Tag: compassion

Holding the Bowl of the Heart

Posted on by Beth Weaver-Kreider in Gratitudes, Poems

And the Third Circle is the Heart
by Beth Weaver-Kreider
(from Holding the Bowl of the Heart)

“The eye is the first circle, the horizon which it forms is the second: and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end.” –Ralph Waldo Emerson

The heart, too, is a circle,
the horizon expanding to infinity
or contracting into a small black hole.

The work, you say, is to keep opening,
casting that radius wider
at every turn of the wheel,
to hold everything within its protective arc,
the bright flowers and the white-hot stones.

You looked through the windows
into the soul
and saw.

Saw the round bud of the heart
opening, itself a circle,
the radius expanding.

When I begin to say
that I am you and you are I
then the pain that you wear
must wound me too.

This is the work,
to widen that horizon that lies within
to hold the world, if we must.

Speak your story.
Let it fall like a stone
into the quiet pool of my heart.
The circles expand out and outward,
not matter but pure energy,
more doors opening.

I see you.
I feel you.
I know you.
I recognize myself in you.

These are the doors we step into.
These are the circles we enter.

This is the burden
we choose
to carry:

To be watchers,
weight-bearers,
to inwardly transmute
these stones we are given to bear
into gems of great value.

To keep soft,
to let the ego
slip down
into a weightless place.

Gratitude List:
1. Affirmations from strangers
2. Possibilities
3. Cookies
4. Rest
5. The way words and memories and dreams appear from the past, like wrinkles in the fabric of time, so that what happened five or ten or thirty years ago informs the moment. Living in layers. (I managed to quote both Madeleine L’Engle and Stanley Kunitz in that one.)
May we walk in Beauty!

“The best way for us to cultivate fearlessness in our daughters and other young women is by example. If they see their mothers and other women in their lives going forward despite fear, they’ll know it is possible.” —Gloria Steinem

“You can learn to be lucky. It’s not a mystical force you’re born with, but a habit you can develop. How? For starters, be open to new experiences, trust your gut wisdom, expect good fortune, see the bright side of challenging events, and master the art of maximizing serendipitous opportunities.” —Rob Brezsny

“There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough to pay attention to the story.” —Linda Hogan

“You choose to be a novelist, but you’re chosen to be a poet. This is a gift and it’s a tremendous responsibility. You have to be willing to give something terribly intimate and secret of yourself to the world and not care, because you have to believe that what you have to say is important enough.” —May Sarton

“There is indeed a fire burning over the earth, taking with it plants and animals, cultures, languages, ancient skills, and visionary wisdom. Quelling this flame and reinventing the poetry of diversity is perhaps the most important challenge of our time.” —Wade Davis, The Wayfinders

“. . .war against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it. . . . [E]very war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defence against a homicidal maniac. . . .
The essential job is to get people to recognise war propaganda when they see it, especially when it is disguised as peace propaganda.” —George Orwell

Breathe and Pray

Posted on by Beth Weaver-Kreider in Gratitudes, Musings

This morning, I wrote this:

Beloveds, I don’t really have much in the way of words to offer this morning, to wade through the bog of my own anxiety to offer hope or resilience. I’m here in my bog, listening. I need to be a teacher today, especially for students who are equally as enmired as I am.

Here in the anxious bog of me today, I sit like an angry old spider. I cast a line from me to you. Catch. Send out webs of your own. While we wait for things to ravel or unravel, we weave and spin and hold our own webs as steady as we may. We are stronger when we are together.

Black lives STILL matter.
Love is STILL love is STILL love.
Your name and pronouns STILL belong to you.
Your body is STILL your own.
You STILL have agency.
The Planet STILL needs us.
The elderly and vulnerable STILL need protection from the coronavirus.
STILL, nobody is illegal.
Justice is STILL important.

This morning felt so dire, so much a repetition of 2016. Jon and I both woke up at 2:30, and made the perhaps unwise choice to check the returns. My heart was racing, and I figured I wouldn’t get to sleep until I saw something to confirm or allay the anxiety. Look the wolf in the eye, they say. I felt in a visceral way how the anxiety and sense of tragedy of the 2016 election had lodged in my body, and how it replayed itself in the night four years later.

This afternoon, there are a few more reasons to hope. The morning, said Vassilissa’s doll in the Baba Yaga stories, is wiser than the evening. Today, the afternoon is wiser than the morning. Get some distance. Get some rest. Get some perspective.

