Author: Beth Weaver-Kreider

Found Poem

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

I found this poem on page 40 of the September 2004 issue of Sojourners Magazine.  In an article by Danny Duncan Collum about Michael Moore’s then-new movie Fahrenheit 911, I circled some words and blacked out the rest.  Here is the result.  It’s a little more disjointed than I want it to be, but it’s really about playing around, seeing what sense I can make out of seeming nonsense, what happens when half-random words and phrases are created and strung together, what meaning is suggested.

DREAM

I saw Che Guevara on a day filled with omens
we went to lunch there, on the big screen
he won’t go back

I am troubling the dead
I won’t tell you this again

that didn’t happen
today he is lucky to be rooted
in this great global anthem

I pulled a few interesting quotations directly out of the article:
“The war is not meant to be won.  It is meant to be continuous.”  George Orwell
“If you let the world change you, you can change the world.”  from The Motorcycle Diaries

Gratitude List:
1.  Hearing the story through the voices of young people and children
2.  Visual Poetry
3.  Songs of journey, songs of water–“Wade in the water, children”
4.  Gentle guides through the liminal spaces
5.  Community support for unpacking uncomfortable, anxious and difficult questions, powerful questions

May we walk in Beauty!

Healing Song and Story

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Gratitude List:
1.  The way that sharing stories opens the heart to healing.
2.  Songs that hold stories.
3.  Vulnerability and strength together.
4.  Clearing the yard of dead branches in the cool evening as the sun set below the rim of the hollow.
5.  Eggs.  For all the potential they hold, all the mystery, the warmth, the way they settle into your palm.  I once had a postcard of an icon of Mary Magdalene holding an egg.

May we walk in Beauty!

Rock Star

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

I am a rock star.  I came down out of the fields today and one of my groupies caught sight of me.  “Book?” she asked.  Another head shot up from behind the compost pile.  “Clook!” she yelled.  And then they were rushing me, “Lookee!  Lookee!  Lookee!”  Little feathery bodies racing toward me, wings akimbo.

If you ever feel down about yourself, get some hens.  You too can be a rock star.

Gratitude List:
1.  The community Potato Pitching Party.  Three and a half tons of potatoes, all de-trucked and sorted and re-packed into waiting pick-ups and cars.  By hand.  Woohoo!
2.  Being a rock star to chickens.  Book!  Clook?
3.  Coconut macaroons, no matter how they look.
4.  Working in the windy fields with spring sunshine slanting down.
5.  Quartzite and shale and the way all the field rocks sparkle and twinkle in the sunlight.

May we walk in beauty!

Calling the Elements

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Prayer Bundle

Dream bundle, prayer packet, seeds of vision:
Now fire of sun
feed the fire of my energy
to do my work
to create my life.
Gentle rain
remind me of the grace
to flow with the changes
that I am calling into being.
Fierce winds and teasing breezes
carry my dreams outward
like milkweed seeds
to fall into fertile soil.
Solid stone and earth
ground me and steady me
to make my vision real.

Gratitude List:
1.  Persistence
2. Perspicacity
3. Perspective
4. Purple
5.  im-Perfections

May we walk in Beauty!

Equinox

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Jet Star

I spent my earliest years in East Africa, just a few degrees south of the wide belt of this big round ball, in a comfortable climate where the sun rose every morning at seven o’clock and set again at seven every evening, all year long.  Our seasons were marked by the coming of rains and their going away again.  The days were often hot, but the evenings brought cool breezes off of Lake Victoria, and roiling Michaelangelo clouds sailed in across the plains from the lake.

Here, where the sun slips off to the south for a season, where the days get shorter and then longer again, this moment when the day and night reach equilibrium brings me closer to that sense of rightness and balance, though the cold of winter still lingers in my bones.  While I find the cold time, the dark time, still to be a challenge, I have come to love the seasons, to revel in the feel of the shifting, whirling tilting planet we live on, the reassurance that one state of being will inevitably give way to the next.

Tomorrow we come to that place, one of the quarter points we notice in Terra’s dance with Sol.  Equinox.  My head today is full of these complicated E-words: Equinox, Equator, Equilibrium, in-Evitable.  At these equal points of spring and fall, we are ever so much slightly closer to our star than we are on the outward fling of the Solstices.  Do-si-do, Sun.  Swing your partner.  Welcome, Spring, oh welcome, Spring.

