“It has happened before—it will happen again.” —last words in The Magic Cauldron by Margaret F. O’Connell
Fortune shifts her skirts. The Wheel of Fate turns. Fire burns the village, but saves the traveler lost in the wilderness.
Death has visited this valley before and, like winter, she will come again. Will you dance at her return as you celebrated her passing? Will you sing the songs on the open plain that you whispered in the hallways of sadness?
What has once been will be again. What you have seen will show itself in seasons yet to come. The bud that bursts from the twig today will burst again from another branch in another place, another year. Do you hear the music now, that echoes over the hill?
I’m having a lot of fun mashing my photos with Chagall paintings to get that blue.
One of my Facebook friends, someone I don’t know IRL, but someone I have come to care about through our network of mutual friends, is in trouble. What do you do when you care about someone, but you aren’t part of their close network, and can’t call or text to check up? I breathe, which is like a prayer. So today I am breathing for my friend who is wandering close to the edge.
Breathe in. Breathe out. As you breathe, let your mind wander through the circles of your beloveds. Who needs your energy right now? Breathe in, and hold that person in your mind’s eye. Hold that breath a moment, and hold that person close to your heart. Breathe out. Breathe out love and compassion and energy and hope. Breathe in your beloved. Hold them close to your heart. Breathe out and cast them a line. Breathe in and hold your beloved. Breathe out and offer them love. Breathe in. Breathe out.
Gratitude List: 1. A socially distant visit from a dear, dear friend and a gift of tulips! Thank you, Dear One! 2. Those slightly hot yellow pickled pepper rings. 3. Spring peepers. I still remember one summer around the campfire at Camp Hebron when Gloria tried to help me hear the peepers in the midst of the cicadas and the crickets. I thought there was some magic I was missing in the world–my ears don’t sort sound well, and I couldn’t catch it. But now, for whatever reason, the peepers are busy up our street, and I can hear them, and they make me happy. 4. Chagall’s blues. 5. Erebus. We both know it is illegal for him to be up here on the table, but he wants to be right next to me. How can I tell him no?
Take care of each other. Walk in Beauty!
If you haven’t watched Jon Krasinski’s SGN show, take a few minutes today to google it. I think you’ll be glad you did.
“Dear friends, look at the real heroes who come to light in these days: they are not famous, rich and successful people; rather, they are those who are giving themselves in order to serve others.” —Pope Francis
“Remember, the ugly, old woman/witch is the invention of dominant cultures. The beauty of crones is legendary: old women are satined-skinned, softly wrinkled, silver-haired, and awe-inspiring in their truth and dignity.” —Susun Weed
“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
The prompts today are Trap, and Blue. Instead of doing a mash-up, I did two.
In the Arms of the Beloved by Beth Weaver-Kreider
You can’t escape the blue, the windy robe of the Beloved draped like a veil over the rim of your living, over the bowl of your holiest spaces,
and scattered deep within the indigo arms of the tree-shadows, indigo bluer than soul, pathways striping the afternoon green, leading you home to the arms of your most desired Mystery.
Trapped in the Anagrams by Beth Weaver-Kreider
I am rapt. I start prattling, debating. I stay apart: No parties. No pasta. No prattling patter. I’m caught in the strata. No matter, I rap and I mutter. This pome can’t escape the trap and the stutter, lodged under a tarp of ratatat blather, of anagram chatter.
“It is our mind, and that alone, that chains us or sets us free.” —Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
That quote is one I have had tucked away in the unlikely event that I would end up in jail or in a hospital, or sheltering in place during a world pandemic. Hmmm. Well, here we are. I think quotes like this can be used inappropriately, to make people feel like they’re not working hard enough at the inner life if they’re feeling caught and trapped. On the other hand, I am finding it profoundly liberating to keep reminding myself that the claustrophobia and sense of entrapment in this experience is partly self-imposed, that I can be free, even in confined conditions. And to be honest, I am hardly confined, here on the farm. But that shows me even more deeply how the sense of being chained or free in a situation like this has more to do with my inner work than with my outer situation.
