My sleep has been so disturbed lately that even a “good” night includes many little wakings. Not so last night. I slept soundly all night and woke up with no images or messages in my brain. Blank slate. Tabula rasa. I’m not going to complain about the lack of fodder for my dream searches, but simply delight in a solid sleep, and hope it continues.

I’ll just take the blank slate and the good rest as my messages.

---

Gratitude List:

• Sleep
• Time out of time
• Red berries
• A blank slate of possibilities
• Poetry

May we walk in Beauty!

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“I came from a family of repairers. The spider is a repairer. If you bash into the web of a spider, she doesn’t get mad. She weaves and repairs it.” —Louise Bourgeois
*****
“When you have an ancient heart and childlike spirit you must feel deeply, but go lightly. To trace and learn the language of waves. How all the seas carry secrets, yet still move freely. I am still learning how to be water.” —Victoria Erickson
*****
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” —Viktor E. Frankl
*****
“We were made to enjoy music, to enjoy beautiful sunsets, to enjoy looking at the billows of the sea and to be thrilled with a rose that is bedecked with dew… Human beings are actually created for the transcendent, for the sublime, for the beautiful, for the truthful… and all of us are given the task of trying to make this world a little more hospitable to these beautiful things.” —Desmond Tutu
*****:
“I’m restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again.” ―Anaïs Nin
*****
Leave your windows and go out, people of the world,
go into the streets, go into the fields, go into the woods
and along the streams. Go together, go alone.
Say no to the Lords of War which is Money
which is Fire. Say no by saying yes
to the air, to the earth, to the trees,
yes to the grasses, to the rivers, to the birds
and the animals and every living thing, yes
to the small houses, yes to the children. Yes.
―Wendell Berry
*****
“If we surrendered
to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.

Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.

So like children, we begin again…

to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly.”
―Rainer Maria Rilke
*****
“We do not think ourselves into new ways of living. We live ourselves into new ways of thinking.

It seems that we Christians have been worshiping Jesus’ journey instead of doing his journey. The worshiping feels very religious; the latter just feels human and ordinary. We are not human beings on a journey toward Spirit, we are already spiritual beings on a journey toward becoming fully human, which for some reason seems harder precisely because it is so ordinary.” ―Richard Rohr
*****
“What if nostalgia is not a fruitless dwelling on those irretrievable moments of the past, as we are taught, but an attempt by sweetness to reach you again?

What if nostalgia is really located in the present, like a scent or ambience which is gathering around you should you avail yourself to it.

As anyone who has been heartbroken knows, there comes a time when, long after loss has been well-lived with, a small melody of love always returns. And to your surprise, you may recognise the tone of that love as the very same love you believed you lost.

It’s then that you know that your love was always your love. And if you let yourself be unguarded to it, nostalgia may find its way back into the generosity of your presence.” ―Dreamwork with Toko-pa

I don’t remember much of the dreaming last night, other than that I joined a super club, but then I got anxious about scheduling and about socializing, and then it devolved into one of those dreams where I search for a bathroom.

But then, just as I was drifting back to sleep, then names of Odin’s ravens popped into my brain: Huginn and Muninn, Thought and Memory. The sky these days has been filled with crows. This is the season of crows in Lancaster County. Reminders of the Ancient Ones who represent sentience and memories.

I’ll hold that as my message from the dreamtime for today.

---

Gratitude List:

• These shining young people, these niblings.
• Crows
• Ancestors
• Such rich conversations
• The inspiring life and words of Desmond Tutu

May we walk in Beauty!

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Words for the Second Day of Kwanzaa, for you who celebrate it:
Today’s word is Kujichagulia. Self determination.
(Even if you don’t know Swahili, it’s a fun word to roll around in your mouth. Try it. Emphasize the second and second to last syllables.)
*****
“Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” —Desmond Tutu
******
“I wish I could shut up, but I can’t, and I won’t.” —Desmond Tutu
*****
“I would not worship a God who is homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about this. I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. No, I would say sorry, I mean I would much rather go to the other place. I am as passionate about this campaign as I ever was about apartheid.” —Desmond Tutu
*****
“For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people: that each protects the solitude of the other. This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love: the more they give, the more they possess.” ―Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
*****
“Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow.” ―Carrie Fisher
*****
“Be somebody that makes everybody feel like a somebody.” —Kid President

Time for some dream work. Every year in these days between Solstice/Christmas and Epiphany, I keep track of the dreams and images that come to me, the things that I see that startle or surprise me.