Gratitude List:
1. Inevitability and choice
2. Intention and destiny
3. Fate and chance
4. Fortune and opportunity
5. Blueberry pancakes

May we walk in Beauty!

 

 

 

 

Prayer Bundle:  Tonight I am finishing up gathering the items for my bundle.  I don’t have a direct symbolic link for each thing–I included some things because they are shiny or colorful and caught my magpie’s eye.  There is a piece of cloth to wrap it all together, and cord and wire for tying, a broken necklace with sparkly dangles for brightening it up.  I will take pictures tomorrow in a good light, wrap it all up, and then at about quarter to five, I’ll take it outside as the Equinox arrives.  I want it to rest on the earth, to be touched by the fire of the sun, by wind, by rain.  I want all the elements to work on it.  And I’ll place it somewhere where I won’t mow over it six weeks from now, and where it will be safe from curious children.

Prayer Bundles

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 1 Comment

A couple years ago, as I was traveling down one of the internet’s rabbit trails, following the deeper definition of a word, I came across an idea that caught my attention and fired me up.  Like a dream that slips out of focus and disappears but still hangs at the edges of consciousness with an urgency, begging, “Remember me, remember me,” the word and the web page have eluded me as I have tried to run down the memory, to find the source of this idea.

Here is the basic premise: You gather a small grouping of interesting materials, pack them tightly into a smallish bundle, leave it out in the elements for a period of time, then bring it inside, unpack it, and make a work of art.

I have made little bundles in the past, little magic spells or prayers that help me to carry my intentions, to hold the dreams and visions that I am willing into being.  Then when the vision is complete, when the work is done, the bundle is returned to the elements.  But wouldn’t it be interesting to do a prayer bundle like those little art bundles, so that part of the prayer or magic involves exposing the bundle to the elements while I am working on the intention?

What if I gave my bundle to the transforming power of the sun’s fire as I am giving the vision the fire of my own energy?
What if I released my bundle to the working of water in rain as I release my own emotional attachments surrounding my desires?
What if I offered my bundle to the rich power of earth as I am willing my own dream to manifest itself?
What if gave my bundle to the changeable working of breezes as I am clarifying in my own thoughts the vision that I seek?

So.  Thursday is the first day of Spring, a time when we celebrate the hatchings and the first shoots of plants reaching above soil into sun.  I am going to begin a prayer bundle for this season, to see if it helps me to carry and transform my own vision of what I want to bring into my life in the next few months.  For me, the process will be about finding fulfilling work that uses my skills and creative impulses, and brings in the stabilizing element of greater financial security for my family.  Feel free to join me.  It might be a good way to focus a desire to rid oneself of an addiction, or to make a lifestyle change.  It might be a good way to help focus on the essentials, or on becoming more fully your own free self.  Here are some of the questions I am looking at for myself as I begin.  I plan to do some journal-writing about these in the next few days.

What is my heart’s desire in this season of my life?
Keeping in mind that who I am now is already good, what do I want to change, and why?
Where am I now on the journey?
What are some steps that I need to make in the concrete, real world in order to meet my goals?
I want to brainstorm a word or phrase that I can return to, like a prayer, like a mantra, to keep myself focused on what I am looking to accomplish.

Now, in the next few days, along with meditating and journalling about my goal, I am going to start gathering some materials.  Pieces of cloth to wrap the bundle.  String and yarn.  Images (from magazines or my own drawings) that represent my desire.  Small tokens or symbols.  Because part of my process in the next few months will be to decipher the particular vocational path that I want to follow, I think I will choose some items that represent my teaching certificate, my work history in the college setting, my farming work, poetry, editing, and my work at Radiance.  I also want to find some strong symbols to represent the work-family balance.  And perhaps a little something to represent prosperity.

On Thursday, I will wrap up the bundle and leave it outside for the spring season, to open up on May 1 and create a piece of artwork.  Join me?

