Musings

Liminal

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Today it was my turn to write the reflection for the Novena Page at The Way of the Rose Facebook Group. Our theme for this Novena is Liminal Space, and today’s part of the three-day cycle is the Glorious Mysteries. I began with a poem, so that will double as my poem for the day. Here is what I wrote:

The Liminal Space
Glorious Mysteries, Day 21

Standing here in this moment
between the past and the future
this liminal space
this threshold
this doorway
between what was and what will be
between what we bring and what we take
between the breath of a moment ago
and the breath of a moment to come
we PAUSE.

Open this window in time
and rest here.
Feel its elasticity,
let it spread out,
breathe into the bubble of now.

Mindfulness practices are, I think, about the liminal space of this moment, when we are always standing on the doorstep, feeling the memory that tugs us from behind, and the awareness of a future that draws us forward, and then releasing those insistent calls in order to stand: Right here. Right now.

Past and future are not irrelevant, but they fade. We know we must tend to them both, but not now. Not just right at this moment. And this liminal consciousness is not procrastination, not avoidance of the Real Work of remembering and doing and making and creating and healing. It’s a gathering, a building up, like the gathering of a wave, like the potent silence between orchestral movements, like the hush before the first bird sings into the dawn.

Every day of a novena is a liminal moment, a standing on a threshold between two points in our journey. Today is the Glorious Mysteries, a space of becoming in between yesterday’s sorrows and tomorrow’s joys. Yesterday, we stood between joy and glory, contemplating the weight of the challenge in the place of Sorrows. Tomorrow, we hold the birthing and growing self, knowing we’ve passed through a rich stage of becoming, that the coming day will hold sorrows aplenty. And each day, we set aside the mysteries of past and future for just a moment as we enter the labyrinth of the day’s mysteries.

Some exercises for holding the space of the moment:
Take three deep breaths. After each in-breath, hold the breath inside you for a couple beats. After each out-breath, wait a couple beats before taking a new, full breath. Feel what it feels like to be filled with (in-spired) with the breath of life. Feel what it feels like to be an empty vessel, empty of air.

Stand in a doorway, or find a portal in a woods, a space between two trees or where a branch leans down around you, or a shining shaft of sunlight on a trail. Stand in that space, perfectly still. Feel the past behind you tugging at your memory. Feel the future ahead of you, pulling you forward. Then let those feelings fall around you like a carpet of autumn leaves and stand in the moment. Do a sensory check. What do you smell? What do you hear? What colors and textures do you see? What is the taste on your tongue? What do you feel on your skin?

Do a three-card tarot reading, and keep all three cards face down. The one to your left is the past and memory. The one to your right is the future. Turn over the one in the center. Without looking at a booklet to tell you the meaning, just sit with the image before you. Ask: “Who am I, right now?” Not “What do I bring?” or “What will I take with me from this moment?” Just “Who am I, in this exact moment?” When you’re done, put all three cards back in the deck without looking at the other two.

Gratitude List:
1. This moment
2. and this one
3. and this one
4. now this one
5. and this one, too.
May we walk in Beauty!

“The ability to sit with mystery and explore the dark but fertile realms of infinite possibility is crucial to the work of inhabiting a meaningful life. We have to learn to stay rooted in the midst of chaotic obscurity, in the shadow-haunted wild places of the psyche. We need these rootings more than ever during the bone-deep metamorphosis that is menopause.” —Sharon Blackie

“To see where you are going, look behind you. The clues are there. Mistakes you have made, patterns you have followed, breakthroughs you have had, ideas that did not turn out as planned: your experience is your guide. It tells you what you may expect on the road ahead. The key is in how much you have learned from the past and how those learnings shape your decisions for the future. Look before you leap: look back to see what may come.” —Steven Charleston

“Revolution means reinventing culture.” —Grace Lee Boggs

“May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.”
—Nelson Mandela

For a day, just for one day,
Talk about that which disturbs no one
And bring some peace into your beautiful eyes.
—Hafiz

“Open your mouth only if what you are going to say is more beautiful than silence.” —proverb

“All religions, all this singing, one song. The differences are just illusion and vanity. The sun’s light looks a little different on this wall than it does on that wall, and a lot different on this other one, but it’s still one light.” —Rumi

The magic of autumn has seized the countryside;
now that the sun isn’t ripening anything
it shines for the sake of the golden age;
for the sake of Eden;
to please the moon for all I know.
—Elizabeth Coatsworth

“Revolution means reinventing culture.” –Grace Lee Boggs

And It’s November

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

It’s been a minute. Or, as a colleague of mine might phrase it: What a year this week has been. I got caught in the grip of November, and there were too many things on my plate, and there was sadness, and it was November. So I am behind on the poetry. About five days, I think. I’m not sure whether this fits any of the interim prompts, but I really like it. It says something, or some things, about dreaming, and living, and November.

