Month: October 2013

Growing Up

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Listen for the songs
of the thousand grandmothers
who sing in your blood
whose voices echo in halls
of wakening memory.

2013 October 019

Gratitude List:
1.  That sunset.  Magenta and true orange, indigo and aquamarine.  The sunset-washed clouds were like wispy versions of mammatus clouds.
2.  Volunteer Fire Department.  Our local FDs are all staffed by volunteers.  These people are amazing.  We had a ride last night in a fire engine at the Wrightsville FD Open House.  It was like being inside the Tardis–bigger on the inside.
3.  Aging.  Looking at some photos of myself yesterday, I noticed how my face is showing my age, and I was happy about that.  Something about seeing pictures of myself in my late teens and early twenties makes me a little uncomfortable–I seem so raw and unripe and unseasoned.  Yesterday I realized that I feel comfortable in my skin–creaky knees and achy back and marks of age–in ways that I don’t think I ever have before.  I am incredibly grateful for that.  I just might start calling myself a grown-up pretty soon.
4.  Rain.
5.  Giving myself permission.

May we walk in Beauty.

Haiku and Tanka

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

2013 October 044

I am snuggling a boy and a cat in my lap at the moment: benefits of a cool morning.   Makes typing a challenge, though.

Here are a couple poems that walked into my head yesterday.  The first is a tanka, inspired by my friend Mara.  I thought the second was going to be a tanka, too, but while I was waiting for the last two lines to emerge, I realized it was already a haiku.

 

TANKA
See there! In your palm
are the rivers of story,
of constellations,
dragonfly wings, the pathways
of the heart: love, grief, desire.

HAIKU
The now-naked arms
of the walnut tree cradle
the newly-born moon.

Gratitude List:
1.  Autumn birdsong in the hollow
2.  Listening
3.  Constructing my own life
4.  Breakfast
5.  Tiny Poems

May we walk in Beauty.

The Story Roars

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 1 Comment

When I wake up in the morning, parting the cobweb veil between dream and day-consciousness, I often find that some piece of that world hovers about me as I enter the morning.  A fragment of song.  An image.  A phrase.  The tone of the voice or the name of the person who was speaking my dream-name.  The answer to a question.  The Question itself.

This morning’s phrase: The Story Roars.  I love all the places this can go, the way it opens doors into so many passageways in my life.

There, standing just behind the curtain, is my Muse, reminding me to get to work.  To write, to write, to write.  The story is impatient, roaring to be crafted and written.

One of my current spiritual practices was given to me by a friend, the work of honing my listening.  I want to take up the work of listening, of drawing out people’s stories, of working together to be fully engaged in the stories we are living.  Our stories gather around us, waiting for us to give them voice.

Here is a Roar: My friend Natasha is now almost three weeks into a daily blog, The Year of Black Clothing, in which she chronicles and gives voice to her grief and rage over the destruction of Earth, of each other.   Her story is roaring, finding voice, gaining momentum, gathering other voices.  Her roar–so gentle, so fierce, so pained and so loving–is reverberating, drawing other voices in, creating a wild and hopeful call to Do.  To Be.  To Act.  To live our stories as authentically as we can on this Earth we call Home.  Go now and read her roar.  Add your voice to the story.

 

Gratitude List:
1.  Yesterday I asked my Facebook friends for advice about a parenting question.  I’m uncomfortable with unsolicited advice-giving, and sometimes even asked-for advice can be haughty.  Not so with the amazing people who responded with gentle concern and powerful ideas to my call for help.  I am so deeply blessed by the many circles of community in my life.  So deeply deeply blessed.
2.  Mentors
3.  The Story
4.  The Voice
5.  The Dawn

May we walk in Beauty.

Maintaining Balance

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

The gypsy wind came rattling through at 4:30 this morning.  It raised gooseflesh on my arms and the hair on the back of my neck tingled.  No more sleep.  No more sleep.  Down the stairs, some quiet reading, a little coffee and then some yoga tree poses.

In six months of regular morning tree poses, my balance has improved considerably.  I’m happy enough in my body, don’t get me wrong, but physical balance has never really been one of my strong points.  It’s a little startling to me that I can get this rather unathletic middle-aged body to pick up a new trick.  And it’s odd to me how place-oriented my balance is.  When I try the poses somewhere other than my kitchen, I teeter and totter and tumble all over the place.

On the internal front, I have been living with a low-grade fury again.  I have allowed this government shut down to throw me off my internal equilibrium.  I can’t seem to maintain balance,  to keep myself upright.  I want to rant and call names and burn bridges.
Somewhere I’ll find the poetry for this, the way to speak the need for justice in this story.  Right now, it’s still a little blind and crazed.  One thing that seems to help me hold my morning tree poses is the mirror in my kitchen.  When I look into my own eyes, my body suddenly remembers its upright nature and I stop thinking about falling.And oh.  I have not been writing gratitude lists.  I have stepped out of my space, walked away from my internal mirror.  How could I expect to keep my balance?  Here, then, is me back in my place, practicing my balance postures:

Gratitude List:
1.  A weekend with thoughtful, hopeful women.  All the grandmothers we carry with us.  Open hearts, open eyes.
2.  Dragonfly
3.  Autumn bird conversations.  Mockingbird is back at it after a summer of quiet.  Screech owl and great horned owl have been calling  even after dawn has brought the day.  Phoebe is moving through again.  Robin hordes have been amassing in the hollow every evening, and they begin the mornings with a deafening chatter.  I have even heard the kingfisher’s fussy chitter along Cabin Creek.
4.  A community of rebels
5.  Morning solitude

May we walk in Beauty.