kuddos & quotes from others who inspire
∴
i found myself in a deep wood,
as that’s where the trail
had brought me.
but you came up beside me
and i found comfort
and courage
and balance over root.
the trees have grown taller
than i can see ‘round
and their bark is rough to touch
but there is a light
ahead,
i think.
it casts both our shadows
behind us.
∴
∴
Eckhart Tolle speaks of a “pain body”
as the collected consciousness
of a group of people:
women,
jews,
african americans,
soldiers,
slaves,
orphans –
the unborn, even –
any group
that has shared deep cultural
or circumstantial knowing
and trauma
that was suffered
silently in the world
and profoundly
in the soul.
it is as if the heavens heard
all of their screams and songs
and collected them in a celestial choir
in which every voice
was finally accounted for.
it is a concept i cannot get out of my mind
for the resonance it strikes in my heart.
i wonder to how many bodies i belong
as my own
does not feel
and has never felt
exclusively
my own.
i have belonged to masters
and to tyrants
to children born
and babies buried.
i have belonged to longing
and to hunger.
to sold hair
and hidden treasures.
i have belonged to war
and the peace-less
peace time that followed.
how do i know this?
i, a glass upon the shelf?
what earthquake have i weathered!?
and still,
somehow,
i know this.
in ancient voice
my young flesh
cries out
like a tuning fork
that intones the
voice of my mothers:
“to the one we all belong
we have returned
and are still singing
and are still screaming
and are still living
and are still loving;
can you not hear
what we say?
give voice
give voice
and the world
one day
will listen.”
∴
∴
According to his memoirs,
Hemingway
used to encourage himself
to the page
by telling himself
to start with
one true sentence
and write it down.
He said the story would build from there.
It is my hope
that one can do that with a life, too.
∴
∴
when i was a child,
i read a funny poem
about the silly things our shadows do:
“for he sometimes shoots up taller like an
india-rubber ball,
and he sometimes gets so little that
there’s none of him at all.” 〈¹〉
and i thought that’s all a shadow was.
and if it was more,
i was sure i didn’t want to find it.
stay in bright and lucid lights,
censor all your wayward sights,
and keep away from all the things
that beckon back to night.
·
but shadow’s born from light.
·
do you see?
do you see?
there is not one without the other.
they dance and wrestle with one another.
as we do.
as we do.
and after all this time
of chasing the hottest of spots –
straining to keep it directly over head,
or rather,
keep myself directly under it,
in hopes of never casting a shape
or falling
out of line
(as shadows do break lines) –
i found myself fatigued by the fear
and my pace faltered
and the sun moved faster
than my gait
and my shadow gained length before me.
turning, turning, now, i see
the reapless seam upon my feet.
where flesh meets shade
both in me made,
a truer height does reach.
a quiet voice attempts to teach.
and as a truce i hope to make
i stretch my hand, to shadow shake.
∴
-St. Francis of Assisi
When he was a young man, Schubert was poor.
So poor that
he couldn’t afford staff paper.
So he spent hours drawing five parallel lines across pages and pages of paper
that he might finally ornament them with
notes,
melody,
harmony,
silence,
cry,
victory,
anger,
joy,
sorrow,
fear,
peace…
He had a friend who took notice;
I don’t know his name –
or hers –
(it could have been a her.)
The friend watched Schubert –
a man who could fly
from his heart to his mind to his fingers
and carry others on the wings of it all –
drawing straight lines
straight lines
straight lines
straight lines
forever.
So the friend bought him staff paper
and promised an unlimited,
lifelong
supply
of paper
with printed lines,
so that Franz could spend his time
writing all the life
that he laced onto them,
like little black beads,
telling stories and keeping time.
I like to think of that friend.
I like to imagine that he (or she) left a note
on the parcel of paper
that read:
“Please hear,
please listen,
please draw the dots
as they’re given to you.
The song you play
shall lift us all
and in this way
bring us closer
to giver of the tune.
and I shall hold the lines for you.”