You know that dream
where you’re driving backwards
down a mountain
in the dark and in the rain?
And it’s November.

And your eyes won’t open all the way
and there’s a tunnel up ahead
and you’re going the wrong way
on a one way road
and it’s November.

And the children in the back seat
are screaming in terror
and the road is impossibly narrow
and a sudden fog arises
and it’s November.

You know that feeling
where you’re driving backwards
down a mountain
in the dark and in the rain?
And it’s November.

Gratitude List:
1. The kid is home!
2. Decorating the hall with my colleagues
3. Holidays
4. Oak leaves
5. Cheddar cheese
May we walk in Beauty!

“May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears.”
—Nelson Mandela

For a day, just for one day,
Talk about that which disturbs no one
And bring some peace into your beautiful eyes.
—Hafiz

“Whatever you’re meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible.” —Doris Lessing

“Open your mouth only if what you are going to say is more beautiful than silence.” —proverb

“All religions, all this singing, one song. The differences are just illusion and vanity. The sun’s light looks a little different on this wall than it does on that wall, and a lot different on this other one, but it’s still one light.” —Rumi

The magic of autumn has seized the countryside;
now that the sun isn’t ripening anything
it shines for the sake of the golden age;
for the sake of Eden;
to please the moon for all I know.
—Elizabeth Coatsworth

“. . .fairies’ gold, they say, is like love or knowledge—or a good story. It’s most valuable when it’s shared.” —Heather Forest, The Woman Who Flummoxed the Fairies

“Sacred is another word for energy. Some physical spaces are sacred because they vibrate with the energy of the Spirit. Some rituals are sacred because they connect infinite energy with finite creation. Some memories are sacred because they transmit the energy of those who are now our ancestors. Some visions are sacred because they are the energy of hope, transforming our lives, right before our eyes.” —Steven Charleston

Keeping Vigil

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 1 Comment
Photo by Prateek Gautam on Unsplash

I’m going off-prompt tonight as we keep vigil for one we love as she walks to the gates of life and death.

Keeping Vigil

You turn your heart to a thread,
to a twining vine,
and send it out into the darkness.
Cast your loving into the shadows
like spider silk,
feel it connect with other threads,
feel how it joins the web
of all the souls watching with you,
hearts breathing together.

Gather together at the gates.
Feel the angels breathing around you,
making space for each shifting moment.
Wait together in the breathing silence.

Gratitude List:
Belonging to loving community
May we walk in Beauty!

“Expressing our vulnerability can help resolve conflicts.” —Marshall B. Rosenberg

“Our original instructions are to listen to the cloud floating by and the wind blowing by. That’s poetry and prose in English, but it is wakahan in the Lakotan language. It means to consciously apply mystery to everything. Everything is alive and has its own consciousness.” —Lakota elder Tiokasin Ghosthorse

James Baldwin: “To be sensual is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread.”

“There’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.” —Samwise Gamgee

“When you hit a wrong note, it’s the next note that you play that determines if it’s good or bad.” —Miles Davis

“At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.” —Frida Kahlo

A little story by Amrita Nadi:
At the end of a talk someone from the audience asked the Dalai Lama, “Why didn’t you fight back against the Chinese?”
The Dalai Lama looked down, swung his feet just a bit, then looked back up at us and said with a gentle smile, “Well, war is obsolete, you know.”
Then, after a few moments, his face grave, he added, “Of course the mind can rationalize fighting back. . .but the heart, the heart would never understand. Then you would be divided in yourself, the heart and the mind, and the war would be inside you.”

