gratitude

Librarians

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 4 Comments

My Saturday has gotten away with me, and my head is not in a poetry place. Sigh. I wish I had done better for the librarians. They deserve more. Every time I started getting into it, I veered into rage at all the ways in which school boards and local commissioners and sanctimonious, self-righteous outrage hounds are attacking libraries and librarians these days. In my local community just a week ago, our public library received a bomb threat, and the library director received a bomb threat at her house.

Support your local library. Stand up and speak out when the hordes attack. Trust librarians.

Keepers of democracy, they stand
on the front lines of free speech,
offering equal access to all who
seek wisdom in the written word.
Do you need a recipe for risotto
or revolution? A book on planets
or inclined planes or things to do
on a rainy day? The librarian will
tell you where to find it, and you
just might find your sense of purpose
in the stacks, in those cathedral
corridors of shelves. You might
discover yourself in a book you
had never thought to open.

Gratitude List:
1. The River, and the sun on the River
2. The sycamores along the River
3. Librarians (Happy National Librarian Day!)
4. Rosemary roasted grapes
5. Those red, red tulips!
May we walk in Beauty!

“Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.” —Terry Pratchett

The Happy Virus
by Hafez
I caught the happy virus last night
When I was out singing beneath the stars.
It is remarkably contagious—
So kiss me.

“It is our mind, and that alone,
that chains us or sets us free.” —Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche

“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

“Anyone out there want to sing with me while we finish this march? I realize it may seem a little counter-intuitive right now, with so many in a somber mood, but the harder the walk gets, the more I think we need to meet its challenge with strong hearts and voices. The singing becomes our anthem, a rebuke to the powers of pain and an exaltation of the indomitable human spirit. If we must move forward against all odds, then let us do so singing. Let them hear us coming. Let them know we have only just started to hit our stride.” —Steven Charleston

Guardian

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Gratitude List:
1. All the fine, thoughtful souls at the Poetry Reading and Workshop at Radiance tonight
2. French Fries
3. Cherry trees and peach trees
4. I saw blue sky today, just a patch behind the clouds, but it was there!
5. The Guardians
May we walk in Beauty!

“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

Ask Some Questions

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 3 Comments

Here is my Questions Poem:

Gratitude List:
1. Did you see the sun today? I did!
2. The tang of Horseradish
3. Weaving it all together, integrating the pieces
4. My daily morning Philosophers’ Club, otherwise known as Middle Division Reading and Writing
5. The smell of sandalwood
May we walk in Beauty!

“We cannot be grateful for what we do not notice, and we cannot honor what we fail to see.” —Marcy C. Earle

“I must have flowers, always and always.” —Claude Monet

“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

Rain, rain, rain

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Here is my Rain Poem. I feel like I am starting to get back in the groove.

Gratitude List:
1. Rain, and the hope of sun to come
2. More light each day
3. Roasted veggies
4. Naps with cats
5. People who step and do what needs to be done
May we 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

“Being a successful poet is a lot like being a successful mushroom.” —Poet Richard Howard

“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:

“Let there be. . .”
And there is.

And it is good.

quilting
by Lucille Clifton

some other where
alchemists mumble over pots.
their chemistry stirs
into science. their science
freezes into stone.

in the unknown world
the woman
threading together her need
and her needle
nods toward the smiling girl…

Make space in this house
for all of the people you are.
Make room for the schemer,
the doubter, the cynic,
but open some space
for the credulous child
and the mystic, the dreamer,
the wild one, the quiet one.

Open a space within
for the glass-half-full to dance
with the glass-half-empty,
for the monk to sing songs
of revolution with the fury.

There in those rooms,
the One may enter
and speak your many names,
saying, Peace be yours.
—Beth Weaver-Kreider

Making Time

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 5 Comments

Today’s Prompt is to write about Time. Since I spoke this morning at the UU congregation of York about witches and heretics, I’ll write about Ritual Time. And today marks the moment when I have caught up on all the time I lost a week ago when I missed poeming for several days.