I’ve been posting twice on these April days of Poetry. Once in the morning for musings and quotes and gratitudes, and a second time in the afternoon, when I have written my poem for the day.
Gratitude List: 1. Though I miss Room 206, my current office/classroom is a pleasant, well-lit place. 2. My coworkers and students (present and virtual) are lovely people. 3. Such hope-filled Zooming with beloveds yesterday. 4. I’m wearing my bracelets today. I don’t usually wear them around the house, but I have missed having the clink and the flash of color. 5. In the midst of this terrible uncertainty, there is much to be certain of: love, spring, birdsong, laughter. When I sit on the recliner, I know that within ten minutes there will be a cat on my lap–that is a comforting certainty.
May we walk in Beauty! Take care of each other.
“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind.” —George Orwell
“We must live from the center.” —Bahauddin, father of Rumi
“Some days I am more wolf than woman and I am still learning how to stop apologising for my wild.” —Nikita Gill
“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.” —Albert Einstein
“Writer’s block results from too much head. Cut off your head. Pegasus, poetry, was born of Medusa when her head was cut off. You have to be reckless when writing. Be as crazy as your conscience allows.” —Joseph Campbell
“Ask yourself: Have you been kind today? Make kindness your daily modus operandi and change your world.” —Annie Lennox
The prompts for today are Inspiration, and Moment. I chose to write a Skinny. You can find out more about this poetic form at The Skinny Poetry Journal.
After (a skinny) by Beth Weaver-Kreider
There will be a moment in the After when we hug again when laughter returns when the After will be there in a moment.
Gratitude List: 1. Sewing things. I love to sit down at the machine and make stuff. 2. Yesterday, Barb’s horse was racing back and forth along the meadow at the top of the ridge. It seemed like it was trying to give itself different challenges: This time down between the shed and the fence. This time around that tree at the top of the hill. Sometimes a happy trot and sometimes a flying all-out gallop. I confess it made me squeal to see it. 3. Weekends. They are truly a different pace than the other days. So grateful for that. 4. Video conferencing with Beloveds. Thursday it was with people at my church. Today, there will be calls with family and with friends from college. I regret that we never taught my mother-in-law how to use Zoom. 5. That very loud wren singing in the sun.
May we walk in Beauty! Take care of each other.
“We write to taste life twice.” —Anais Nin
“My wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who and how you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness.” —Maya Angelou
“If you pour a handful of salt into a cup of water, the water becomes undrinkable. But if you pour the salt into a river, people can continue to draw the water to cook, wash, and drink. The river is immense, and it has the capacity to receive, embrace, and transform. When our hearts are small, our understanding and compassion are limited, and we suffer. We can’t accept or tolerate others and their shortcomings, and we demand that they change. But when our hearts expand, these same things don’t make us suffer anymore. We have a lot of understanding and compassion and can embrace others. We accept others as they are, and then they have a chance to transform.” —Thich Nhat Hanh
“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” —Martin Luther King, Jr.
“When we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and seeds of hope.” —Wangari Maathai
I woke up really tired this morning. I’m hitting an energy wall. I’m glad it’s Saturday.
Gratitude List:
Soft fur, soft feathers, soft blankets
Wildness
Wind
Poetry
Perspective
May we walk in Beauty!
“Nobody’s on the road Nobody’s on the beach There’s something in the air The summer’s out of reach…” —Don Henley
‘Kindness’ covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn’t always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.” —Roger Ebert
In a mist of light falling with the rain I walk this ground of which dead men and women I have loved are part, as they are part of me. In earth, in blood, in mind, the dead and living into each other pass, as the living pass in and out of loves as stepping to a song. The way I go is marriage to this place, grace beyond chance, love’s braided dance covering the world. —Wendell Berry (The Wheel)
”You have to begin to tell the story of your life as you now want it to be, and discontinue the tales of how it has been or of how it is.” —Esther Hicks
Today’s two prompts were Blossoms and Follow ______.
