
memory,
accomplishment,
regret
without
shattering the
keel

so, make me a channel
of your peace,
a fathomless passageway
for your
Love...

carve out all ego-based
debris

I now know
that
Your deepest cuts
make for purer waters...

I am not asking to be
treated gently,
to be pacified or handled with
lavender kid gloves...

remove the
detritus of self-will,
self-love,
self-preservation...

anything that would
obstruct
the pure,
clear,
refreshing,
transparent
selfless
waters of
You...

carve deeply
for
I have
no other purpose...

I
am
Yours...

"...that I may not
so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned..."
― ibid.