Gratitude List:
1.  Liver and onions
2.  Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Spirit
3.  The slant of sunlight in spring
4.  Successful Leprechaun traps
5.  Time to write and mull and brood

May we walk in Beauty.

Wild Swans

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Gratitude List:
1.  Wild swans (maybe 50) on the fields near Landis Homes
2.  Killdeer in the horse pasture at the corner of Schmuck and Pisgah
3.  So many possibilities
4.  Snakes
5.  Leprechaun magic

May we walk in Beauty.

Molding the Conversation. . .

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So many threads of conversation this weekend, so much to think about.

During a long and intense conversation with friends this morning, one friend’s 12-year-old daughter sat at the table with a pencil and paper, doodling.  Trees and squiggles and a stylized heart.  Eyes and rain and a tree with a hole.  Tangles and webs.  At one point, the conversation turned toward the drawing, and we started asking her to talk about bits and pieces.  “I am molding the conversation into the drawing,” she said, pointing to a tear that she drew when we had spoken of sadness, to a cradling arm with the word Protection within its bowl, to the way the tree had its flaws, just as we all do, to a web that she said represented complexity within each person.  I felt so heard, so understood, so carefully held by this silent and thoughtful witness to our conversation.  What a vulnerable and tender gift to share.

I often doodle, too, when I talk with people, when I listen to others talk, and I think I understand a little of what she meant about molding a conversation into the pictures, though I have never done it with quite the intentionality that she did.  Wouldn’t it be an interesting exercise, with willing friends, to take this thoughtful girl’s idea into conversation with intention?  To have paper and pencils on a table while conversation is occurring, perhaps to pass a sheet around, each adding a piece to the doodle as the conversation moves along, and then to quietly listen as people talk about the ways they were holding the ideas and each other by the symbols and ideas that they drew?

Gratitude List:
1.  Being listened to and heard.  Friends who are honest mirrors.
2.  Ideas flying and soaring.  Heart-expanding conversation.
3.  Taking responsibility for my energy.
4.  The expanded kitchen/dining room to host friends around the table.
5.  Milkweed.

May we walk in Beauty!

Who Inspires You?

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I saw a photo the other day of a list that someone had made of people who inspired her.  She’d written the names by hand, artistically. That was part of what caught my attention, but the idea of keeping a running list of people who inspire me has really grabbed hold of me.  I plan to start a list right away.  When I get to one hundred names or so, I’ll look it over and see if I can discern themes and ideas that give me some clues to what I hold dear.  And I want to make sure that there’s variety there.

If you want to join me, here are some ideas to get us started.  You can list several names in each category, of course:

Someone in your immediate family.
An elder.
A peer.
A child.
A revolutionary person who helped to change the world.
Someone who changed the world quietly, behind the scenes.
A musician or band.
An artist.
A great thinker.
A historical figure.
A novelist and/or a poet.
Make sure that you have a good representation of gender, a good mix of races, of countries of origin, of historical periods.
Hmm.  How about a fictional character or two?
A religious or spiritual teacher.
A dancer or other athlete.

What other categories might you choose?

Gratitude List:
1.  The cardinal in the top of the chestnut tree singing, “Pretty, Pretty, sweeeEEEt, sweeEEET!”
2.  Afternoon sun on chicken feathers
3.  Walking between worlds.  Not sure how else to describe it.  Holding your story and yours and yours.  Being here, but there, too.
4.  Iron.  I know I need more of it.  The Earth supplies it.
5.  How everything and everyone changes and evolves, even me, to become more and more ourownselves.

May we walk in Beauty.

All in the Bowl

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

Into that bowl of my heart,
along with my rages and furies,
with recent betrayals,
with my crushing self-doubt,
with your anxieties and your tears

(yes, let me keep them there, too
you know as well as I do
and as well as the Universe knows
that when my crying time comes
as it unfortunately and inevitably
comes to us all
you’ll be running to catch my tears
in a bowl of your own, and not because
I hold yours now–no, it will be because
it’s who you are
it’s what you do
it’s what we do)

into just that bowl,
along with all that,
I place

a small white stone
bee, bee, bee, crocus, bee
concentric circles of friendship
the feel of the sun on my hair
deep rumbling rolls of laughter like thunder.

May we walk in Beauty.