It’s not over, and won’t be for a long time, but it doesn’t feel like we’ve completely shattered the Democracy quite yet. And the popular vote seems to be pretty definitely against the tyrant.

Here’s the one thing that sticks with me, however, like a grief: It wasn’t a clear and obvious win. My neighbors, good people and salt of the earth in so many ways, have not–by and large–passed the test, choosing instead to vote for white supremacy and patriarchy, for homophobia and transphobia, against the poor and the ill and the immigrants. And I do not know what to do with that.

I don’t feel like I can muster appropriate Gratitudes today. Perhaps a couple Commitments might stand in:
1. I commit to not respond smugly if Biden wins. I will express relief and hope if it happens (because I am human and must live my emotions), but I will not be smug, and especially I will try to be open to the pain and confusion of people for whom that is frightening, even though I do not understand it.
2. No matter who wins this election, I commit to standing for justice and compassion, for Black and Indigenous People and other People of Color, for LGBTQ+ folx, for women, for immigrants, for poor and houseless people, for all who are harmed by our systems. I commit to pushing whoever is president for the next four years (and other elected officials) to do right by the people, especially whose who have not been truly free and equal.
3. I commit to harbor no illusions that the lesser of two evils is the savior.
4. I commit to walk this together with you, my Beloveds, and to ask for help when I am sinking.

May we do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly. In Beauty.

Breath of the Goddess

Posted on by Beth Weaver-Kreider in Gratitudes, Poems

Gratitude List:
1.  Colleagues. I am grateful for colleagues who are truly concerned about the welfare and well-being of the students. Not just their academic performance, but the health of their spirit as well.

 

2. Glory clouds, sun rays shining down through
3. June is coming. I can taste it.
4. Witnessing a student who is usually quiet and reserved be one of the first to respond to a classmate in meltdown mode, with a gentle word and a hand on the shoulder. And seeing how the calm spread like a wave to the one in need.

 

 

5. How the scent of lilac and lily of the valley fills the hollow.

May we walk in Beauty!

 

 

Worth a Try

Posted on by Beth Weaver-Kreider in Gratitudes, Musings, Poems, Poetry Prompts

Today’s Prompt is a Two-fer: Write a days of the week/weak poem.

On a November Tuesday
you might wear scarves
and long white skirts
to remember how to vote.

You might take your knitting
and stand in a long line
waiting for your chance
to be a part of history.

You might fidget
when they ask your name,
might feel a tremor when you see
that yours is the only Democrat on the page.

You might recall other Tuesdays
in November, when you believed
in the process, when you knew
that your voice counted, too.

(That’s pretty depressing, and I think it went deeper into the sense of helplessness than I might be feeling at this moment, though I definitely cycle into that place where I lose my belief that my voice matters in this “democracy” anymore.)

“I am not talking about giving our hearts over to despair. I wonder if we can train our hearts, intentionally, like athletes who train for a marathon, to bear the load without crumpling under the weight. I think that’s what the children need from us, for us to bear them, bear the stories, hold them as though they were our own, to be prepared to act at any moment for any one of them within our reach. I think the times call for hearts strong enough to be tender, to bleed without weakening, to rage and protect and pray and hope without numbing out.

“I don’t think it has to be a choice. We don’t have to choose between the closed heart and the broken heart. We can be awake and yet not despair. It’s worth a try.” —Beth Weaver-Kreider
*
“Never limit yourself because of others’ limited imagination; never limit others because of your own limited imagination.” —Mae Jemison
*
“Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.” —Frederick Buechner
*
Alice Walker—”Activism is the rent I pay for living on this planet.”
*
Found on a T-shirt: I am totally happy and not dangerous mostly.
*
“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.” —Marcus Aurelius

Gratitude List:
1. I voted. I don’t know for sure how much I believe in it anymore, though I am liking some of what I am seeing in the results today, and the poll-folks are friendly, and the photo-art on the walls of the local high school/polling place is really excellent.
2. The sweet justice of a transwoman beating out the incumbent who called himself Virginia’s “chief homophobe.” Maybe I will start to trust the democratic process again, just a little.
3. Tea. The sudden shift in the weather has me cringing in blankets and hats and scarves. Tea takes the edge off. And it’s one thing I share in common with a particular student who hates my class, so I am grateful for that.
4. Color. I forgot to take Ducktown over the bridge this morning because I have become so used to going left and taking Valley View while the bridge was out. We turned onto Valley View just as the sun cascaded through cloud behind us and hit the forested ridge off by the River. The colors were dazzling.
5. How people take care of each other.

May we walk in Beauty!

