Poetry Prompts

The Fib

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Day 6: Write a fib.
There are two ways to write a fib poem. One is to write a lie, tell a tall tale, let loose a whopper of a fiction. Startlingly, the truth can sometimes be found in the margins of a lie.

Or, write in the form of a fib–Fibonacci, that is. In the Fibonacci Sequence, each number in the pattern is derived from the addition of the previous two numbers: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21. So in a Fib poem, the first line is a single syllable, as is the second. The third line has two syllables, the fourth has three, and so on. I usually don’t go higher than 13, and sometimes I write a second stanza and come back down to one again.

Gratitude List:
1. Chris’s Dogboys, Solly and Gabe. Gabe is such a smoochy pooch. Snuggly.
2. Storytelling and songs
3. Anticipating eclipse
4. I’ve said it before, and I will say it again: BLUUUUUUUE sky! (Oy, was that ever a long stretch of grey rainy days.)
5. Quinoa salad with veggies, tahini, roasted rosemary grapes
May we walk in Beauty!

“Hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists. Optimists think it will all be fine without our involvement; pessimists take the opposite position; both excuse themselves from acting. (Hope) is the belief that what we do matters even though how and when it may matter, who and what it may impact, are not things we can know beforehand.” —Rebecca Solnit

“I am not giving up on peace, even if, right now, it is taking some heavy blows. I still believe justice will not desert the innocent. And I will always believe that truth will find its way to the light. These bedrock visions guide me into the future. They hold me up when the going gets rough. Conflict may have the upper hand now, but never count love out. The Spirit has a few surprises to offer in the days to come. Signs of hope will find us wherever we may be. I am not giving up.” —Steven Charleston

“Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.” —Maya Angelou

“God invites everyone to the House of Peace.” —The Holy Quran

“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind.” —George Orwell

“What a pity that so hard on the heels of Christ came the Christians.”
—Annie Dillard

“The arc of history is long, and what we’re here to do is make a mark. . . . You do the work because you’re slowly moving the needle. There are times in history when we feel like we’re going backward, but that’s part of the growth.” —Barack Obama

“Each moment from all sides rushes to us the call to love.” —Rumi

“You are a co-creator of love in this world.” —Richard Rohr

“Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

“When we let ourselves respond to poetry, to music, to pictures, we are clearing out a space where new stories can root; in effect we are clearing a space for new stories about ourselves.”
—Jeanette Winterson

“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return.” —Eden Ahbez

“Remember, the ugly, old woman/witch
is the invention of dominant cultures.
The beauty of crones is legendary:
old women are satin-skinned,
softly wrinkled, silver-haired, and awe-inspiring
in their truth and dignity.” —Susun Weed

Librarians

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 4 Comments

My Saturday has gotten away with me, and my head is not in a poetry place. Sigh. I wish I had done better for the librarians. They deserve more. Every time I started getting into it, I veered into rage at all the ways in which school boards and local commissioners and sanctimonious, self-righteous outrage hounds are attacking libraries and librarians these days. In my local community just a week ago, our public library received a bomb threat, and the library director received a bomb threat at her house.

Support your local library. Stand up and speak out when the hordes attack. Trust librarians.

Keepers of democracy, they stand
on the front lines of free speech,
offering equal access to all who
seek wisdom in the written word.
Do you need a recipe for risotto
or revolution? A book on planets
or inclined planes or things to do
on a rainy day? The librarian will
tell you where to find it, and you
just might find your sense of purpose
in the stacks, in those cathedral
corridors of shelves. You might
discover yourself in a book you
had never thought to open.

Gratitude List:
1. The River, and the sun on the River
2. The sycamores along the River
3. Librarians (Happy National Librarian Day!)
4. Rosemary roasted grapes
5. Those red, red tulips!
May we walk in Beauty!

“Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.” —Terry Pratchett

The Happy Virus
by Hafez
I caught the happy virus last night
When I was out singing beneath the stars.
It is remarkably contagious—
So kiss me.

