The prompts today are Trap, and Blue. Instead of doing a mash-up, I did two.
In the Arms of the Beloved by Beth Weaver-Kreider
You can’t escape the blue, the windy robe of the Beloved draped like a veil over the rim of your living, over the bowl of your holiest spaces,
and scattered deep within the indigo arms of the tree-shadows, indigo bluer than soul, pathways striping the afternoon green, leading you home to the arms of your most desired Mystery.
Trapped in the Anagrams by Beth Weaver-Kreider
I am rapt. I start prattling, debating. I stay apart: No parties. No pasta. No prattling patter. I’m caught in the strata. No matter, I rap and I mutter. This pome can’t escape the trap and the stutter, lodged under a tarp of ratatat blather, of anagram chatter.
“It is our mind, and that alone, that chains us or sets us free.” —Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
That quote is one I have had tucked away in the unlikely event that I would end up in jail or in a hospital, or sheltering in place during a world pandemic. Hmmm. Well, here we are. I think quotes like this can be used inappropriately, to make people feel like they’re not working hard enough at the inner life if they’re feeling caught and trapped. On the other hand, I am finding it profoundly liberating to keep reminding myself that the claustrophobia and sense of entrapment in this experience is partly self-imposed, that I can be free, even in confined conditions. And to be honest, I am hardly confined, here on the farm. But that shows me even more deeply how the sense of being chained or free in a situation like this has more to do with my inner work than with my outer situation.
I’ve been posting twice on these April days of Poetry. Once in the morning for musings and quotes and gratitudes, and a second time in the afternoon, when I have written my poem for the day.
Gratitude List: 1. Though I miss Room 206, my current office/classroom is a pleasant, well-lit place. 2. My coworkers and students (present and virtual) are lovely people. 3. Such hope-filled Zooming with beloveds yesterday. 4. I’m wearing my bracelets today. I don’t usually wear them around the house, but I have missed having the clink and the flash of color. 5. In the midst of this terrible uncertainty, there is much to be certain of: love, spring, birdsong, laughter. When I sit on the recliner, I know that within ten minutes there will be a cat on my lap–that is a comforting certainty.
May we walk in Beauty! Take care of each other.
“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind.” —George Orwell
“We must live from the center.” —Bahauddin, father of Rumi
“Some days I am more wolf than woman and I am still learning how to stop apologising for my wild.” —Nikita Gill
“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.” —Albert Einstein
“Writer’s block results from too much head. Cut off your head. Pegasus, poetry, was born of Medusa when her head was cut off. You have to be reckless when writing. Be as crazy as your conscience allows.” —Joseph Campbell
“Ask yourself: Have you been kind today? Make kindness your daily modus operandi and change your world.” —Annie Lennox
The prompts for today are Inspiration, and Moment. I chose to write a Skinny. You can find out more about this poetic form at The Skinny Poetry Journal.
After (a skinny) by Beth Weaver-Kreider
There will be a moment in the After when we hug again when laughter returns when the After will be there in a moment.
Gratitude List: 1. Sewing things. I love to sit down at the machine and make stuff. 2. Yesterday, Barb’s horse was racing back and forth along the meadow at the top of the ridge. It seemed like it was trying to give itself different challenges: This time down between the shed and the fence. This time around that tree at the top of the hill. Sometimes a happy trot and sometimes a flying all-out gallop. I confess it made me squeal to see it. 3. Weekends. They are truly a different pace than the other days. So grateful for that. 4. Video conferencing with Beloveds. Thursday it was with people at my church. Today, there will be calls with family and with friends from college. I regret that we never taught my mother-in-law how to use Zoom. 5. That very loud wren singing in the sun.
May we walk in Beauty! Take care of each other.
“We write to taste life twice.” —Anais Nin
“My wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who and how you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness.” —Maya Angelou
“If you pour a handful of salt into a cup of water, the water becomes undrinkable. But if you pour the salt into a river, people can continue to draw the water to cook, wash, and drink. The river is immense, and it has the capacity to receive, embrace, and transform. When our hearts are small, our understanding and compassion are limited, and we suffer. We can’t accept or tolerate others and their shortcomings, and we demand that they change. But when our hearts expand, these same things don’t make us suffer anymore. We have a lot of understanding and compassion and can embrace others. We accept others as they are, and then they have a chance to transform.” —Thich Nhat Hanh
“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” —Martin Luther King, Jr.