I’ve been dreaming a lot lately, but I’ve been out of practice when it comes to remembering and recording.

Last night’s dream is frustrating. I have been trying to get somewhere, to a friend who needs me. I’m in a car packed with people, and they don’t seem to be interested in getting to our destination. I’m fact, I’m sure we’ve passed the place we were going to, but they don’t listen, don’t seem to care. In fact, they seem to be deliberately taking us further away. I feel like they’re TRYING to frustrate me.

Finally, while we’re stopped so one of the guys can brush his teeth, I walk up to some other people and ask if they know if the building I want to go to. They’re planning to go right past it, and they can take me!

The others from my car are surprised and a little hurt that I would abandon them, but I feel so free.

I think this dream is about choosing my path and not letting others dictate the process. Asking for help when I need it. Not being caught up in the expectations of others.

---

Gratitude List:

• Crows
• Family
• Red berries
• Puzzles
• Messages

May we walk in Beauty!

Joyful Kwanzaa to my friends who are celebrating the first fruits: Today is Umoja, or Unity, time to reflect on ways in which we can bring unity in divided situations in the coming year.
*****
“You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” —Mary Oliver
*****
“Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.” ―Susan Sontag
*****
“People who own the world outright for profit will have to be stopped; by influence, by power, by us.” —Wendell Berry
*****
“Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.” —Mary Oliver
*****
“When you understand interconnectedness, it makes you more afraid of hating than of dying.”
—Robert A. F. Thurman
*****
“It’s quiet now. So quiet that can almost hear other people’s dreams.” ―Gayle Forman
*****
“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.” ―Thich Nhat Hanh

Gratitude:

1. Pholiota limonella, the brilliant orange mushrooms that grow on my stump in late fall. And the oysters that join them.
2. The holy angle of autumn sun
3. Sycamore and maple
4. Reminders to Love
5. That mortifying and stressful situation was only a dream. I could wake up and it isn’t real.
6. How when one person offers/allows tears, it’s a communion all can share.

May we walk in Justice, in Mercy, in Humility, in Beauty!

---

The verdict. Like so many before. Rage. Sadness. Weariness. Resignation. Some thoughts:

1. If Black and Brown folks say it is about race, then the rest of us need to shut up and listen instead of arguing.
2. I think a boy who carries a gun into a crowd, and then shoots people, whether he was out to kill or whether he thought he was shooting in self-defense, ought to be held accountable.
3. And so should his parents.
4. And so should the self-styled militia he thought he was joining.
5. And so should the culture that seems to think it is acceptable for a boy to carry an AR-15 into a crowd.
6. Police officers are trained in the use of guns and they make mistakes, as we so often see, so why would anyone think an untrained angry 17-year-old should be in that place with a gun?
7. If I’m directing my rage at this boy, I think it’s displaced. This is the result of a culture enamored of guns. And a system rigged in favor of white people, a system which tries to camouflage white male rage as protection, as self-defense.

---

I realize that stress has caught up to me again, and I am struggling to be resilient. Here’s how I know: The sound kicked out on my computer-to-projector during class this week, and I got furious. Furious and whiny. Not with a human, but with my computer. There was no space between the realization and the rage.

My car broke down, and immediately I began to catalog all the terrible things that had been happening to me. Like an anti-gratitude list. And it took me until I was halfway through the day to stop and think about the fact that we broke down almost at my friend’s house, and he was working from home that day and could lend me his car for the carpool. How miraculous was that!?!

The little things were starting to get to me. I didn’t (don’t?) have the reserves of grace to weather the bumps. Like an old car that rattles across a pothole and gives up the ghost, my soul hasn’t had the bounce, the shock absorbers, to carry on. At least not without a growling sound coming from the engine.

Here’s the happy bit, however: Simply admitting it has helped. The bounce is returning, with the simple acknowledgement that it was missing. Instead of cataloguing my griefs and woes and troubles, I’m back to cataloguing gratitudes. And it helps. I’m bouncing again.