A Poem is an Egg

Posted on by Beth Weaver-Kreider in Gratitudes, Poems

“A poem is an egg with a horse in it.” –4th grader, FB post
*
“If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?”
–Rumi
*
“There are people who advocate and practice compassionate listening, there are those who embrace voluntary simplicity, who remove the calluses from their hearts and keep them open to feel the pains of others. Seek them out, I urge you, and join them in their compassion.”
–Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalom
*
“The moon rose over an open field.” –Paul Simon
*
“If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” –Fredrick Douglass
*
“Love is the strongest force in the universe. We must keep walking in the direction of love, no matter what we hear and see around us. No matter our human failures. No matter what happens, or appears to happen.And if we are thankful for that love, the power magnifies. Forgiveness is a process of love. Love is not bound by religion, belief system, or man-made laws. Our human minds cannot comprehend the immensity of it. We are lit by it, or we would not be here. Some smother the light with fear and acts of fear. Others tend their light and they light the world. Breath feeds the light. Breathe deep today, and continue walking toward that which will enlighten, no matter what burdens you are carrying of shame, grief, or fear. No one can buy their way or push their way ahead of everyone else. We are all in this together.” –Joy Harjo

Gratitude List:
1. Sweater weather
2. What the eyes say
3. Baby steps
4. The deliciousness of sleep
5. That delicate little yellow moth on the outside of the window

May we walk in Beauty!

Going Golden

Posted on by Beth Weaver-Kreider in Gratitudes, Poems

A couple years ago, I wrote a gratitude note about “Honest anger and its connection to compassion.” This is a continual dance.
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“If we don’t allow ourselves to feel the full range of emotion — deep joy and deep pain — then I think we are less than who we can be.”
―Terry Tempest Williams
*
“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
*
“Be a lamp, a lifeboat, a ladder.
Help someone’s soul heal.
Walk out of your house like a shepherd.” ―Rumi
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“Equality keeps us honest. Inequality creates liars and delusion. “―Rebecca Solnit
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“We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back.” ―Malala Yousafzai
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“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”
―C. G. Jung
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“You have within you the strength, the patience and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.” ―Harriet Tubman
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“The forests are the flags of nature. Enter the forest and the boundaries of nations are forgotten.”
―Enos A. Mills
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“Come, come hither! Leave you and yourself;
Leave us and ourselves! Come swiftly
Come as quickly as possible. Put you and us aside;
Come!
Come until you and we would become extinct!
Come so that Neither you nor we
would exist!” ―Rumi
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“Poetry can be dangerous, especially beautiful poetry, because it gives the illusion of having had the experience without actually going through it.”
―Jalaluddin Rumi, The Book of Love: Poems of Ecstasy and Longing
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“Some words will never leave God’s mouth,
no matter how hard you listen.
– – – –
In all the works of Beethoven, you will
not find a single lie.
– – –
All important ideas must include the trees,
the mountains, and the rivers.” ―Mary Oliver

Gratitude List:
1. Libraries. Public libraries.
2. Markets. Town markets.
3. Parks. Community parks.
4. Planning our Halloween costumes.
5. Salted caramel.

May we walk in Beauty!

Trying to Be Found

Posted on by Beth Weaver-Kreider in Gratitudes, Poems


Here are three tiny poems from my Creative Writing journal. (I usually wrote along with the students on the writing prompts).

Each day
a new story
of finding my way.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Once there was a little girl
who was trying to be found.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Bluebird on a wire
muttering a gentle question.
No one answers but the hawk.

“I like sitting at the piano. I like the idea that there are things coming in through the window and through you and then down to the piano and out the window on the other side. If you want to catch songs you gotta start thinking like one, and making yourself an interesting place for them to land like birds or insects. Once you get two or three tunes together, wherever three or more are gathered, then others come.” -Tom Waits
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“The poem, I’ve always felt, is an opportunity for me to create an integrated whole from so many broken shards.” –Rafael Campo
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“Which came first, the fear or the gun? The broken heart or the bleeding one? The impulse toward death or the desperate reach for love?” –Mark Morford
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“A journey can become a sacred thing:
Make sure, before you go,
To take the time
To bless your going forth,
To free your heart of ballast
So that the compass of your soul
Might direct you toward
The territories of spirit
Where you will discover
More of your hidden life,
And the urgencies
That deserve to claim you.”
–John O’Donohue

Gratitude List:
1. I think I am homing in on the nest of Our Lady of the Flowers. I sat on the porch for a while last evening and watched. She seems to return to the same general area of the tree. It’s located at a less convenient spot for gazing this year, hidden higher up and further from the house.
2. Weaving stories together. Listening to people tell their stories and talk about who they want to be in the world.
3. How a good stretch that wakes up the spine wakes up the body
4. The people who do good. I get so tied up in knots about the stupid, greedy, and cruel things that the powerful people are doing. It really helps to balance my heart to keep remembering all the good and wise and compassionate things that you and the others are doing. Thank you.
5. Pesto

May we walk in Beauty!