“There are moments when I feel like giving up or giving in, but I soon rally again and do my duty as I see it: to keep the spark of life inside me ablaze.” —Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life

“Always there is something worth saying
about glory, about gratitude.”
—Mary Oliver, What Do We Know

Do your little bit of good where you are;
its those little bits of good put together,
that overwhelm the world.
—Desmond Tutu

“You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.” —Jeannette Rankin

When we see the Beloved in each person,
it’s like walking through a garden,
watching flowers bloom all around us. —Ram Dass

“You came into this world as a radiant bundle of exuberant riddles. You slipped into this dimension as a shimmering burst of spiral hallelujahs. You blasted into this realm as a lush explosion of ecstatic gratitude. And it is your birthright to fulfill those promises.
I’m not pandering to your egotism by telling you these things. When I say, “Be yourself,” I don’t mean you should be the self that wants to win every game and use up every resource and stand alone at the end of time on top of a Mt. Everest-sized pile of pretty garbage.
When I say, “Be yourself,” I mean the self that says “Thank you!” to the wild irises and the windy rain and the people who grow your food. I mean the rebel creator who’s longing to make the whole universe your home and sanctuary. I mean the dissident bodhisattva who’s joyfully struggling to germinate the seeds of divine love that are packed inside every moment.
When I say, “Be yourself,” I mean the spiritual freedom fighter who’s scrambling and finagling and conspiring to relieve your fellow messiahs from their suffering and shower them with rowdy blessings.” —Rob Brezsny

“The root of joy is gratefulness…It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.” ―Brother David Steindl-Rast

Language Without Pronouns

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Okay, so today’s prompt was a fun head game: Write a poem without using any pronouns. Now, it would have been fun just to write a lovely imagistic poem, but it seemed like a better challenge to try to write with sentences that would require pronouns, but to work around them. So then, I just went riffing along, feeling for all the world like Gertrude Stein.

no word refers to any word but the object
referred to, in the language of lost pronouns

a bird is a bird is a bird
the bird flies to the bird’s own nest
where the bird lays an egg
and an egg is an egg
and in the egg is a bird
and that bird will hatch out
of that bird’s cozy egg on little legs
and some day will spread new bird’s wings
and fly, to build another nest like the nest
the new bird was born in

the road to an idea travels again and again
and again over the road of the word
repeating the bird
replicating the name
coming back to the same wordnest
from which the word was fledged

Gratitude List:
1. Cloud-dragons setting fire to the setting sun
2. Quinoa
3. This funny, funny young person
4. Getting some exercise
5. Sitting with a group of colleagues this afternoon and sharing the successes of our students
May we walk in Beauty!

“Love the earth and sun and animals,
Despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks,
Stand up for the stupid and crazy,
Devote your income and labor to others…
And your very flesh shall be a great poem.”
—Walt Whitman

“I believe the world is incomprehensibly beautiful—an endless prospect of magic and wonder.” —Ansel Adams

“A tree is a nobler object than a prince in his coronation-robes.” —Alexander Pope

“We must finally stop appealing to theology to justify our reserved silence about what the state is doing—for that is nothing but fear. ‘Open your mouth for the one who is voiceless’—for who in the church today still remembers that that is the least of the Bible’s demands in times such as these?” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness, and pride of power, and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear. . . . Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more, than they are doing now.” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than they love the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest, and sacrificial.” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“It is so easy to break down and destroy. The heroes are those who make peace and build.” —Nelson Mandela

“We are not lacking in the dynamic forces needed to create the future. We live immersed in a sea of energy beyond all comprehension. But this energy, in an ultimate sense, is ours not by domination but by invocation.” —Thomas Berry

Dithering on the Doorstep

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Write a Love or Anti-Love Poem, the man says, and so I show up, once again, on the doorstep of the Muse. About halfway through the month, and I’m feeling sleepy and grouchy, and I think I’ve been here before. And I just can’t get up the nerve to ring the doorbell and see what the Muse might have to offer me. Sigh.

it’s always the front door of the muse that gets me,
standing on the porch, anticipating the meeting,
that old dog anxiety nipping at my heels,
and I linger. shall i knock, or shall i ring?

i rehearse my lines, but each one sounds
like it was written by a child, or like i’m rehashing
something i wrote last year when she seemed to like me,
and she had something new for me every day.

here, i’ll tell her, is another prompt! we don’t
have to start from scratch! ugh, but no,
she’ll scoff at me, i just know it. another LOVE poem?
good grief, no wonder you dither on my doorstep.

i’m not dithering on the— okay, maybe just a little,
but what if she sends me away with nothing?
what if that poem i wrote last june the last good thing
i’ll ever write? what if she has nothing more to give?

Gratitude List:
1. Origami
2. A clean kitchen
3. Sweatshirts (I don’t think I bought a single sweatshirt in my 30s and 40s, but last year I bought a sweatshirt from my school, and now I have three, and I love them)
4. Next week is a holiday week, and the college kid comes home
5. Autumn gingkos
May we walk in Beauty! Beauty all around.

