beginning

Door to the Temple

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Today’s prompt is to write a disguise poem.

You stood–still–in the center of the room,
the dancers weaving in and out about you,
a silken mask hid all your face but your eyes.

If they noticed you, they gave no sign.
They whirled about and sipped their wine.
They never took note of your disguise.

Sometimes the simplest way to hide
is in plain view, where the blase few
will never hear your silent sighs.

*(A little dramatic, perhaps, but i’ll work it up a bit later. For now, it’s time for bed.)

“No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member –
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds –
November!”
–Thomas Hood, No!
*
“I could not be a poet without the natural world. Someone else could. But not me. For me the door to the woods is the door to the temple.” –Mary Oliver
*
“Awake my dear. Be kind to your sleeping heart. Take it out into the fields and let it breathe.” –Hafiz (I know I posted this one recently. I still need it.)
*
“Nourish beginnings, let us nourish beginnings. Not all things are blest, but the seeds of all things are blest. The blessing is in the seed.” ~~ Muriel Rukeyser
*
“We discover the Earth in the depths of our being through participation, not through isolation or exploitation. We are most ourselves when we are most intimate with the rivers and mountains and woodlands, with the sun and the moon and the stars in the heavens…We belong here. Our home is here. The excitement and fulfillment of our lives is here…Just as we are fulfilled in our communion with the larger community to which we belong, so too the universe itself and every being in the universe is fulfilled in us.”
~ Thomas Berry, The Sacred Universe
*
Words of Howard Zinn:
“We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world. Even when we don’t ‘win,’ there is fun and fulfillment in the fact that we have been involved, with other good people, in something worthwhile. We need hope.
“An optimist isn’t necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something.
“If we remember those times and places — and there are so many — where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
*
It may seem harsh, but that’s sort of his point–
Bill Maher:
“Christians, I know, I’m sorry; I know you hate this and you want to square this circle, but you can’t. I’m not even judging you. I’m just saying, logically, if you ignore every single thing Jesus commanded you to do, you’re not a Christian. You’re just auditing. You’re not Christ’s followers. You’re just fans.”

Gratitude List:
1. Saffron yellow is the color of the season, and everyone is wearing it. I don’t usually pay much attention to the colors of the season,but this is a stunning color. I might have to buy myself something in saffron.
2. Moonrise tonight. The moon was like a mist, a ghost, veiled face.
3. Two purrfolk on my lap at once
4. Grace and mercy
5. Sleep

May we walk in Beauty!

Pillar of Salt

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

IMG_20170429_182259362_HDR

Today you turn, you twist,
look back to the beginning of now,
throw your tears over your shoulder,
salt enough for any god’s pillar.

How does it weigh?
The balances and the boundaries,
the feather and the soul?
Can you say what you have learned?
What will you carry with you into the wilderness?
Which character will you play in the coming cycle?

TOMORROW’S PROMPT:

We’ve come to the end of the Fool’s journey. Tomorrow we face the World. The World Tree. The World Web. The World of Dreams. Here comes the future. Today, we looked back at the work of the past. Tomorrow we face the future, wind in our hair, sun on our faces. Are we right back where we began? Or do we set our own Fool’s feet upon a whole new road? We’ve traveled one circuit of the circle. We’ve made one round of the labyrinth. Now we carry the new mysteries and secrets into the coming cycle. How does that look to you?

Gratitude List:

  1. Race Against Racism today in Lancaster. Such good people, running in the rain. My young running buddy was a good companion–we actually walked it mostly.
  2. The Islamic Community Center, who invited my church to race with them. I felt so welcomed.
  3. The Spoken Word poets and storytellers. This is another incredible community of people that I am honored to be part of. This year they chose one of my poems as the ensemble poem. It gives me chills to hear my words in these powerful voices.
  4. Truth. That’s the theme of this year’s Spoken Word Play. I love all the different takes on the topic, how our ideas blend together.
  5. Friends who will stop and pick your flowers. A friend came by today, and when we didn’t hear her knocking, she picked herself a little bouquet of lilies of the valley. I felt so treasured.