Out of Time
Step into the circle
circle of stones
circle of trees
circle of mushrooms
circle of friends
circle of women
circle of witches

Step into the space
between earth and fire
between water and air
into the realm of spirit
and center and mystery

and step out of time
where birth and death
soul and sense
heart and mind
magic and the mundane
meet and dance together

Blessed Be!

Yesterday’s Prompt was to write a Response Poem. Here’s a little bit of a poem:

Remember Who You Are
What was Mother Mary’s response,
I wonder,
when child Jesus sassed her?

Did she place a hand on hip,
grin, and say,
“Remember, Child of Mine, I made you!”?

Did she heave a sigh to heaven,
shrug,
and wag a finger in the errant child’s face?

Did she remind him once again,
“Remember,
remember who you are.”

Gratitude List:
1. A lovely morning at UUCY
2. I have found a new Weeping Beech to love
3. The crows are back in town!
4. Leftover ugali for lunch
5. Anticipating a long-awaited journey
May we walk in Beauty!

Good advice from my friend Barb: “Find and wear your orange hat honey. There are 750,000 deer hunters in the yard today.”

“We have all hurt someone tremendously, whether by intent or accident. We have all loved someone tremendously, whether by intent or accident. it is an intrinsic human trait, and a deep responsibility, I think, to be an organ and a blade. But, learning to forgive ourselves and others because we have not chosen wisely is what makes us most human. We make horrible mistakes. It’s how we learn. We breathe love. It’s how we learn. And it is inevitable.”
—Nayyira Waheed
***””
“Only those who attempt the absurd
will achieve the impossible.”
—M. C. Escher

Blessing for the Visitor
by Beth Weaver-Kreider

May you who wander, who sojourn, who travel,
may you who make your way to our door
find rest for your tired feet and weary heart,
food to fill your bellies and to nourish your minds,
and company to bring you cheer and inspiration.
May you find comfort for your sorrows,
belonging to ease your loneliness,
and laughter to bring you alive.

And when your feet find themselves again upon the road,
may they remember the way back to our door.

“A seed sown in the soil makes us one with the Earth. It makes us realize that we are the Earth. That this body of ours is the panchabhuta—the five elements that make the universe and make our bodies. The simple act of sowing a seed, saving a seed, planting a seed, harvesting a crop for a seed is bringing back this memory-this timeless memory of our oneness with the Earth and the creative universe. There’s nothing that gives me deeper joy than the work of protecting the diversity and the freedom of the seed.” —Vandana Shiva

“I’m fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.” —George McGovern

I Give Thanks

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

I’m preaching at the UU Congregation of York on Sunday, and I spent my writing time today on that instead of catching myself up in the poem-realm. I won’t be too rule-based or strict with myself if I don’t manage to catch up on all the prompts. Today’s prompt is to write an appreciation poem. I went sort of liturgical with it. And since it’s in the form of a list of things I am grateful for, it will double as my Gratitude List for today:

For golden autumn sun,
shining aslant through golden leaves:
I give thanks.
For the deer who stood in the corn field
and watched us drive by in the dusk:
I give thanks.
For the two cats curled into commas,
back to back and purring:
I give thanks.
For the black shadow of the pileated woodpecker
swooping into the hilltop oak:
I give thanks.
For stone and wind and flame and flow,
for the Spirit that enlivens and inspires:
I give thanks.
For those we have lost, whose lives filled our own
with so much joy, with so much life:
I give thanks.
For those still with us, whose presence
is a balm and a comfort:
I give thanks.
For love, that it may stand against
the tides of malice and destruction:
I give thanks.

“The winds will blow their own freshness into you,
and the storms their energy,
while cares will drop away from you
like the leaves of Autumn.”
—John Muir

“Those who build walls are their own prisoners. I’m going to go fulfil my proper function in the social organism. I’m going to go unbuild walls. ” —Ursula Le Guin

“The mother tongue is language not as mere communication but as relation, relationship. It connects. It goes two ways, many ways, an exchange, a network. Its power is not in dividing but in binding, not in distancing but in uniting.