“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

“It was one of those days you sometimes get latish in the autumn when the sun beams, the birds toot, and there is a bracing tang in the air that sends the blood beetling briskly through the veins.” —P.G. Wodehouse

“You deserve a lover who takes away the lies and brings you hope, coffee, and poetry.” —Frida Kahlo

“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

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

“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

Lost Luck

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Today’s prompt is to write a luck poem. I’m having fun playing with internal rhyme and watching how it drives the line forward, how it pushes into the meaning of the following line. It’s almost like putting a puzzle together, and almost like following a large willful dog on a leash.

Where do you go to find your lost luck?
Look where it settles in ditches,
and hitches itself into trees,
where it sees through the mists
into the distance and takes the long view.

Watch how it grew when you thought
you had bought the last morsel of hope,
how the rope which had bound you
dissolved from around you, and you
suddenly found yourself once again free.

Would you be here if not for the seeking,
the desperate pleading when all seemed so lost,
when all hope was tossed into the whirlwind,
the promises hindered, the heart’s desire stuck,
and then here you are, free to seek for fresh luck.

Gratitude List:
1. Student delightfully self-congratulating a Duolingo success: “Yes, Grrrl! You got it!”
2. This morning’s autumn mist on the fields between Marietta and Mt. Joy.
3. I never know what is going to draw a whole class into discussion. I try every angle I can, and sometimes, everyone is suddenly jumping in, on fire with ideas. Today was one of those days in our upper division discussion about My Antonia. They had had enough background already in social studies classes regarding “Manifest Destiny” (idea and painting) that even my quietest introvert pushed himself up out of his chair and came up to the front of the room to point out his ideas about the painting. (YESSSSS!)
4. Analyzing characterization through the lens of the D and D alignment chart
5. Playing with words
May we walk in Beauty!

“Choosing to be honest is the first step in the process of love. There is no practitioner of love who deceives. Once the choice has been made to be honest, then the next step on love’s path is communication.”
― bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions

“Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love. Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps because I am afraid, and he gives me courage.” ―Gandalf

“When I stopped trying to change you, you changed me.” ―Rachel Macy Stafford

“When will the change begin? When will it start to happen? We have waited so long and prayed so long, when will the light begin to shine in this conflicted world? Our answer is: when we each begin to see it in ourselves. When we believe and not despair, when we love and not fear, when we give and not take – then we will see the change start to happen, and happen all around us. The answer is already here, within, waiting for us to find it.” —Steven Charleston

“When Teresa of Avila was asked what she did in prayer, she replied, ‘I just allow myself to be loved.'” —Anthony de Mello

“I never lose. I either win or I learn.” —Nelson Mandela

“If you have never been called an incorrigible, defiant, impossible woman… have faith. There is yet time.” —Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Hope for the Best

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

The prompt today at Robert Brewer’s blog is to write a (blank) for (blank) poem. I am letting it be my invitation to play with sounds today:

Hoping for the Best

always hoping
hope against hope
just groping for hope
hanging from a thin rope

waiting for a train
sitting in the rain
train upon train of thought
making me insane

seeking a reason
in a season of reasons
speaking of treason
in a fit of high pique

going for broke
stoking a last hope
quoting a provoking quote
invoking the ghost

Gratitude List:
1. Have you read Julian Is a Mermaid? What a sweet, sweet book. What a tender and understanding abuela.
2. Friends in Scotland are posting pictures of their trip, and I am loving traveling vicariously.
3. Red oaks! Red, red, red, red, red oaks!
4. Living in the flames of the colors of the trees in this season
5. Talking to one of my young friends today about how she writes stories. I love watching kids catch the writing and reading bug!
May we walk in Beauty!

“Through a process of perpetual discernment and “prayer unceasing” we may dive into the well of each faith and emerge with the treasure that connects us all.” —Mirabai Starr

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” —Carl Sagan

“If the Rhine, the Yellow, the Mississippi rivers are changed to poison, so too are the rivers in the trees, in the birds, and in the humans changed to poison, almost simultaneously. There is only one river on the planet Earth and it has multiple tributaries, many of which flow through the veins of sentient creatures.” —Thomas Berry

“A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.” —Kurt Vonnegut

‪”So much of bird flight is really expert falling, slipping into that delicate space within the argument between gravity and air resistance. That natural alchemy transforms a plummet into a glide. Someday, I hope to learn to fail like birds fall.‬” —Jarod K. Anderson, The Cryptonaturalist

“Reading and writing cannot be separated. Reading is breathing in; writing is breathing out.”