May we walk in Beauty!

If I’d Only

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 4 Comments

fire-and-water
Fire and water–A photo I took of fire, melded with the Japanese wave painting. I feel like there’s a human portrait in there. . .

Today’s prompt is to write an “If I’d Only _________” poem.

If I’d Only Had More Time
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

If I’d only had more time
had more rhythm
had more passion
had more energy
more focus, more rhyme

If I’d only had more zeal
had more wisdom
had more hope
had more tenderness
more compassion, more appeal

If I’d only had more sass
had more impertinence
had more whoop
had more in-your-face
more fierce, more brass

If I’d only had more only
had more mostly
had more often
had more will
more do
less lonely

Gratitude List:
1. The moment when I crawl into bed in the evenings. The delicious feeling of being just about to fall asleep
2. The messages in dreams
3. Poetry prompts
4. The mix of leaves in the yard: poplar, oak, maple, sycamore, walnut, locust
5. Always beginning again

May we walk in Beauty!

Begin Again

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments
Ent

“There was an old man named Michael Finnegan.
He had whiskers on his chin-igan.
They grew out and then grew in again.
Poor old Michael Finnegan.  Begin again. . .”
(repeat, ad nauseum)

One of my meditations this week at the monastery was on the concept of Beginner’s Mind that the Buddhists speak of, and also on St. Benedict, who said, “Always we begin again.” And then on Thomas Merton, who said, “There are only three stages to this work: to be a beginner, to be more of a beginner, and to be only a beginner.” I have been reading Christine Valters Paintner’s annotations on selected sayings of the desert fathers and mothers, and contemplating in particular some of their words regarding the Beginner’s Mind.

Abba Anthony, it is said, asked a group of monks and other seekers to expound a certain theological point, one by one, and when he reached Father Joseph, he asked him, too.  Father Joseph simply said, “I don’t know.”  Abba Anthony said, “This one has found the way.  He says he does not know.”

Abba Macarius, when asked by a group of seekers to tell about what it means to be a monk, said, “Ah!  I am not a monk myself, but I have seen them.”  This one reminds me of the legendary comment of the mathematician and mystic Pythagoras, who was asked to speak of how he became wise, and answered, “I am not wise.  I am a lover of wisdom.”

Even poor old Michael Finnegan, in the quote up there by the weeping beech tree, is a classic beginner, with the added idiomatic mystery that “to grow out your beard” and “to grow in your beard” mean relatively the same thing.  We singsong his story, can’t figure it out, and begin again, until our buzzing heads can’t take it anymore.

I returned home from the monastery to this quotation by Rilke, so exquisitely perfect in its timing:
“If the Angel deigns to come it will be because you have convinced her, not by tears, but by your humble resolve to be always beginning; to be a beginner.”

In some ways the way of the desert Ammas and Abbas, the way of Buddha, of Merton, of Rilke and Finnegan is the way of the Fool, who is always dancing along the edge of that cliff, wind in her hair, free of the burden of being a wise soul, only always seeking wisdom, each moment a new beginning in the quest.

Gratitude List:
1. My Shining Rose of a friend has just been placed at the top of the heart transplant list, which means that she will likely get her new heart within the next two or three weeks.  This is to me a relief and a terror. Now is the time to hold her in the waiting, to wait and to trust.
2. Beginning again and again and again.  How this frees me from the burden of expectation.
3. Yesterday’s froggy moments.  We found a Spotted Green Frog (rana clamintans) hopping around under the old poplar.  The children needed to take it to the pond, so we settled it onto a muddy bank, where it rested a moment, then plooped into the pond and swam into the weeds nearby.  And the bullfrogs boomed at us from all around the pond’s edges.
4. Even now, the yellow leaves of the walnut tree are pirouetting gracefully down the wind.  Now, when the life force is pushing everything towards abundance, fullness, brilliant health–even now, is the beautiful reminder of decline.  The cycle itself is layers of cycles, birth and death all at once.
5. You.  Me. Encounters.  How every moment that we meet, in whatever virtual or physical spaces, is an opportunity for both of us to experience something new, something profound, something holy.  Thank you for the ways you enrich my moments.