“It is our mind, and that alone,
that chains us or sets us free.” —Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

“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

“Anyone out there want to sing with me while we finish this march? I realize it may seem a little counter-intuitive right now, with so many in a somber mood, but the harder the walk gets, the more I think we need to meet its challenge with strong hearts and voices. The singing becomes our anthem, a rebuke to the powers of pain and an exaltation of the indomitable human spirit. If we must move forward against all odds, then let us do so singing. Let them hear us coming. Let them know we have only just started to hit our stride.” —Steven Charleston

Guardian

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Gratitude List:
1. All the fine, thoughtful souls at the Poetry Reading and Workshop at Radiance tonight
2. French Fries
3. Cherry trees and peach trees
4. I saw blue sky today, just a patch behind the clouds, but it was there!
5. The Guardians
May we walk in Beauty!

“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

Ask Some Questions

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 3 Comments

Here is my Questions Poem:

Gratitude List:
1. Did you see the sun today? I did!
2. The tang of Horseradish
3. Weaving it all together, integrating the pieces
4. My daily morning Philosophers’ Club, otherwise known as Middle Division Reading and Writing
5. The smell of sandalwood
May we walk in Beauty!

“We cannot be grateful for what we do not notice, and we cannot honor what we fail to see.” —Marcy C. Earle

“I must have flowers, always and always.” —Claude Monet

“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

Rain, rain, rain

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Here is my Rain Poem. I feel like I am starting to get back in the groove.

Gratitude List:
1. Rain, and the hope of sun to come
2. More light each day
3. Roasted veggies
4. Naps with cats
5. People who step and do what needs to be done
May we 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

“Being a successful poet is a lot like being a successful mushroom.” —Poet Richard Howard

“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:

“Let there be. . .”
And there is.

And it is good.

quilting
by Lucille Clifton

some other where
alchemists mumble over pots.
their chemistry stirs
into science. their science
freezes into stone.

in the unknown world
the woman
threading together her need
and her needle
nods toward the smiling girl…

Make space in this house
for all of the people you are.
Make room for the schemer,
the doubter, the cynic,
but open some space
for the credulous child
and the mystic, the dreamer,
the wild one, the quiet one.

Open a space within
for the glass-half-full to dance
with the glass-half-empty,
for the monk to sing songs
of revolution with the fury.

There in those rooms,
the One may enter
and speak your many names,
saying, Peace be yours.
—Beth Weaver-Kreider

Reasons for Hope

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Here’s a quick attempt at a list poem. As always in these poem-a-day experiences, it’s raw and unrevised:

Reasons for Hope
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

Peregrines nest on the Wrightsville Bridge
The prophets are filling the streets again, calling, “Peace!”
A human Wall of Love stands up to bigots, offering belonging
How purple dead nettle creates a carpet in corn stubble
Two I thought certain we’d lose are breathing and healing
Those we have lost live on, for what is remembered lives
The hollow here opens its arms like a green blanket
A student who chooses invisibility called “Hello” to me last week
There is always singing, and there will always be more singing
I am here and you are here, and you and you and you. . .

Gratitude List:
1. Poetry
2. Keeping memories alive
3. How dreams inform waking
4. Housecats
5. All the people, like you, who are doing the good work of making the world a better place
May we walk in Beauty!

“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

“The fullness of joy is to behold God in everything.” —Julian of Norwich

“Water flows over these hands.
May I use them skillfully
to preserve our precious planet.”
—Thich Nhat Hahn

“At first I thought I was fighting to save rubber trees, then I thought I was fighting to save the Amazon rainforest. Now I realise I am fighting for humanity.” —Chico Mendes, Martyred Brazilian environmentalist

“It is everyone’s business is to connect with their ancestors, and to be in wholeness and peace. To know your true authentic self, it is required that you know your ancestors.” —Annette Mendoza-McCoy

Another Month for Writing Poetry!

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

I’m hoping to create a daily prompt again this month.

Here’s my attempt at a topsy-turvy two-stanza poem. As happens during these months of a poem-a-day, this one’s pretty unfinished and unrevised, but the point is to loosen up and not get caught in my desire for perfection:

You know how it is,
how you amble down that dusty road,
scramble over rocks and stones,
and it becomes a game to name
the turnings on the winding way?
You know, like the story of the children
stumbling through the woods
who laid a trail of breadcrumbs
so they could find their way home.

You could say
it’s all a part of the part you play,
the scene you’ve been assigned,
the way the play’s designed–
one act follows another, but what if
the old woman was saving the brother,
cold as he was from walking in the wood,
and what if the sister got the story twisted,
or the townspeople insisted
on telling the story their way?
Who’s to say?