“For a Star to be born,
there is one thing that must happen;
a nebula must collapse.
So collapse.
Crumble.
This is not your Destruction.
This is your birth.” —Zoe Skylar

The Things She Said

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Today’s prompt at the Writer’s Digest poetry blog is to write an odd poem. I was feeling uninspired, so I decided to just started typing and let myself mostly free-associate. It ended up not really being as odd as I thought it might be, and it kind of hangs together surprisingly well. I think I sort of made up a story. . .

the last thing
she said before she left
was something about
how memory evades interpretation
how the ends don’t always
justify the meanings
how the sparkle in your eyes
seemed to have dimmed over time
because of the way the Old Ones
never wanted to reveal themselves

the first thing she said
when she returned was
that she had never known anyone
who reminded her so much
of her long-lost lover as you
on the day when you stood
in the dark garden and swore
allegiance to the moon

the way she looked at you
the way she her eyes drifted off
to the side of the frame when you
took that portrait someone hung
in the gallery on the corner
of Seventh and Lime

the way you could never seem
to say her name without
the briefest pause beforehand
as though you were forgetting
or reluctant to commit the act
of resurrecting her memory

Gratitude List:
1. We saw one of the white squirrels in Palmyra today! It was in a yard with two crows. It looked like they were having a meeting
2. Chocolate cake. I am working so hard to keep my sugar under control, but I am also not living a life of complete self-deprivation, and that was good cake
3. I think I am mostly over the achiness of the Covid/flu vaccine double whammy
4. Just hanging out here with the kid and the cats
5. Pumpkin soup and sauteed cauliflower
May we walk in Beauty!

“It is fabled that we slowly lose the gift of speech with animals, that birds no longer visit our windowsills to converse. As our eyes grow accustomed to sight they armour themselves against wonder.” —Leonard Cohen

Denise Levertov:
Don’t say, don’t say there is no water
to solace the dryness at our hearts.

I have seen
The fountain springing out of the rock wall
and you drinking there. And I too
before your eyes
found footholds and climbed
to drink the cool water.

The woman of that place, shading her eyes,
frowned as she watched–but not because
she grudged the water,
only because she was waiting
to see we drank our fill and were
refreshed.

Don’t say, don’t say there is no water.
The fountain is there among its scalloped
grey and green stones,
it is still there and always there
with its quiet song and strange power
to spring in us,
up and out through the rock.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
—Leonard Cohen

“Remember that day in the woods
when everything was so dark, so dreary
and you were so terrifyingly alone?

How can it be that these are the same woods
and you the same soul
and everything shines so,
and everything is filled with life?” —Beth Weaver-Kreider

“Acquiring problems is a fundamental human need. It’s as crucial to your well-being as getting food, air, water, sleep, and love. You define yourself–indeed, you make yourself–through the riddles you attract and solve. The most creative people on the planet are those who frame the biggest, hardest questions and then gather the resources necessary to find the answers.” —Rob Brezsny

“We are free-falling into the future on a bed of broken symbols.” —attributed to Joseph Campbell

“We aren’t disturbing the peace. We’re disturbing the war.” —protest sign

Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav: “The whole world is a very narrow bridge, but the most important part is not to be afraid.”

Little Cat

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Today’s prompt is to write a character poem. I just started writing what came to mind, and suddenly I was writing about my cat Winky. She was a fae character.

When you think of me, she said,
think of how the sun seemed
to want to run its rays
through my fur like fingers.

She was a winsome creature,
more mermaid than cat, sitting
on her rock in the middle of the creek,
tail bobbing in the bubbling current,
tempting the minnows.

More fairy even than mermaid she was,
denizen of the worlds between,
liminal cat, walker-between-worlds,
always her own being, ephemeral.

Her magic was the airy kind, twinkling and
sparkling in the wind, a bird
which materializes out of a breeze,
a raven changing form to become a butterfly,
a piece of milkweed fluff making little
chiming bells as it wafts past.

Sometimes I see her in the dreamrealm,
a band of chortling fairy children
dancing on the green grass in her wake,
her body whole again, her wise eyes blinking
in greeting, her fur ruffled by fingers of sun.

Gratitude List:

1. Gabe and Solly. I’m dog-sitting tonight for the sweetest pair of beagly boys.

2. Textures and textiles

3. Stories

4. Chocolate

5. Rilke

May we walk in Beauty!