May we walk in Beauty, beginning anew every moment.

I wish for you

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

I wish for you,
when you lose your way,
a bright feather on your path.

I wish for you,
when your eyes are spangled with tears,
a shaft of shining light to prism you a rainbow.

I wish for you,
when the load is heavy,
a gentle wind to lift you up.

May your roads be green.
May your stars shine brightly in the night.
May the valley ahead be filled with small hearth fires
and the sound of singing.

Gratitude List:
1.  Thoughtful, helpful,kind colleagues.  A healthy community of teachers can develop a healthy community of students.
2.  First days.  New beginnings.  In the autumn when I have not returned to school, I have often been jealous of the people who do. Clean slate.  Sharp pencils.  Possibilities.
3.  Trusting the net to appear.
4.  Meeting my children’s teachers and new principal.  The boys will be well cared for, and in a rich learning environment.
5.  Letting go. I am ready for the first day of school, but the last minute brought up all the thousand things that suddenly need to happen.  Right now!  I will not get all the thousand things done in the next two hours.  Still, I can let them go, and know that the day will happen as it happens.  This is the first lesson.

May we walk in Beauty!

New Beginnings

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Gratitude List:
1. A splendid birthday to set the stage for the coming year
2. Orange moon
3. Coffee.  It’s a good drug.  Perhaps it’s only a lovely little  legend, but I’m glad that ancient Ethiopian farmer watched his goats so carefully, was inquisitive enough to appreciate their pep and vim after they ate the beans from that little bush, and then was brave enough to say, “I think I’ll try some of that.”
4. That perfect little leaf stone that Macy gave me.
5. New beginnings.  This is the week for me.  Standing on the edge of the cliff’s edge, getting ready to leap, wind in the face.  Blessings to you, too, as you face your August beginnings.

May we walk in Beauty!

How the World Began

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Welcome to National Poetry Month!

So much to do!  I was away from home all day today, so tomorrow I will inaugurate this year’s Poetree in my dogwood.
Stacia Fleegal of the poetry blog Versify offers a challenge to read a poem a day.  I won’t put all mine on videotape, but here’s today’s attempt.
I think I will try the April Poem-A-Day Challenge again.  Today’s prompt is a two-fer: Write a Beginning poem.  Write an Ending poem.

How the World Began

In the beginning, Spider
launched herself into the spring breeze
from a rattling stalk of dried nettle

toward a skinny maple sapling.
She missed the maple.  Landed,
light-foot, in a heap of leaves

gathered around its base.
A quick scuttle upward, launched again
and through the breeze once more

to nettle stalks this time, and
the gossamer cord caught.
Then launched herself once more

into the gentle breath of wind
until she’d spun herself a world,
until she had encompassed all.

In the end, Spider gathered strands
and wove herself a spirit cloth of silver thread
to catch the wandering dreams

of mockingbirds and wild geese
passing over the chilly meadow,
following tomorrow’s sunrise.

 

Gratitude List:

1.  Flicker calling from the treetops this morning
2.  The golden flank feathers of the pheasant who walked through my parents’ lawn this afternoon, and his squeaky screen-door squawk.
3.  The Fool, dancing on the edge, willing to take risks, to laugh lightly at herself, to seek adventure.
4.  Energy.  Taking responsibility for my own, learning to sense it, to listen for it, to watch, to shift it.
5.  The smoke ring that emerged from the palo santo smudge that Nicky used this morning, how it rose so languidly through the grapevines, twisted, turned for a moment into a baby dragon, and dissipated like a mist, like a wraith.

May we walk in Beauty!