Gratitude List:
1. A work day at school. It’s nice to have a day when the students aren’t around, just to catch up and catch my breath.
2. A thousand shades of green
3. Flamingos and ostriches. They really do seem sort of impossible, which makes them doubly charming
4. Grounding. Every day, I do a grounding meditation. Since my trip to Tanzania, I can feel my roots spread out so far, so far.
5. The Springtime dawn bird chorus has been filling out a little more each day.
May we walk in Beauty!

Words for the Day of the Holy Fool:
“Let’s be April fools in the Shakespearean sense of fools. Time to be insightful and speak truth to power.” —Jarod Anderson, The Cryptonaturalist

“If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. “ —Emily Dickinson

“The fullness of joy is to behold God in everything.” —Julian of Norwich

“Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.” —Carl Jung

“Poems are maps to the place where you already are.” —Jane Hirshfield

“Be still, and the world is bound to turn herself inside out to entertain you. Everywhere you look, joyful noise is clanging to drown out quiet desperation. The choice is to draw the blinds and shut it all out, or believe.” —Barbara Kingsolver, High Tide in Tucson

“When you do not know you need mercy and forgiveness yourself, you invariably become stingy in sharing it with others. So make sure you are always waiting with hands widely cupped under the waterfall of mercy.” —Richard Rohr

“All four gospels insist that when all the other disciples are fleeing, Mary Magdalene does not run. She stands firm. She does not betray or lie about her commitment to Jesus—she witnesses. Hers is clearly a demonstration of either the deepest human love or the highest spiritual understanding of what Jesus was teaching—perhaps both. But why—one wonders–do Holy Week liturgies tell and re-tell the story of Peter’s threefold denial of Jesus, while the steady and unwavering witness of Magdalene is passed over—not even noticed? How would our understanding of the paschal story change if instead of reflecting upon Jesus dying alone and rejected if we were to reinforce the fact that one person stood by him and did not leave? For this story of Mary Magdalene is as firmly stated in scripture as the denial story. How would this change the emotional timbre of the day? How would it affect our feeling of ourselves? How would it reflect upon how we have viewed, and still view, women in the church? About the nature of redemptive love?” —Cynthia Bourgeault, Episcopal Priest

“When I feel this fog rolling in on me, I light fires of affection in the hearts of others. I tell them in tangible ways how the life they live makes me live mine differently, how precious and important they are to the rest of us. That fire then becomes like a beacon which burns through the grey and which I can sail towards.” –Toko-pa Turner

It’s good to leave each day behind,
like flowing water, free of sadness.
Yesterday is gone and its tale told.
Today new seeds are growing.
—Rumi

Last night

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 4 Comments

Last day of the month. Last prompt: Last night. That’s the prompt. I decided to make it simple and do a refrain with a bit of free association, and then I tidied it up.

Last night I was haunted by last year’s ghost
Last night I sank to the ground in relief when I remembered my name
Last night I heard you offered solace to a wandering heretic lost in a storm
Last night I dreamed I was standing under a jacaranda tree
that rained purple blossoms on my head
Last night I stayed awake until the sun rose and the moon fell
Last night I slept the whole night through
with a purring cat tucked under my arm
Last night I learned of the secret door that leads to the garden of the moon

Gratitude List:
1. Knitting
2. Intentional Breathing
3. Origami
4. Reading poems out loud
5. Finding my voice
May we walk in Beauty!

“I don’t always feel like I belong, or like I understand the unwritten rules of certain groups, even though I think I am a pretty good observer of human nature. So when I am in a group whose rules accept everyone’s awkwardness and oddness unconditionally, which loves each one not in spite of our oddities, but because of them, then I feel safe. Then I feel belonging. I am especially grateful to those of you who know how to extend unconditional welcome in ways that make everyone believe they belong.” —Beth Weaver-Kreider

“To wantonly destroy a living species is to silence forever a divine voice. Our primary need for the various life forms of the planet is a psychic, rather than a physical, need.” —Thomas Berry