If you want to hear him, I share one of my favorite Schubert pieces: Trio op. 100 – Andante con moto
Don’t get me wrong, I love my traditional love stories and those classic fairy tales. I go back home with Austen, I adventure with Kipling, and thrive on the genuine simple goodness of Alcott and Wilder. But every once in a while I step into the current century; and I’d like to bring my kids along for the ride.
Given my current mulling of mind (and reflecting on the #metoo campaign), I decided to change up the “Children’s Lit” section in my house.
For my daughter, a little inspirational bedtime reading:
And for my sons, a little perspective:
The cool thing is, they’ve all read each one cover to cover, and are starting over again.
Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls, is by Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo
Strong is the New Pretty, is by Kate T. Parker
I used to work for a priest. He was an inspired man. He was passionate about leading and loving, he was injured and recovered and empathic to those still hurting, and he was horrid at keeping a schedule. When I left the church, he gave me a book, signed in love, that I put on a shelf and never read.
It’s a funny thing about resting on Islands, you dust off and look at things that’ve always been with you but haven’t been seen.
The book is one of poetry. It’s a collection of sacred voices from the East and West, calling out…
There is a woman whose writings are absolutely haunting me.
I guess that’s what good poetry does.
Her name is Rabia. She was an Islamic saint who lived in the 8th century. I like to think about that; she was born exactly 1300 years ago, in a time and religion and culture that are completely foreign to me, yet her words resonate as if they were my own.
It is said that she was separated from her parents at a young age, was stolen, and sold into slavery. A brothel bought her where she worked until she was 50 years old and was given her freedom by a rich patron. “The remaining years of her life were devoted to mediation and prayer, and she would often see visitors seeking guidance about their lives.”¹
There are a handful of poems here that I would consider my “good thing” today, but the one that gets me the most follows…
It’s brevity is magical. How can so few words fill up the entire sky with image, meaning, and knowing?
Take a breath,
clear your mind,
and hear:
ONE DAY
One day He did not leave after
kissing
me.
¹ From Love Poems from God by Daniel Ladinsky
Continuing the framing quest from Day 125, I found this beautiful card by artist Rick Allen. His Ken-Speckle Letterpress in Duluth, MN has been inspiring to me for years. Truly an “Axe & Loom” artist, he harkens back to the 19th century with engravings whose images comfort, call, and dare, all at the same time.
I picked this card up on Day 2 of my Road Trip, and am so grateful for the reminder.
It makes me readier for the waters…
I had the pleasure of attending a friend’s wedding this weekend. It was a black tie affair. We were dressed to the nine’s. Rhinestones sparkled and black silk shone. Glasses clinked and the sound of knives hitting China punctuated the conversations of new acquaintances.
The irony was not lost on me then, when (during the ceremony) the officiant read this poem by Wendell Berry….
The Sycamore
In the place that is my own place, whose earth
I am shaped in and must bear, there is an old tree growing,
a great sycamore that is a wondrous healer of itself.
Fences have been tied to it, nails driven into it,
Hacks and whittles cut in it, the lightning has burned it.
There is no year it has flourished in
that has not harmed it. There is a hollow in it
that is its death, though its living brims whitely
at the lip of the darkness and flows outward.
Over all its scars has come the seamless white
of the bark. It bears the gnarls of its history
healed over. It has risen to a strange perfection
in the warp and bending of its long growth.
It has gathered all accidents into its purpose.
It has become the intention and radiance of its dark face.
It is a fact, sublime, mystical and unassailable.
In all the country there is no other like it.
I recognize in it a principle, an indwelling
the same as itself, and greater, that I would be ruled by.
I see that it stands in its place, and feeds upon it,
and is fed upon, and is native, and maker.~Wendell Berry
The officiant went on to relate that Sycamore to a marriage. That within such a creature, no perfection is attained, but rather imperfection weathered.
While I understood his metaphor, and appreciated it’s sentiment, I couldn’t help but think of every person in that room as their own separate Sycamore:
Dressed up
and disguising
the places where our barks were burned,
where the fences were, and are no more,
jewels masking the places that nails once drove in,
and the peace that comes when you hear, and hear again, the line,
“it has gathered all accidents into its purpose.”
we grow
we scar
we grow again
and stronger
deeper in root
and wrinkled in face
and bearing sweeter fruit thereon.
