Caretake this moment. Immerse yourself in its particulars. Respond to this person, this challenge, this deed.
Quit the evasions. Stop giving yourself needless trouble. It is time to really live; to fully inhabit the situation you happen to be in now. You are not some disinterested bystander. Exert yourself.
Respect your partnership with providence. Ask yourself often, How may I perform this particular deed such that it would be consistent with and acceptable to the divine will? Heed the answer and get to work.
When your doors are shut and your room is dark you are not alone. The will of nature is within you as your natural genius is within. Listen to its importunings. Follow its directives.
As concerns the art of living, the material is your own life. No great thing is created suddenly. There must be time.
Give your best and always be kind.
~ Epictetus ~
I’m glad to have not only a folder of saved poems for Friday’s photo and poem feature, but ones already crafted and sitting in the draft folder that occasionally fit the mood. Today was my good fortune as after yesterday’s grueling session at the dentist for a root canal (“Hard work,” declared the dentist. “Tell my jaw,” thought I.), all I was up to last night sipping soup, with a side of Tylenol and Advil, was watching the recommended new Netflix series “‘Man on the Inside.”
Epictetus says it. And in a similar vein, John Muth in his classic children’s tale, The Three Questions, a reworking of Leo Tolstoy, here read by Meryl Streep. Too, a verse from Mary Oliver’s poem, Dogfish, that I love:
“…And anyway it’s the same old story – – – a few people just trying, one way or another, to survive.
Mostly, I want to be kind. And nobody, of course, is kind, or mean, for a simple reason.
And nobody gets out of it, having to swim through the fires to stay in this world…”
Better late than never, here it is.
May your Friday be touched by the glow of nature that shines as much from within you as it does from outside. And may we each and all be kindas we caretake the moments of our lives.
Never more in times of turmoil and chaos, in times of anguish and division, are we this close to the guidance of wisdom. Like standing on the precipice as one thing recedes to make room for something new to exist.
Catastrophe is a clarion call to our highest abilities, but it requires each of us to step more fully into the way of wisdom. We must reconstitute the world through our many small but brave contributions.
So keep going. We need you. You are necessary.
– Toko-pa Turner, “Remaking the World” in Dreamspeak
Not a poem, but writing with a poetic voice, Toko-pa Turner’s timely instruction fit the bill for today’s photo and poem feature.
To remember the clarity and calm found in the eye of the storm…the invitation to wisdom…to persist with our small brave contributions…to know that we are needed and necessary …felt perfectly on point and necessary to share.
To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you.
To seek joy in the saddest places.
To pursue beauty to its lair.
To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple.
To respect strength, never power.
Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.
~Arundhati Roy from The Cost of Living ~
I’ve taken the liberty to reformat Arundhati Roy’s words, originally written in paragraph, to emphasize the power of her statement. Every line, a simple, clear instruction for living in these times. A potent, unequivocal pointing to how to be, and what action to take, or not. An echoing of the many words, paragraphs, and poems that have been newly crafted or resurrected this past week to console and inspire.
This past Monday, in both Canada and the US, was a day officially designated to remember, to never forget the sacrifices made by millions of men and women who gave (and continue to give) life and limb, heart and mind, in the fight for human rights and freedom, and a democratic way of living. A profound juxtaposition that this day occurred so soon after election results that many fear will, with clear and unequivocal intention, undo and make, at the very least, moot these sacrifices.
For it is important that awake people be awake, or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep; the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe — should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
In this week’s writing circle,a monthly zoom space where five of us (give or take, depending on life’s other plans) support each other in living a writerly life, despite life’s other plans, I was invited to read my poem, In the Days That Follow, posted here last week. We spoke of the need to take time to fully feel our griefs; to rekindle small communities of support; to intentionally look for evidence of our being enough; to hold onto our individual visions of hope.
Each a way to help us be awake amidst the deep darkness. Each a commitment to never forget.
Yesterday morning a friend posted a poem-blessing by Kate Bowler, “Keeping a Soft Heart When Everything is Broken” in which she wrote, “Blessed are you who see the world as it truly is. Terrible. Beautiful. Fragile.”
To which I responded, “A wise man once told me our task is to learn how to keep our hearts open in hell. Welcome to class. We have a four-year curriculum.”
Again. In addition to the heavy course load of continuing, persistent tragedy and devastation that encompasses our world.
And yet there is beauty. Still and always. Often hidden in plain sight, against all odds.
Imagine the wrongs made right, the crooked made straight the middle way the means to hold the center strong the point to rise again to choose again to act with love, to be kind.
