Gratitude List:
1. Being Fourth Runner Up. (At the beginning of November, I started this blog as a way to force myself to keep doing the regular exercise of writing a daily poem with Writer’s Digest blogger Robert Brewer’s prompts for the Poem-A-Day Chapbook Challenge. I gathered the poems from that month, formed them into a chapbook with help from some wonderful women, and submitted it to the contest. This morning I found out that I am the Fourth Runner Up! That’s sort of like Sixth Place. There’s no money or publication or fame attached, but it feels so good. And the poems of the Winner and the Honorable Mention that Brewer posted this morning–they were really wonderful. Now to prepare the manuscript to send to Finishing Line Press for their contest–deadline extended to the middle of March.) Happy dance!
2. Crows flying across the field in an Ursa Major formation
3. Jen Brant’s amazing chocolate raspberry flour-less cake deliciousness
4. Joy, joy, joy
5. Hugs
May we walk in beauty.
From Angh to Ma
This morning when we were playing with our gnomes, Joss decided that the gnome house was on fire, and he raced to get a group of gnomes to put it out. “Red! We need all the red gnomes!” Exactly–to put out a fire, it takes lots of red gnomes. Ellis chimed in, “And Minus! We need the Minus Gnome! Because a house with fire Minus the fire is just a house!”
Sometimes I sure would like to use some of Minus Gnome’s magic on me. An anxious Beth Minus anxiety is just Beth. Angst-ridden, anger-struck Beth Minus angst and anger? Beth. So that’s a nice little thing to do with meditation. Of course as soon as I began to work with the idea, it hit me again that the angers and angsts are so often born of compassion and caring, and for those I have been seeking the services of Multiplication Gnome. I need to untangle the compassion from its attendant anger at injustice, its partner anxiety at losses to those I love.
Wow. Look at those words that I wanted to get rid of: Angst, Anxiety, Anger. . .I looked them up, along with their sister Anguish. There at their root is angh-, which comes from the Indo-European language tree, and generally refers to distress of some sort. That lovely vowel–ah–cut short in the back of the throat, closed up along with all hope of breath: Angh!
Fear, shame, anger, distress: what sound emerges when you truly feel them? Angh! Choke.
But still, that lovely vowel–ah–the first we say in so many languages: Mama, Abba, Baba, Dada, Nana, Papa. The opposite of the choke, our family names, our names for the Ineffable Mystery: they release the breath in a tender sigh. Ah. There we go.
When I get really stuck in the Angh, I can dislodge that choke with a little Hahaha, a great belly laugh to force the air back through, a little spiritual CPR, so to speak. Or skip down the street with a Tra-la-la, a little song to start up the rhythm of breathing again. Or a little eureka, a bright discovery with a great Aha!
So the next time I wake up at three in the morning, suddenly filled with the dread of what is happening to this world that I have brought these light-filled children into, or choked with shame for some harshness I have spoken to their tender hearts, I think I will apply the Ah!, the Mama, the Ha! and see if that breath can be a lullaby to take my spirit back to sleep.
Gratitude List:
1. Moving out of Angh to Ma, Aha! and Hahaha!
2. A shining piece of quartzite, white as ice, in the field by the henhouse.
3. The things the gnomes teach us.
4. A swept and dusted house (partly, anyway)
5. Love, love, love: oh, you, and you and you!
May we walk in Beauty!
Garlic Faerie and Gratitude
October Garlic and Blue Jay Faerie
Gratitude List:
1. Silly Putty
2. My three gentlemen
3. Fastnachts
4. Appropriate technologies and re-purposing
5. Giraffes
May we walk in beauty.
Chicken Feathers and Gratitude
Pepita’s Feathers
Gratitude List:
1. Ancestors and descendants
2. Turning sideways into the light
3. Yellow Aconites coming up in the garden (Thank you, Marie!)
4. Sparkly Blue Tanzanian Zoisite
5. Stories woven with stories
May we walk in Beauty!
Gratitude Brought to You by the Letter S
Sun, 2010
Today I am Grateful for:
1. Silence
2. Speech
3. Story (I caught a bit of this Vincent Harding interview today, and felt like his take about the value of Story in our lives was a message meant just for me.)
4. Snakes
5. Sleep.
So be it.
Winter Sky and Gratitude
Winter sky at Goldfinch Farm, 2010
Gratitude List:
1. Val and Dave and three amazing nephews.
2. There is always something new to learn
3. Honesty, integrity, loyalty
4. Compass, direction, orientation
5. Kale for lunch, kale for supper, kale tomorrow
May we walk in beauty.
Some Gratitude Lists
I’ve been posting these on my FB page, but want to save them here so I can come back to them in the future. Here is today’s:
February 8:
Gratitude List:
1. Scrambled fresh eggs with smoked sea salt and Chiptotle pepper sauce.
2. Elderberries!
3. Getting home safely, though the drive home from work was pretty slick.
4. Even when the choices seem challenging, it’s so nice to realize that I do have the choice.
5. The way stories unfold–from strangers, from friends–and weave together.
Namaste!
(6. Imagination: When I got home from work today, Joss came running up to me: “Mom, today I made up a new imaginary friend! He is a baby kangaroo and his name is Koaly.”)
February 7:
Gratitude list:
1. Getting a little clarity
2. Your stance. My stance. And the murky places in between where love can grow. (Thanks, Ruth, for the extension of the idea.)
3. Loving is not about assigning blame. (Thanks, Jane.) I feel like I knew that already, but having it for a mantra this week has been wonderful.