---

“Oh to meet, however briefly, the greatness that lives under our surface. To summon enough bravery to be without armour and strategy, for the chance at meeting that irreducible power. Oh to make of our terrified hearts a prayer of surrender to the God of Love; that we remain safe in our quivering ache to be near that Otherness, even for a moment. To touch that ancient life who will never relinquish its wilderness, who lets instinct make its choices, whose knowing lives in bones and whose song is a wayfinder.” ―Dreamwork with Toko-pa

---

“The deeper our faith, the more doubt we must endure; the deeper our hope, the more prone we are to despair; the deeper our love, the more pain its loss will bring: these are a few of the paradoxes we must hold as human beings. If we refuse to hold them in the hopes of living without doubt, despair, and pain, we also find ourselves living without faith, hope, and love.”
―Parker J. Palmer

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“November always seemed to me the Norway of the year.”
―Emily Dickinson

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“One of my favourite teachings by Martín Prechtel is that ‘violence is an inability with grief.’ In other words, it takes skillfulness to grieve well, to grieve wholeheartedly. It requires us to bravely, nakedly come to face all that is lost, keeping our hearts open to loving just as fully again.
“When we make war, lashing out in rage and revenge, it is because we are unwilling to make this full encounter with grief. It is easy to enact the same violence which has taken so much from us―including towards ourselves―but the greater work is to let that which is missing enlarge your life; to make beauty from your brokenness.
“Whatever you hold in the cauldron of your intention is your offering to the divine. The quality of assistance you can generate and receive from the Holy is governed by the quality of your inner offering. When you indulge in fear and doubt, you are flooding the arena where love is attempting to work.” ―Dreamwork with Toko-pa

---

“Our true home is in the present moment.
To live in the present moment is a miracle.
The miracle is not to walk on water.
The miracle is to walk on the green Earth
in the present moment.”
―Thich Nhat Hanh

---

“An Awake Heart
is like a Sky that Pours Light.” ―Hafiz

---

“Gather the dawn and wind.
Breathe in sun and frost and song.
Hold for a moment.
Breathe out birds and words and joy.
Breathe out moss and stones and hope.”
―Beth Weaver-Kreider

---

“. . .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.

---

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

This fall is a full semester. A very full load of preps. Lots of student recommendations to write. Even as I begin to consider my next sentence, I feel as though I’m drawing up my list of complaints, my explanation for why my life is so hard right now. Do you ever find yourself doing that? Justifying your exhaustion? Explaining away your sad mood?

That’s why I need to get back to gratitude lists. Not to ignore all the difficult things, but to balance them. The other stuff is there, and it will still be there, and I need to process it all and get to work on it, but brooding on it, obsessing about it, only causes insomnia and agitation to add to the list of woes. If my mind had to jump to enumerating lists, let it be my reasons for not, for contentment, for satisfaction.

Gratitude List:

1. I slept the whole way through the night last night.

2. My good, good colleagues.

3. Good books. My favorite escape.

4. Today is a light day, lots of breathing spaces in it.

5. Falling asleep to the sound of the rain.

May we walk in Beauty.

---

“Look! Look! Look deep into nature and you will understand everything.”
~ Albert Einstein
*
“The only trap I must beware not to fall into, is to think that each day is the same as the next. In fact, each morning brings with it a hidden miracle, and we must pay attention to this miracle.”
~ Paulo Coelho
*
“In the end, so much of the conflict we feel in our hearts is because we’ve split ourselves off from the very life we are living. We partition ourselves from the things with which we are at odds, treating them as unbelonging even as we live them. We vaguely imagine some other place, some better job, some other lover – but the irony is that so much of what makes us unhappy is our own rejection of the life we have made. Eventually we must take our life into our arms and call it our own. We must look at it squarely with all its unbecoming qualities and find a way to love it anyway. Only from that complete embrace can a life begin to grow into what it is meant to become.”
–Toko-pa Turner
*
“There is a notion that creative people are absentminded, reckless, heedless of social customs and obligations. It is, hopefully, true.” –Mary Oliver
*
“Love is the strongest force the world possesses and yet it is the humblest imaginable.” –Mahatma Gandhi
*
“People who talk only to communicate are different from people who talk for pleasure. People who talk for pleasure, as opposed to people who talk to communicate, become wonderful talkers over the years. They have eloquence.”
—Wendell Berry
*
“You must not only aim right, but draw the bow with all your might.”
–Henry David Thoreau
*
“Be curious, not judgmental.” –Walt Whitman
*
Out in the dawn, a misty sea
in walnut tree
a silent crow
will dream of snow

will ruffle feathers in the chill
will wait until
the first bright ray
begins the day

then with a final shake will rise
from branch to skies
and this will be
a memory
–Beth Weaver-Kreider