Invoke the wisdom of ancients, angels, and ancestors with wild words of song, and prayers whispered over a cauldron wrought of shadowed griefs fired by our righteous rage.
Mix equal parts beauty, truth, and justice into an elixir made in paradox, luminescent in the dark heaven sent on the more-than-human breath earth bound on waves of sand and water.
Elemental formula with sacred geometry to bravely mend and steadfastly restore our broken hearts, a torn country, the exhausted planet.
A work in progress, this poem coalesced the day following the US election. Like many around the world, I awoke to the news I’d hoped and prayed would be different. A brief scroll though social media and a friend’s post of an image – no words – of a tear falling down a woman’s cheek said it all.
Last night, I began reading The Dreaming Way: Courting the Wisdom of Dreams (2024), the latest book by Toko-pa Turner. An internationally recognized dreamworker and one with whom I have personally studied, Toko-pa writes, “As our dreams nudge us in step with the larger intent of nature, we grow to see how necessary we are to these troubled times.”
Describing the Dreaming Way as the practice of choosing to live in reciprocity with the inner and outer worlds, she encourages us to regularly shiftour attention away from our modern, external life of reason and rationale to take seriously the imaginal world and dreaming. By doing so, we are contributing to the shifting power in the world and enacting a revolution from within.
My poem, sourced from and steeped in the richness of the imaginal world, is a homage to knowing, trusting, and valuing the necessity of walking in both worlds, my long-time way of being. Now, I recommit to paying more and regular attention to my inner life, a takeaway from my most recent long walk, andthe boon of living in my eldering landscape.My life andour world depend on it.
hope blooms eternal photo captured October 30, 2024
HOPE It hovers in dark corners before the lights are turned on, it shakes sleep from its eyes and drops from mushroom gills, it explodes in the starry heads of dandelions turned sages, it sticks to the wings of green angels that sail from the tops of maples.
It sprouts in each occluded eye of the many-eyed potato, it lives in each earthworm segment surviving cruelty, it is the motion that runs from the eyes to the tail of a dog, it is the mouth that inflates the lungs of the child that has just been born.
It is the singular gift we cannot destroy in ourselves, the argument that refutes death, the genius that invents the future, all we know of God.
It is the serum which makes us swear not to betray one another; it is in this poem, trying to speak.
I have a file where I save poems for my Friday blog. This one was posted by Parker Palmer in late July and felt apropos for today. He wrote by way of introduction:
“Today’s poet, Lisel Mueller (1924-2020), knew all about the threat of far-right politics, aka fascism. In 1939, her family fled Nazi Germany and emigrated to the U.S., where she eventually won a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize for her poetry.
In this poem, she reminds us that hope is a fundamental dynamic in all forms of life, a way to name the energy keeps creating more life, one small act at a time, even in the face of very long odds.
She’s urging us to be sources of hope, sources of a deep resolve “not to betray one another.” I can think of no line that better sums up what’s at stake in the upcoming election. Let’s keep fomenting new life in any way we can. Much depends on it.”
Yes. I hope, with prayers, for my friends south of the border. For all who are suffering from the destruction of war and weather, illness and death. For us all.
“In many Muslim cultures, when you want to ask them how they’re doing, you ask: in Arabic, Kayf haal-ik? or, in Persian, Haal-e shomaa chetoreh? How is your haal?
What is this haal that you inquire about? It is the transient state of one’s heart. In reality, we ask, ‘How is your heart doing at this very moment, at this breath?’ When I ask, ‘How are you?’ that is really what I want to know.
I am not asking how many items are on your to-do list, nor asking how many items are in your inbox. I want to know how your heart is doing, at this very moment. Tell me. Tell me your heart is joyous, tell me your heart is aching, tell me your heart is sad, tell me your heart craves a human touch. Examine your own heart, explore your soul, and then tell me something about your heart and your soul.
Tell me you remember you are still a human being, not just a human doing. Tell me you’re more than just a machine, checking off items from your to-do list. Have that conversation, that glance, that touch. Be a healing conversation, one filled with grace and presence.
Put your hand on my arm, look me in the eye, and connect with me for one second. Tell me something about your heart and awaken my heart. Help me remember that I, too, am a full and complete human being, a human being who also craves a human touch.”