“All through your life, the most precious experiences seemed to vanish. Transience turns everything to air. You look behind and see no sign even of a yesterday that was so intense. Yet in truth, nothing ever disappears, nothing is lost. Everything that happens to us in the world passes into us. It all becomes part of the inner temple of the soul and it can never be lost. This is the art of the soul: to harvest your deeper life from all the seasons of your experience. This is probably why the soul never surfaces fully. The intimacy and tenderness of its light would blind us. We continue in our days to wander between the shadowing and the brightening, while all the time a more subtle brightness sustains us. If we could but realize the sureness around us, we would be much more courageous in our lives. The frames of anxiety that keep us caged would dissolve. We would live the life we love and in that way, day by day, free our future from the weight of regret.” —John O’Donohue

“The next time you go out in the world, you might try this practice: directing your attention to people—in their cars, on the sidewalk, talking on their cell phones—just wish for them all to be happy and well. Without knowing anything about them, they can become very real, by regarding each of them personally and rejoicing in the comforts and pleasures that come their way. Each of us has this soft spot: a capacity for love and tenderness. But if we don’t encourage it, we can get pretty stubborn about remaining sour.” —Pema Chodrun, From her book Becoming Bodhisattvas

“Quiet the mind enough
so it is the heart
that gives the prayer.”
—Ingrid Goff-Maidoff

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” —Martin Luther King Jr.

“People are like stained glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within.” —Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

“Creative acts of social justice constitute life’s highest performance art.” —Rebecca Alban Hoffberger

“If you will, you can become all flame.” —Abba Joseph

“Become all shadow.
Become all light.”
—Beth Weaver-Kreider

“You cannot use someone else’s fire; you can only use your own. And in order to do that, you must first be willing to believe you have it.” —Audre Lorde

“The first duty of love is to listen.”
—Paul Tillich

“Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith. The opposite of faith is certainty.”
—Paul Tillich

“When you go to your place of prayer, don’t try to think too much or manufacture feelings or sensations. Don’t worry about what words you should say or what posture you should take. It’s not about you or what you do. Simply allow Love to look at you—and trust what God sees! God just keeps looking at you and loving you center to center. ” —Richard Rohr

“People with a psychological need to believe in marvels are no more prejudiced and gullible than people with a psychological need not to believe in marvels.” —Charles Fort

“O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in’t.” —Shakespeare, The Tempest

Olly Olly Oxen Free!

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Today’s prompt is to write a “(Blank) Free” Poem.

ollyollyoxenfree!
who are olly’s oxen?
why are they boxed-in
and searching for freedom?
like children running
from hide and seek
or kick-the-can
uncaught uncaptured
last to be found
racing to safe haven
sun setting over the hill
oxen giggles echoing
wiggling into base
safe

I’m trying to drag myself through November and into December right now. I always feel a little guilty about these winter blues, as though I’m not trying hard enough to be energetic, not pushing myself through the blues. I would never tell a depressed person to suck it up and just try harder, so why do I tell myself to do that during November’s blahs and December’s doldrums?

I read a lovely thing today about how trees in our climate need their time of winter rest in order to survive. They actually need to winter. So. Me too. I’m going to let myself winter. Just sit on the couch and read or knit after dark (which feels like all the time when I am home these days). I ran a little this evening, but only a half mile or so. I’ll keep trying to get necessary exercise when I can, because I know that is supposed to help, but I am also going to get more sleep.

Gratitude List:
1. Cloud Dragons
2. I feel like all my classes are really into the class novels right now. I love sharing story with students. (We’re reading Touching Spirit Bear, Catch-22, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy)
3. Spaghetti Squash
4. Remembering to let myself Winter/hibernate/settle
5. You
May we walk in Beauty!

“Healing comes in waves and maybe today the wave hits the rocks. And that’s ok, that’s ok, darling. You are still healing, you are still healing.” —Ijeoma Umebinyuo

“No matter where we are, the ground between us will always be sacred ground.“ —Fr. Henri Nouwen

“The truest art I would strive for in any work would be to give the page the same qualities as earth: weather would land on it harshly; light would elucidate the most difficult truths; wind would sweep away obtuse padding.” —Gretel Ehrlich

“‪The fact that these words and the jumble of lines that create their letters has no real, inherent meaning outside of a human context, yet they hum with life, is a wonderful reminder that what we imagine can easily become real and powerful simply because we decide it should be so.‬” —Jarod K. Anderson, The Cryptonaturalist