4. The little red-haired gnome who appeared in my dreams last night to help me gather eggs. I like magical dreams.
5. This story a friend told me today (from the movie The African Queen): About two women trying to find their way down the river to the ocean in their boat. As they get more and more mired in the bogs and swamps, and day turns to night, they keep getting out and moving the boat along, pushing it out of the muck. By dawn, they’ve lost all sense of direction, and the water is not even flowing river-like anymore. It’s just bog. But as the sun rises, they hear the loud horn of a ship, and realize that they are, miraculously, just a short distance from their destination. So, that’s it–I won’t despair if I cannot see the direction. I’ll keep my ears peeled for the sound of the ships, keep sniffing the air for the smell of salt.
Tonight, I wish you hope. I wish you courage to move forward even when the way is dark. May we walk in Beauty.
February 5:
I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”
― G.K. Chesterton (Thanks for reminding me of him, Troy!)
Gratitude List:
1. My version. Your version. And the crunchy places in between where learning occurs.
2. Baby steps. We don’t have to get there all at once.
3. Holding each other to our highest good.
4. Four-egg days are here again.
5. Joy!
Namaste.
February 4:
Gratitude List:
1. Web spinning
2. Granny squares
3. Stimulating conversation
4. Nostalgia
5. The Bowl of people who have supported me throughout my life. So many people. Such care and tenderness and earnest hope. Who would I be without you all?
Namaste.
Guest Poet: Kyla Rose Robbins
In January, one of the prompts that I posted for the poem-a-day run was to write a poem that was a secret or a lie. I didn’t know how many people out might actually be writing along. This evening Kyla Rose Robbins gave me permission to post her Secret Poem here on the blog.
Sometimes, at night, I can’t close my eyes
I’m too scared to be alone
Loneliness was your biggest fear, so I never left your sight
I told you things I never told myself
You told me nothing at all
So forget the words I said that night
And I’ll remember nothing
–Kyla Rose Robbins
Every time I read it, I find myself holding my breath, and then I feel my heart start up again. Thank you, Kyla!
Gratitude List
1. Marmite
2. The Bookwitch and her stories
3. Sharing poetry, opening the heart
4. Good, co-operative play time
5. This stinky purring person on my lap
Namaste.
Song for Poets: A Poem for Brighid’s Day
Today we look for that jolly rodent, and also we commemorate Brighid, triple goddess and patroness of Ireland, Saint of Kildare. Smithcraft, poetry, and healing arts are her realms. Sacred wells, undying flame.
We forge our words on your anvil,
listening for the sweet ping
of hammer on metal,
watching the sparks fly outward,
shaping and crafting.
We seek them like wild herbs
found only on the side of a mountain
for a short season each year.
We search under bracken,
through briar and thorn,
stepping through bogs,
listening for the birdsong
that tells us we have arrived
at the proper place.
We give ourselves to words,
not waiting for inspiration,
but chasing it like skuthers of fog
over the misty hills.
Seeking the solace and healing
that words offer,
and turning our minds
to do that healing work.
Crafting our words
into tools and enticements.
A year and a day
the old ones would pledge
to your service.
So may it be.
One year of poetry,
making it, reading it.
Oh Lady, give us poetry.
Gratitude List:
1. Another day of no fighting. This is like a miracle. Really.
2. Ground beef rolls with cheese roux like Odongo used to make. With kale.
3. Choosing my own path.
4. Mary Oliver and synchronicity and magic.
5. Stars.
May we walk in beauty.
Red Russian kale in the snow. Before I ate it.
Seize Your Goat!
(with thanks to Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, Second College Edition, 1982)
get (get) [< akin to OE. -gietan (see BEGET, FORGET),
G. -gessen in vergessen, forget
< IE. base *ghend-, to seize, get hold of,
whence L. prehendere, to grasp, understand]
1. to come into the state of having; win, gain, obtain, acquire
[Don’t let her get your goat.]
2. to set up communication with, as by radio or telephone
[Ah yes, I see, she got your goat.]
3. to influence or persuade (a person) to do something
[You can get your goat to climb the stairs, but you’ll never get it down again.]
4. to reach; arrive at
[How did you get back downstairs with that goat?]
5. to go and bring
[Go get your goat back, Girl!]
6. to become afflicted with (a disease)
[Oh yes, I’ve gotten goats. It’s no easy affliction, let me tell you.]
7. to cause to be
[I see you’ve got your goats in a row.]
8. to be sentenced to
[She got your goat. Now what is she going to do with it?]
9. [Colloq.] to own; possess
[I have got my own goat, thank you.]
10. [Colloq.] to be or become the master of;
to overpower; to have complete control of
[Or has your goat got you?]
11. [Colloq.] to catch the meaning or import of; understand
[Relax. She really gets your goat.]
12. [Slang] to cause an emotional response in;
irritate, please, thrill, etc.
[Your goat gets me every time.]
Saturday Prompt
I know, I’m supposed to be done and editing, but Tuesday is Brigit, Groundhog’s Day, Imbolc, Candlemas, the Feast of St. Brighid, a luminous day deserving of poetry. Let’s skip a day and write a poem to honor the occasion on Saturday. Join me?
Gratitude List:
1. Cassiopeia, Orion, Pleiades (and spell-check)
2. Forgiveness
3. A sun-splattered day and winds that meant it
4. Did the boys pass an entire day without a single fight? It’s a miracle.
5. Editing
May we walk in beauty.
I found this randomly on the web and cannot discover who owns it. I’ll credit it if someone tells me.
