Today’s Prompt is to write either a traditional sonnet or other structured poem, or an anti-form poem. I was going to try a sonnet, but I don’t think I have it in me tonight. Instead, an inelegant little haiku:
This doctor checks my
heartbeat, then prescribes purring:
It’s cat medicine.
“I touch God in my song
as the hill touches the far-away sea
with its waterfall.
The butterfly counts not months but moments,
and has time enough.”
—Rabindranath Tagore
***
Clarissa Pinkola Estes:
“We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us and we will know them when they appear. Didn’t you say you were a believer? Didn’t you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn’t you ask for grace? Don’t you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?
“One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds beacons, causes proper matters to catch fire.To display the lantern of of soul in shadowy times like these -to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.”
***
“Speak to your children as if they are the wisest, kindest, most beautiful and magical humans on earth, for what they believe is what they will become.” —Brooke Hampton
***
“Apprehend God in all things, for God is in all things.
Every single creature is full of God and is a book about God.
Every creature is a word of God.
If I spent enough time with the tiniest creature—even a caterpillar—
I would never have to prepare a sermon.
So full of God is every creature.”
—Meister Eckhart
***
“We live in a world of theophanies. Holiness comes wrapped in the ordinary. There are burning bushes all around you. Every tree is full of angels. Hidden beauty is waiting in every crumb. Life wants to lead you from crumbs to angels, but this can only happen if you are willing to unwrap the ordinary by staying with it long enough to harvest its treasure.”
—Macrina Wiederkehr
***
“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.” ―J.R.R. Tolkien
***
You have been walking through desert for centuries,
walking for hundreds of miles toward mountains.
Suddenly there in your path stands the guardian.
Every quest, every dream, every task has its challenger–
She who will stand at the gate of your destiny,
waiting to ask you the questions you came for:
What is the thing that you fear? Can you face it?
What is the name of the monster that haunts you?
Can you look death in the eye and say, “Feed Me”?
If She reveals Herself at your parting,
you must be ready to hold what She offers you:
a small golden aster and three white-hot stones.
―Beth Weaver-Kreider
***
Yes
It could happen any time, tornado,
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.
Or sunshine, love, salvation.
It could you know. That’s why we wake
and look out–no guarantees
in this life.
But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening.
―William Stafford
Gratitude List:
(I am achy and chilled tonight–hoping to get a substitute for classes tomorrow so I can kick this cold.)
1. The bright souls who populate my classes.
2. A warm bathrobe
3. This warm cat. Sachs seems to sense that I am under the weather, and he’s been clinging to me like velcro tonight. Cats are the original Reiki practitioners.
4. Warm socks
5. Sleep
May we walk in Beauty!
Mockingbird Chronicles 