“Writing at the library. Surrounded by thousands of books, windows into other minds. Some of these writers are living. Some are not. Neatly ordered rectangles of concentrated human life and intellect. A book is certainly a kind of ghost and libraries are pleasantly haunted places.” —Jarod K. Anderson, The Cryptonaturalist

“The beauty of the world…has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder.” —Virginia Woolf

I know nothing, except what everyone knows —
If there when Grace dances, I should dance.
—W.H. Auden

“I do believe in an everyday sort of magic—the inexplicable connectedness we sometimes experience with places, people, works of art and the like; the eerie appropriateness of moments of synchronicity; the whispered voice, the hidden presence, when we think we’re alone.”
—Charles de Lint

“The innocence of our childhood lives on, in each one of us, no matter how old or battered we may be. Still that original goodness, that simple goodness, remains within us. Our best nature never grows old. What the Spirit first intended us to be is still there, peeping out from wrinkled eyes, caught in a quick glance in the mirror: the laughing, shining, curious child who lives again. And again and again. For we are made of the intention of heaven, a part of the perfect life at the center of all creation. Watch for your inner self, the ageless soul, and see it smiling back at you, like a little child caught beside the cookie jar.” —Steven Charleston

Taste the Day

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

Today’s prompt offers a choice, to write a Seize the Day or a Survive the Day poem. Here’s my response:

i don’t want to seize the day
so much as to
take it gently in my hands
like a round red and yellow apple
admire its shiny surface
feel the smoothness of its skin
then take a bite
taste the tang
the sweetness
the perfection of it
know that each bite
will be sweeter than the last

Gratitude List:
1. Apples
2. Blankets
3. Red curtains
4. This quote, by Brené Brown: “You will always belong anywhere you show up as yourself and talk about yourself and your work in a real way.”
5. This other quote by Brené Brown: “Strong back. Soft Front. Wild Heart.” I might want to get that as a tattoo.
May we walk in Beauty!

“There are no shortcuts to wholeness. The only way to become whole is to put our arms lovingly around everything we’ve shown ourselves to be: self-serving and generous, spiteful and compassionate, cowardly and courageous, treacherous and trustworthy. We must be able to say to ourselves and to the world at large, ‘I am all of the above.’” —Parker Palmer

Solace is your job now.”
—Jan Richardson

Joy Harjo:
“When I woke up from a forty-year sleep, it was by a song. I could hear the drums in the village. I felt the sweat of ancestors in each palm. The singers were singing the world into place, even as it continued to fall apart. They were making songs to turn hatred into love.”

“The history of an oppressed people is hidden in the lies and the agreed myth of its conquerors.”
―Meridel Le Sueur

“I never want to lose the story-loving child within me, or the adolescent, or the young woman, or the middle-aged one, because all together they help me to be fully alive on this journey, and show me that I must be willing to go where it takes me, even through the valley of the shadow.”
―Madeleine L’Engle

“Alas, the webs are torn down, the spinners stomped out. But the forest smiles. Deep in her nooks and crevices she feels the spinners and the harmony of their web. We will dream our way to them …

…Carefully, we feel our way through the folds of darkness. Since our right and left eyes are virtually useless, other senses become our eyes. The roll of a pebble, the breath of dew-cooled pines, a startled flutter in a nearby bush magnify the vast silence of the forest. Wind and stream are the murmering current of time, taking us back to where poetry is sung and danced and lived. … In the distance a fire flickers – not running wild, but contained, like a candle. The spinners.” —Marylou Awiakta, Selu: Seeking the Corn-Mother’s Wisdom

“Do it right, because you only got one time to walk this earth. Make it good, make it a good thing.” —Grandmother Agnes “Taowhywee” (Morning Star) Baker Pilgrim (1924-2019)

“Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.” —Robert Frost

“I believe war is a weapon of persons with personal power, that is to say, the power to reason, the power to persuade, from a position of morality and integrity ; and that to go to war with an enemy who is weaker than you is to admit you possess no resources within yourself to bring to bear on your fated.” —Alice Walker

“The fault dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in our selves.” —Cassius, from ‘Julius Caesar’ by William Shakespeare

“Let your love be like the misty rain, coming softly, but flooding the River.” ––Proverb

“Perhaps too much sanity may be madness.” —from ‘Don Quixote’ by Cervantes