It is written, but not by scribes and secretaries for posterity: it flies from the mouth on the breath that is our life and is gone, like the outbreath, utterly gone and yet returning, repeated, the breath the same again always, everywhere, and we all know it by heart.” —Ursula K. Le Guin

“Who would I be if I didn’t live in a world that hated women?” —Jessica Valenti

“The heart is right to cry
even when the smallest drop of light, of love, is taken away
Perhaps you may kick, moan, scream—in a dignified silence,
but you are right to do so in any fashion…until God returns to you.”
―Hafiz (Ladinsky)

“All water is holy water.”
―Rajiv Joseph

“The mullahs of the Islamic world and the mullahs of the Hindu world and the mullahs of the Christian world are all on the same side. And we are against them all.”
―Arundhati Roy

“Remember there’s no such thing as a small act of kindness.
Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.”
―Scott Adams

“You know what breaks me, when someone is visibly excited about a feeling or an idea or a hope or a risk taken, and they tell you about it but preface it with: “Sorry, this is dumb but—.” Don’t do that. I don’t know who came here before me, or who conditioned you to think you had to apologize or feel obtuse. But not here. Dream so big it’s silly. Laugh so hard it’s obnoxious. Love so much it’s impossible. And don’t you ever feel unintelligent. And don’t you ever apologize. And don’t you ever shrink so you can squeeze yourself into small places and small minds. Grow. It’s a big world. You fit. I promise.”
―Owen Lindley

“The bond of our common humanity is stronger than our fears and prejudices.” ―Jimmy Carter

“The reality is we have more in common with the people we’re bombing than the people we’re bombing them for.” ―Russell Brand

“Colorful demonstrations and weekend marches are vital but alone are not powerful enough to stop wars. Wars will be stopped only when soldiers refuse to fight, when workers refuse to load weapons onto ships and aircraft, when people boycott the economic outposts of Empire that are strung across the globe. ”
―Arundhati Roy, Public Power in the Age of Empire

Language Without Pronouns

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Okay, so today’s prompt was a fun head game: Write a poem without using any pronouns. Now, it would have been fun just to write a lovely imagistic poem, but it seemed like a better challenge to try to write with sentences that would require pronouns, but to work around them. So then, I just went riffing along, feeling for all the world like Gertrude Stein.

no word refers to any word but the object
referred to, in the language of lost pronouns

a bird is a bird is a bird
the bird flies to the bird’s own nest
where the bird lays an egg
and an egg is an egg
and in the egg is a bird
and that bird will hatch out
of that bird’s cozy egg on little legs
and some day will spread new bird’s wings
and fly, to build another nest like the nest
the new bird was born in

the road to an idea travels again and again
and again over the road of the word
repeating the bird
replicating the name
coming back to the same wordnest
from which the word was fledged

Gratitude List:
1. Cloud-dragons setting fire to the setting sun
2. Quinoa
3. This funny, funny young person
4. Getting some exercise
5. Sitting with a group of colleagues this afternoon and sharing the successes of our students
May we walk in Beauty!

“Love the earth and sun and animals,
Despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks,
Stand up for the stupid and crazy,
Devote your income and labor to others…
And your very flesh shall be a great poem.”
—Walt Whitman

“I believe the world is incomprehensibly beautiful—an endless prospect of magic and wonder.” —Ansel Adams

“A tree is a nobler object than a prince in his coronation-robes.” —Alexander Pope

“We must finally stop appealing to theology to justify our reserved silence about what the state is doing—for that is nothing but fear. ‘Open your mouth for the one who is voiceless’—for who in the church today still remembers that that is the least of the Bible’s demands in times such as these?” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness, and pride of power, and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear. . . . Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more, than they are doing now.” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than they love the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest, and sacrificial.” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“It is so easy to break down and destroy. The heroes are those who make peace and build.” —Nelson Mandela

“We are not lacking in the dynamic forces needed to create the future. We live immersed in a sea of energy beyond all comprehension. But this energy, in an ultimate sense, is ours not by domination but by invocation.” —Thomas Berry