“We’ve got to be as clear-headed about human beings as possible, because we are still each other’s only hope.” ―James Baldwin
*****
“Poets are kind of like—it’s a bad metaphor, but—canaries in a coal mine. They have a sense for things that are in the air. Partly because that’s what they do—they think about things that are going on—but partly because they take their own personal experience and see how that fits in with what they see in the world. A lot of people might think that poetry is very abstract, or that it has to do with having your head in the clouds, but poets, actually, walk on the earth. They’re grounded, feet-first, pointing forward. They’re moving around and paying attention at every moment.” —Don Share
*****
“This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.” —Toni Morrison
*****
“…Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.”
—from “How to Be a Poet (to remind myself)” by Wendell Berry
*****
Morning Prayer
by Phillip Newell
In the silence of the morning
your Spirit hovers over the brink of the day
and a new light pieces the darkness of the night.
In the silence of the morning
life begins to stir around me
and I listen for the day’s utterances.
In earth, sea and sky
and in the landscape of my own soul
I listen for utterances of your love, O God.
I listen for utterances of your love.

Directions

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Today’s prompt at The Writer’s Digest poetry blog is to write a directions poem. I love working with the cardinal directions and their correspondences with the four sacred elements. Still, when I read this prompt, I decided it was for directions for the sacred grove.

Take the road up the hill through the golden wood
and make a dogleg turn at the crest of the the ridge
to wander down again on the other side.

There will be thirteen horses in the field
behind you and three placid steers to your left.
Down a sudden steepness, another solitary horse
will look up from his ruminations before you pass
the lily pond, whose queen is a koi fish
the tangerine shade of sun as it sets over the ridge.

Make a left after the gingerbread treehouse,
after the white house set into the hillside.
Leave your car and walk up the hill behind the red barn
through the high grass. There will be pear trees
on your left, and a white-throated sparrow
will sing in the sycamore behind you.

A pathway will lead you up the hillside
where you will turn to your right up a grassy lane
between pear trees, and you will smell the musk
of the fox who protects the grove which you seek.

Pause a moment before you enter the circle
and listen to the distant call of the phoebe,
wait until the shadow of the vulture crosses the sun,
then step into the shelter of the grove
and let the silence surround you.

Gratitude List:
1. The trusting nature of cats
2. Looking forward to breakfast tomorrow with colleagues
3. The red tree behind the school takes my breath away
4. All of us hanging out in the living room together–somebody is snoring behind the couch
5. Watching students catch fire with the love of reading. I have a student who has been very honest about the fact that she doesn’t like to read, that she has never read a non-graphic-novel on her own. She has been so obsessed with our class reader, The Maze Runner, that today after we finished it, she asked if she could start the second book in the series instead of writing. She read with focus and energy for half an hour straight. I’m so proud of her.
May we walk in Beauty!

“For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.” —Carl Sagan

“But this moment, you’re alive. So you can just dial up the magic of that at any time.” —Joanna Macy

“I tell you the more I think, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.” —Vincent van Gogh

“The most vital right is the right to love and be loved.” —Emma Goldman

“Love imperfectly. Be a love idiot. Let yourself forget any love ideal.” —Sark

“Everything I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything exists, only because I love.” —Leo Tolstoy

“Love is a great beautifier.” —Louisa May Alcott

“Love is everything it’s cracked up to be. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don’t risk everything, you risk even more.” —Erica Jong

“Fall in love over and over again every day. Love your family, your neighbors, your enemies, and yourself. And don’t stop with humans. Love animals, plants, stones, even galaxies.” —Frederic and Mary Ann Brussa

“I will start from here. That is an interesting spiritual statement when you stop to think about it. It means that whatever happened before, and whatever may happen in time to come, the past and the future are not the sacred space I actually inhabit. That space is right here, right now, in whatever condition I find myself. This is what I have to work with. This is where change and hope begin for me. Recognizing my location on the map of the holy is one more way that I claim my place of blessing and announce to the universe: I will start from here.” —Steven Charleston

” ‘They kept going, because they were holding onto something.’
‘What are we holding onto, Sam?’
‘There’s still good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.’ “
—Frodo and Sam

“Somewhere deep in the forest of grief
there is a waterfall where all your tears may flow
over mossy rocks, under watchful pines.”
—Beth Weaver-Kreider

“Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder.” —E. B. White

“There are certain things, often very little things, like the little peanut, the little piece of clay, the little flower that cause you to look WITHIN – and then it is that you see the soul of things.”
—George Washington Carver