— Omid Safi, from The Disease of Being Busy
heartful distractions on my writing desk
My friend Sally, who I met last year walking the Via di Francesco, shared this post from our mutual friend, Omid Safi. I first “met” Omid when he was one of a cadre of regular bloggers/columnists posting in an early iteration of On Being. It was in the aftermath of 9-11 when tensions, animosities, and cultural misunderstandings were high, particularly in the US. What always touched me was how Omid, who is a professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Duke University, always wrote with an open-hearted clarity, generously giving space for multiple perspectives and opinions, all the while sharing his culture by way of story. In my experience of Omid, his writing and online presence are an embodiment of his love and reverence for his teacher, Rumi, founder of the Sufi order of whirling dervishes.
On a day when I read that over 40,000 lives have been lost to the conflict in Gaza, with thousands more unaccounted for, Omid’s message of heartful connection and healing conversation lands deep within my heart and soul.
Ours has been a virtual friendship. One day I hope to meet Omid in person, perhaps on one of his Illuminated Tours to Turkey or Morocco. One day I hope to put my hand on his arm, look him in the eye, tell him something about the state of my heart, and listen to him tell me about his. And together remember we are each and all human beings, craving human touch, connection, and peace.
THESE DAYS Anyone who tells you not to be afraid should have their head examined. Cities are burning, hillsides are ablaze. and the dumpster fire of our common life is out of control. I wish I could tell you when it was going to get better. I wish I could promise that better was anywhere down this road. I miss dancing, bodies in something between conversation and flight. I miss singing, the way we trusted the air that moved between us. I miss the casual assumption that everything would be alright in the morning. These days I am trying to be buoyed by the smallest things – a ripe tomato, a smattering of rain. These days I am trying to remember that songs of lamentation are still songs.
Lynn Ungar, These Days: Poetry of the Pandemic Age, 2020
There is so much about this poem – found searching my bookshelf for one to frame my day, this week, my life, LIFE – that is in perfect alignment, despite it being written four years ago with its context the pandemic.
Today, I did a Medicine Walk along my favourite river valley route. Despite training for my long walk in September, this walk was not about distance, elevation, or pace. In honor of the feast day of Saint James – Sant Iago, as in Santiago, as in the Camino – it would be a walking prayer for the health and well-being, for a miracle, for a friend… for several friends… each besieged by life-threatening illness. Itbecame, too, a prayer for all beings displaced,distraught, and destroyed by the wildfires.
Despite an almost twenty-degree drop in temperature, with the morning overcast, thick with smoke from wildfires that last night ravaged one of Alberta’s beloved treasures, Jasper National Park, and its century old townsite, and heavy with rain that eventually, blessedly fell, I dressed for weather and set out. I chose as my audio companion the exquisitely composed “Camino” by the late Canadian violinist, Oliver Schroer. The first notes of the first track, “Field of Stars,” are a haunting homage to Santiago de Compostela (field of stars). The ambient tracks blended with birdsong on my path such that I felt surrounded and held by the morning’s poignant beauty. A perfect reflection of my interior landscape and the devastated one to the west.
Where a few weeks ago pink wild roses bloomed thick and heady with perfume, today’s bushes were laden with ripe purple saskatoon berries and blood-red wild raspberries.Golden yarrow and wild sage filled river banks. To my way of thinking, tasting those berries was my holy communion, the real “body of Christ.”
As steam rose from the placid river, a lone pelican glided above on its huge, outstretched wings. I lost sight of it, and then looking up, there he was again, effortless in his flight. I wondered about the significance of his appearance as I’d never seen one before on this stretch. Once home, I consulted Ted Andrews’ classic Animal Speak to learn they represent renewed buoyancy, unselfishness, and the need to not be weighed down by emotion. Wise medicine for these days.
“As I grow older, I realize that my own writing is very much more than just a pleasurable form of self-expresssion – at its heart, it’s a way of trying to change the story, of weaving the possibility of a better world into being through the power of words.”
Sharon Blackie, Hagitude, 2022
space and a horizon from which to consider
I’ve been walking alot these days and keeping me company has been the wonderful voice of Sharon Blackie reading her words in Hagitude: Reimagining the Second Half of Life. She offers in the chapter “The Creatrix,” one of featured archetypes, that the creative work of elder women is about making art that matters, showing others the way, transcending, and transforming our limiting and dysfunctional cultural narratives. Quoting Betty Friedan’s The Fountain of Age (1993):
“‘late-style’ artists and scientists, creators and great thinkers seem to move beyond tumult and discord, distracting details and seemingly irreconcilable differences, to unifying principles that give new meaning to what has gone before and presage the agenda for the next generation.”
While not as articulate, I’ve held the hope that my writing, here in this blog, and in my poetry, offers a new perspective or amplifies and uplifts a current one. I wish for my writing to create and invite readers into a space of contemplation and affirmation, a heart and mind space from which to know and claim their personal power to make a difference.