Dithering on the Doorstep

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Write a Love or Anti-Love Poem, the man says, and so I show up, once again, on the doorstep of the Muse. About halfway through the month, and I’m feeling sleepy and grouchy, and I think I’ve been here before. And I just can’t get up the nerve to ring the doorbell and see what the Muse might have to offer me. Sigh.

it’s always the front door of the muse that gets me,
standing on the porch, anticipating the meeting,
that old dog anxiety nipping at my heels,
and I linger. shall i knock, or shall i ring?

i rehearse my lines, but each one sounds
like it was written by a child, or like i’m rehashing
something i wrote last year when she seemed to like me,
and she had something new for me every day.

here, i’ll tell her, is another prompt! we don’t
have to start from scratch! ugh, but no,
she’ll scoff at me, i just know it. another LOVE poem?
good grief, no wonder you dither on my doorstep.

i’m not dithering on the— okay, maybe just a little,
but what if she sends me away with nothing?
what if that poem i wrote last june the last good thing
i’ll ever write? what if she has nothing more to give?

Gratitude List:
1. Origami
2. A clean kitchen
3. Sweatshirts (I don’t think I bought a single sweatshirt in my 30s and 40s, but last year I bought a sweatshirt from my school, and now I have three, and I love them)
4. Next week is a holiday week, and the college kid comes home
5. Autumn gingkos
May we walk in Beauty! Beauty all around.

“We live in a world of theophanies. Holiness comes wrapped in the ordinary. There are burning bushes all around you. Every tree is full of angels. Hidden beauty is waiting in every crumb. Life wants to lead you from crumbs to angels, but this can only happen if you are willing to unwrap the ordinary by staying with it long enough to harvest its treasure.”
—Macrina Wiederkehr

“It was one of those days you sometimes get latish in the autumn when the sun beams, the birds toot, and there is a bracing tang in the air that sends the blood beetling briskly through the veins.” —P.G. Wodehouse

“You deserve a lover who takes away the lies and brings you hope, coffee, and poetry.” —Frida Kahlo

“I touch God in my song
as the hill touches the far-away sea
with its waterfall.
The butterfly counts not months but moments,
and has time enough.”
—Rabindranath Tagore

Clarissa Pinkola Estes:
“We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us and we will know them when they appear. Didn’t you say you were a believer? Didn’t you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn’t you ask for grace? Don’t you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?

“One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds beacons, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of of soul in shadowy times like these—to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.”

“Speak to your children as if they are the wisest, kindest, most beautiful and magical humans on earth, for what they believe is what they will become.” —Brooke Hampton

“Apprehend God in all things, for God is in all things.
Every single creature is full of God and is a book about God.
Every creature is a word of God.
If I spent enough time with the tiniest creature—even a caterpillar—
I would never have to prepare a sermon.
So full of God is every creature.”
—Meister Eckhart

Yes

It could happen any time, tornado,
earthquake, Armageddon. It could happen.
Or sunshine, love, salvation.

It could you know. That’s why we wake
and look out–no guarantees
in this life.

But some bonuses, like morning,
like right now, like noon,
like evening.
—William Stafford

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.” ―J.R.R. Tolkien

Lost Luck

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

Today’s prompt is to write a luck poem. I’m having fun playing with internal rhyme and watching how it drives the line forward, how it pushes into the meaning of the following line. It’s almost like putting a puzzle together, and almost like following a large willful dog on a leash.

Where do you go to find your lost luck?
Look where it settles in ditches,
and hitches itself into trees,
where it sees through the mists
into the distance and takes the long view.

Watch how it grew when you thought
you had bought the last morsel of hope,
how the rope which had bound you
dissolved from around you, and you
suddenly found yourself once again free.

Would you be here if not for the seeking,
the desperate pleading when all seemed so lost,
when all hope was tossed into the whirlwind,
the promises hindered, the heart’s desire stuck,
and then here you are, free to seek for fresh luck.