“When we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and seeds of hope.” —Wangari Maathai
I woke up really tired this morning. I’m hitting an energy wall. I’m glad it’s Saturday.
Gratitude List:
Soft fur, soft feathers, soft blankets
Wildness
Wind
Poetry
Perspective
May we walk in Beauty!
“Nobody’s on the road Nobody’s on the beach There’s something in the air The summer’s out of reach…” —Don Henley
‘Kindness’ covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.” —Roger Ebert
In a mist of light falling with the rain I walk this ground of which dead men and women I have loved are part, as they are part of me. In earth, in blood, in mind, the dead and living into each other pass, as the living pass in and out of loves as stepping to a song. The way I go is marriage to this place, grace beyond chance, love’s braided dance covering the world. —Wendell Berry (The Wheel)
”You have to begin to tell the story of your life as you now want it to be, and discontinue the tales of how it has been or of how it is.” —Esther Hicks
Today’s two prompts were Blossoms and Follow ______.
I’m not really happy with this one. I got caught on the hook of the rhythm and I couldn’t tear myself loose, so I followed the trail. I followed the blossoms, I guess.
Follow the Blossoms by Beth Weaver-Kreider
Step, Golden Child, onto the pathway: follow the blossoms strewn on the pebbles. Pink-flowering trees and golden-bloomed bushes line the trail that calls you to wander.
Follow the blossoms wherever they lead you. Heed only the call of aroma and color as your feet take the rocky trail into the wild-lands, away from the village, away from the hearth-fires.
The stories will tell of your innocent spirit, naive, how you trusted the universe, never believing that anything out in the wildwood could harm you.
But you, like the Fool, have kept your eyes open. You know of the risks, you know of the shadows, but something else calls you to step beyond boundaries out to the wildwood, where dangers await you.
Ahead of you, waiting around every bend in the pathway, are challengers, riddles and questions to answer, witches to work for and riders to follow. Now you will have come to the edge of your trial.
Step, Golden Child, into the clearing. Now you are nearing the challenge you came for. This is the moment you’ve trained your whole life for, to follow the blossoms to where they may lead you.
Looking out the southern window of the living room just now, I was struck by the vertiginous sense that the world outside was twisting and shifting. It took me a moment to realize that it was the willow tree, beyond the black branches of sycamore and dogwood in my foreground, a yellow veil flowing back and forth in the dawn breezes.
Not everything that appears disconcerting and unsettling needs to be feared. That is not to say that fear and horror are not logical and acceptable responses to these altered days; but it is a reminder to myself (and you, if you want it) that the horror is not all-encompassing. Not everything should be interpreted through the lens of Pandemic. I need to keep reclaiming Wonder and Awe, grasping Calm and Centeredness, reaching out in Love and Openness.
Last evening, about twenty-five people/families from my congregation participated in a Zoom meeting, re-connecting, telling our stories, smiling and laughing together. And then in the night, I had my first teleconferencing dream. There was a screen with the whole Brady Bunch grid of a group meeting, and someone was saying, “Make sure they can tell that you love them through the screen.” That was it, but every time I woke up in the early morning, I saw that image, heard that voice.
Gratitude List: 1. Dream messages 2. Two weeks before the Exile, I went to Goodwill near my school and pulled a bunch of big sweaters and shawls out of the by-the-pound bins. I brought them home and washed them, and felt a little odd for buying more sweaters just as spring was breaking. I have been incredibly grateful, in these anxious and chilly days, to have big sweaters to wrap around me. 3. Even a week of working from home needs a weekend (especially, actually). Tome to catch my breath. Friday’s here. 4. The aconite have gone to seed, after blooming early this year, but the green umbrellas remain, and I take the seed pods and sprinkle them across the bank out front. Last year, I sprinkled them under the sycamore, and this year we had yellow blossoms there. 5. Cress. Bitter cress and water cress, and actually all the spring greens. Yesterday I made a spring greens milky soup. It actually didn’t taste as good as I was longing for it to, but it tasted healthy, so there’s that. I felt fed and tended by the land. I trailed my fingers through the frigid water of the stream as I was picking water cress.
Take care of each other. Walk in Beauty!