Since January, I’ve continued to submit my poetry and photography to literary journals and magazines. Once again, where poems have been rejected, often a photo or several have been accepted. This year, two of my photos were first and second choice for the cover of the 2024 Edmonton Stroll of Poets Anthology. After a winter’s worth of rejections, I received word that my poem, “Contemplating the Cherry Tree,” had won first place in the 3rd annual Carmen Ziolkowski Poetry Prize, hosted by Ontario’s Lawrence House Centre for the Arts. And I’m happy to have found some global homes for my work: in Katherine McDaniel’s beautifully curated Synkroniciti, the German-English Amaranth Journal of Food Writing, Art & Design, and Greece’s Raw Lit.
the cherry tree
A month ago, I sent to a publisher twenty pages of my fifty-eight-poem collection, Skyborne Insight. My winter-spring labour of love, working with my skilful editor, essayist-poet Jenna Butler, this manuscript is distilled from noticing and naming the grief and the beauty in life’s imperfections, and the sacred in the mundane moments at home, and those extraordinary ones when travelling abroad. In the final editing, heeding Jenna’s advice, I printed and posted each poem on the wall, read aloud, changed a word, added a comma or new line break, re-ordered, and finally realized, as I read the totality, that I had created a wise and vulnerable collection, one of which I am deeply proud. Now I wait and see…and as Jenna wisely advised, celebrate this significant accomplishment: my manuscript.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote here about the memories evoked by a poem sent to me in celebration of a previous significant accomplishment: my retirement. Every summer, by habit, I compose a to-do list of activities. “Shred files” was this summer’s prompt to review, shred, and recycle the last of my professional files. Drawers and shelves emptied, bags and boxes filled, my heart heeded me to hold on to the folders on facilitation, The Circle Way, the Art of Hosting, and bits from coaching – the mainstays of the career I loved, the career that was my love made visible. I now look forward to re-configuring how to use both the physical and energetic space that’s now been opened for my writing, to more fully nurture its potential to weave into being, with words and photographs, a better world…to presage by continuing to notice and name the nuances of what is asking to be born, of what the world is asking of me.
“…the role of the elder woman as visionary isn’t always an active, ‘out there’ role; sometimes it’s associated with a quieter, more inward-looking aspect of elderhood – perhaps a later life stage, in which she has withdrawn to the solitude and darkness of her symbolic cave…
These old women have left their strivings behind, and in the clarity of all that not-doing, they’ve made room for the space in which to cultivate deep vision, insight, and wisdom.”
Sharon Blackie, Hagitude, 2022
Exploring further and deeper the terrain that is my eldering landscape.
war torn door from UkrainePillar of Love Hermitage Park, ABwar blasted door from Ukraine
UNISON BENEDICTION
Return to the most human, nothing less will nourish the torn spirit, the bewildered heart, the angry mind: and from the ultimate duress, pierced with the breath of anguish, speak of love.
Return, return to the deep sources, nothing less will teach the stiff hands a new way to serve, to carve into our lives the forms of tenderness and still that ancient necessary pain preserve.
Return to the most human, nothing less will teach the angry spirit, the bewildered heart; the torn mind, to accept the whole of its duress, and pierced with anguish… at last, act for love.
May Sarton, Collected Poems 1930-1993
I think recent events south of the border prompted the posting of this poem on social media this week. It’s a time fraught…again…continuously… with uncertainty and anxiety. The polarizing fight for power, opinions weighing heavier than truth…torn spirits, angry minds. Tonight, in this house, tempers flared at dinner as days of heat warnings and insomnia-induced fatigue made patience a precious thing.
Driving to the start of this morning’s training walk, I heard a brief interview with one of the members of DahkaBrakha, a Ukrainian band who combines “traditional folk and punk, drawing inspiration from their Ukrainian homeland with a global sensibility. Melodies from the ancient past collide with future sounds…their style ‘ethno-chaos.'” Marko said the point of their music is to declare to the world that, despite what their invading neighbor says, Ukrainian culture and language exist…and to remind people everywhere in the democratic world, that their problem is not only their problem, but also a big problem for all democratic countries. The truth of his words stung. And as I set out, I was struck with how news cycles now make almost obsolete, or at least only mid-section coverage of Ukraine’s plight, and how much duress, at every scale, many of us hold.
“Return to the most human,” Sarton’s benevolent instruction.
“The dark thought, the shame, the malice/meet them at the door laughing, / and invite them in,” admonishes Rumi.
A Wabi Sabi Life 