Balancing

Posted on by Beth Weaver-Kreider in Gratitudes, Musings

      
Doesn’t this just feed your soul? My mother’s windowsill. I passed it through a painting filter, which I like, but really, the beauty of the original colors is rather perfect.

This is not a joyful thing. Perhaps it is a gratitude of sorts. It’s more a simple relief. The man who caused the bus accident has turned himself in. It was an uncomfortable loose end that has been bothering me, not because I want revenge, but because it needed resolution.

In my advisory group today, one young man asked that we pray for the driver (before we knew he had turned himself in). This was the second or third time that this particular young man has asked for us to pray for someone who has done something wrong, or made a bad choice. I am moved by the layered depth of his compassion, and it leads me forward into hopeful spaces. May we all learn to love with such a sense of everyone’s humanity.

Today in an English 101 class, we were talking about the role of the Muses in the Greek pantheon, and one girl who had zoned out looked up and asked, “What about the moose?”

I think there needs to be a poem about the Moose of Poetic Inspiration.

Gratitude List:
1. Our Lady of the Flowers zipped past the window again today. I swear she paused in her humming for the briefest of moments and looked into the house at my boy in his red shirt.
2. Graces: I get teary when I talk about it, but it just needs to be said–All our children survived that accident. They likely have wounds that we cannot see, and some of them may experience flashbacks and anxiety. Others are still healing from physical injuries. But: They are alive. Every time I see pictures of that little bus on its side, I am astounded at the miracle of their survival.
3. The Administrative folks at my school. I think I have mentioned before how grateful I am for them, but today I had another chance to see the principals in action, responding to an issue with grace and firmness, holding the balances of accountability and tenderness. When there is harm, they name it, and then seek to care for those involved. They are true leaders.
4. Cobalt Blue
5. Following the pathway lit by the tender hearts of these young folks.

May we walk in Beauty!

Scattering Prayers

Posted on by Beth Weaver-Kreider in Gratitudes, Musings

milkweed  lawnlabyrinth
Scattering Milkweed seeds like prayers.

Yesterday I mowed a labyrinth into the grassy patch between the barn and the greenhouse.  The boys and I took a basket of milkweed pods that we had gathered last fall, and spiraled our way into the center of the labyrinth, where we scattered the the fluff like prayers.  Prayers for the monarchs, for the future of these children and the planet that supports them, for the people I carry in my heart.  For you.  For me.  For transformation, and for compassion and for love.  For Beauty, and for fun.

Gratitude List:
1. That wren out there reminding me to keeping listening, keep talking, keep the conversation going.
2. Being in a body.  These morning aches, this slightly blurry vision, this stuffy head–it’s all part of being in the body, along with tastebuds, sensations of cool breezes and warm sweaters, satisfying stretches.
3. Prayers.  I am re-establishing my connection to the word prayer.  I will keep using my other words, too–carrying stones, casting webs, holding the bowl–but prayer is a strong universal signifier for being mindful and concerned, and I am finding that I am choosing it more often to represent what I do, wordless as it so often is.
4. That tiger swallowtail that slipped like a sunbeam down the green slope of the ridge yesterday.
5. Compassion, and all the places you find it.

May we walk in Beauty!

Awakenings

Posted on by Beth Weaver-Kreider in Gratitudes, Poems

DSCN9094
(Some of them survived!)

Here in the green
where the wren is calling
and earthworms begin their work,
you can sense the great heart
of the whole,
beating,
loving,
aware.

Gratitude List:
1. Awakeners.  People (both the mentoring and the challenging) who wake up something within me that wants to be more whole, more real, more alive.
2. Love wins.  Love will always win.  Put down your stones and walk away.  Love wins.
3. Field Trip.  Today I am taking a personal day to be a mom rather than a teacher.  First graders are going to the Science Factory.
4. Hafiz.  “Your heart and my heart are very, very old friends.”  They are, aren’t they?
5. How some people center their wisdom in their compassionate hearts.  That’s the direction I want to go, too.

May we walk in Beauty!