“Sound or vibration is the most powerful force in the universe. Music is a divine art, to be used not only for pleasure but as a path to Awakening.” —Yogananda
“As above, so below, as within, so without, as the universe, so the soul.” —Hermes Trismegistus
“The greatest danger to our future is apathy.” —Jane Goodall
“Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone’s face? Did I say words of healing? Did I let go of my anger and resentment? Did I forgive? Did I love? These are the real questions. I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow now will bear many fruits, here in this world and the life to come.” —Henri Nouwen
“In the end, we’ll all become stories.” —Margaret Atwood
“Privilege is when you think something’s not a problem because it’s not a problem to you personally.” —attributed to many authors
Dea Ex Machina by Beth Weaver-Kreider
What we speak we create. Writing, we make meaning into existence.
These words, cogs and gears, shift meaning to matter:
Today’s Poetic Asides prompt is “space.” My friend Linda’s prompt is “silver bullet.”
Faithless by Beth Weaver-Kreider
These days we divine by numbers and watch the spiral uncoil, no longer lazy and languid, but each day adding the sum of an earlier day to the new total— n = (n-1) + (n-3)— like a poisoned Fibonacci sequence with hiccups, unraveling into space.
And the madman on the television is huckstering promises of easy endings and fantastic fortunes, a silver bullet for every ill, anything to raise his ratings,
and meanwhile the lions of jazz are dying of the virus, the poor get poorer and the sick get sicker, and the hospitals are scrambling for supplies.
Rogue churches crowd sanctuaries, passing the virus instead of the peace, putting their faith in a man who has proved himself faithless time again and time again.
No lies, no arrogant bluster, no matter how they will it so, will save us now.
Perhaps this is a new survival of the fittest, where fitness means a willingness to listen to the science, instead of the autocratic mumbling of this fool of a leader whose god may indeed roar to life again come Easter– the Great God Mammon, trailing behind him thousands of dying souls in his wake.
MESSAGES TO SELF: Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in sunshine. Breathe in the fluttering of bird wings in sunlight. Breathe out worry and anxiety and grief. Breathe in the solidity of trees. Breathe in the stalwart courage of oak and locust and sycamore. Breathe out worry and anxiety and grief. (They will still be there for you to examine and explore. For now, let them go.) Breathe in and raise your head. Drop your shoulders. Stand or sit up straighter. Breathe the worry and sadness out the soles of your feet, into Earth. She can hold them for you. Breathe in love and compassion. Breathe out gratitude. Breathe in. Breathe out.
Today at some point, put you bare feet on Earth. Put your fingertips in water. Place your hands oh so tenderly on the bark of a tree. And breathe.
Gratitude List: It feels like these lists are all beginning to repeat, as I sit at the same window every morning to write these lists, and my days look the same. 1. Bird life in the holler. One goldfinch is now fully suited up for summer. Phoebe is speaking its name into the cool morning. The sun turns that red cap on the downy woodpecker to fire. 2. The trees that surround me. 3. The waters that run through the hollow on their way to the River. 4. A lighter day today. The assignments are a little lighter today, and I am going to grade speeches. Enough. Enough. I have done enough. 5. Finding joys and wonders and delights to balance the sadness and anxiety.
Take Care of Yourself. Take Care of Each Other.
“What we seek, at the deepest level, is inwardly to resemble, rather than physically to possess, the objects and places that touch us through their beauty.” —Alain de Botton
“We are capable of suffering with our world, and that is the true meaning of compassion. It enables us to recognize our profound interconnectedness with all beings. Don’t ever apologize for crying for the trees burning in the Amazon or over the waters polluted from mines in the Rockies. Don’t apologize for the sorrow, grief, and rage you feel. It is a measure of your humanity and your maturity. It is a measure of your open heart, and as your heart breaks open there will be room for the world to heal.” —Joanna Macy
“We should have respect for animals because it makes better human beings of us all.” —Jane Goodall
“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you love. It will not lead you astray.” —Rumi
“If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If there’s shouting after you, keep going. Don’t ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.” —Harriet Tubman
“The little grassroots people can change this world.” —Wangari Maathai
“Some form of the prayer of quiet is necessary to touch me at the unconscious level, the level where deep and lasting transformation occurs. From my place of prayer, I am able to understand more clearly what is mine to do and have the courage to do it. Unitive consciousness—the awareness that we are all one in Love—lays a solid foundation for social critique and acts of justice.” —Richard Rohr
“You don’t have to attend every argument you’re invited to.” —Anonymous
Mockingbird Chronicles 