I’m not really happy with this one. I got caught on the hook of the rhythm and I couldn’t tear myself loose, so I followed the trail. I followed the blossoms, I guess.
Follow the Blossoms by Beth Weaver-Kreider
Step, Golden Child, onto the pathway: follow the blossoms strewn on the pebbles. Pink-flowering trees and golden-bloomed bushes line the trail that calls you to wander.
Follow the blossoms wherever they lead you. Heed only the call of aroma and color as your feet take the rocky trail into the wild-lands, away from the village, away from the hearth-fires.
The stories will tell of your innocent spirit, naive, how you trusted the universe, never believing that anything out in the wildwood could harm you.
But you, like the Fool, have kept your eyes open. You know of the risks, you know of the shadows, but something else calls you to step beyond boundaries out to the wildwood, where dangers await you.
Ahead of you, waiting around every bend in the pathway, are challengers, riddles and questions to answer, witches to work for and riders to follow. Now you will have come to the edge of your trial.
Step, Golden Child, into the clearing. Now you are nearing the challenge you came for. This is the moment you’ve trained your whole life for, to follow the blossoms to where they may lead you.
Looking out the southern window of the living room just now, I was struck by the vertiginous sense that the world outside was twisting and shifting. It took me a moment to realize that it was the willow tree, beyond the black branches of sycamore and dogwood in my foreground, a yellow veil flowing back and forth in the dawn breezes.
Not everything that appears disconcerting and unsettling needs to be feared. That is not to say that fear and horror are not logical and acceptable responses to these altered days; but it is a reminder to myself (and you, if you want it) that the horror is not all-encompassing. Not everything should be interpreted through the lens of Pandemic. I need to keep reclaiming Wonder and Awe, grasping Calm and Centeredness, reaching out in Love and Openness.
Last evening, about twenty-five people/families from my congregation participated in a Zoom meeting, re-connecting, telling our stories, smiling and laughing together. And then in the night, I had my first teleconferencing dream. There was a screen with the whole Brady Bunch grid of a group meeting, and someone was saying, “Make sure they can tell that you love them through the screen.” That was it, but every time I woke up in the early morning, I saw that image, heard that voice.
Gratitude List: 1. Dream messages 2. Two weeks before the Exile, I went to Goodwill near my school and pulled a bunch of big sweaters and shawls out of the by-the-pound bins. I brought them home and washed them, and felt a little odd for buying more sweaters just as spring was breaking. I have been incredibly grateful, in these anxious and chilly days, to have big sweaters to wrap around me. 3. Even a week of working from home needs a weekend (especially, actually). Tome to catch my breath. Friday’s here. 4. The aconite have gone to seed, after blooming early this year, but the green umbrellas remain, and I take the seed pods and sprinkle them across the bank out front. Last year, I sprinkled them under the sycamore, and this year we had yellow blossoms there. 5. Cress. Bitter cress and water cress, and actually all the spring greens. Yesterday I made a spring greens milky soup. It actually didn’t taste as good as I was longing for it to, but it tasted healthy, so there’s that. I felt fed and tended by the land. I trailed my fingers through the frigid water of the stream as I was picking water cress.
Take care of each other. Walk in Beauty!
“Sound or vibration is the most powerful force in the universe. Music is a divine art, to be used not only for pleasure but as a path to Awakening.” —Yogananda
“As above, so below, as within, so without, as the universe, so the soul.” —Hermes Trismegistus
“The greatest danger to our future is apathy.” —Jane Goodall
“Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone’s face? Did I say words of healing? Did I let go of my anger and resentment? Did I forgive? Did I love? These are the real questions. I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow now will bear many fruits, here in this world and the life to come.” —Henri Nouwen
“In the end, we’ll all become stories.” —Margaret Atwood
“Privilege is when you think something’s not a problem because it’s not a problem to you personally.” —attributed to many authors
Dea Ex Machina by Beth Weaver-Kreider
What we speak we create. Writing, we make meaning into existence.
These words, cogs and gears, shift meaning to matter:
Mockingbird Chronicles 