Gratitude List:
1. Student delightfully self-congratulating a Duolingo success: “Yes, Grrrl! You got it!”
2. This morning’s autumn mist on the fields between Marietta and Mt. Joy.
3. I never know what is going to draw a whole class into discussion. I try every angle I can, and sometimes, everyone is suddenly jumping in, on fire with ideas. Today was one of those days in our upper division discussion about My Antonia. They had had enough background already in social studies classes regarding “Manifest Destiny” (idea and painting) that even my quietest introvert pushed himself up out of his chair and came up to the front of the room to point out his ideas about the painting. (YESSSSS!)
4. Analyzing characterization through the lens of the D and D alignment chart
5. Playing with words
May we walk in Beauty!

“Choosing to be honest is the first step in the process of love. There is no practitioner of love who deceives. Once the choice has been made to be honest, then the next step on love’s path is communication.”
― bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions

“Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love. Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps because I am afraid, and he gives me courage.” ―Gandalf

“When I stopped trying to change you, you changed me.” ―Rachel Macy Stafford

“When will the change begin? When will it start to happen? We have waited so long and prayed so long, when will the light begin to shine in this conflicted world? Our answer is: when we each begin to see it in ourselves. When we believe and not despair, when we love and not fear, when we give and not take – then we will see the change start to happen, and happen all around us. The answer is already here, within, waiting for us to find it.” —Steven Charleston

“When Teresa of Avila was asked what she did in prayer, she replied, ‘I just allow myself to be loved.'” —Anthony de Mello

“I never lose. I either win or I learn.” —Nelson Mandela

“If you have never been called an incorrigible, defiant, impossible woman… have faith. There is yet time.” —Clarissa Pinkola Estes

The Glorious Mysteries

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Today is the last day of National Poetry Month. It has been another marvelous month. I have felt like the Muse was active more days this month than not, for which I am grateful. I never know when I begin these things whether I am going to hit a wall by day ten and have to slog through to the end. I’m grateful that there was so much to find and follow this month.

I have four more weeks of school, and then I’ll hopefully have time to do some editing. I really want to commit to going through my work and pulling together another book. But I have said that several times in the past few years, so I need to find the Key in order to make it happen.

The rosary prayers go in a cycle of three sets: The Joyful Mysteries, the Sorrowful Mysteries, and the Glorious Mysteries. There is a fourth set that was added by Pope John Paul II, but I haven’t studied those. As I have been praying the rosary since August, I have been meditating on the mysteries as a Path of Initiation to Enlightenment. I believe we are repeating this cycle over and over again in our lives, and the three-day cycle of repetition in the rosary cycle offers a way to meditate on one’s current cycle of transformation.

The Joyful Mysteries are about hearing and accepting the call to transformation:
1. The Annunciation: Hearing the call, meeting the beloved angel being, saying Yes, consenting to the process
2. The Visit with Elizabeth: Mentoring, wise confidante, comfort and counsel
3. The Birth: Stepping onto the path, hatching, the seed bursts forth, the initiation
4. The Elder Blessing: Blessing and commissioning by the priest/priestess, they say: “I have waited my whole life for this!”
5. The Finding in the Temple: Finding the purpose, defining the vision of the initiation story

The Sorrowful Mysteries are about meeting the challenges of the enlightenment journey:
1. The Agony in the Garden: Facing betrayal and abandonment, anxiety about what is to come
2. The Flogging in the Temple: Pain, the reality of betrayal, enduring the torture
3. The Crown of Thorns: Being shamed and mocked, standing shameless in the face of taunting
4. The Bearing of the Cross: Picking up the work that must happen even in the midst of trauma and anguish
5. Death: Death, loss, symbolic death, end of old life and way of being

The Glorious Mysteries are about stepping into the truth of the new way:
1. Resurrection: Symbolic rebirth, restoration, revivifying, re-energizing, re-awakening
2. Ascension into Heaven: Stepping back onto the path with Enlightenment in sight
3. The Descent of the Holy Spirit: Tongues of fire, new language, deep connection to Spirit, recollection of “This is my Beloved Child in whom I am well pleased.”
4. The Assumption of the Virgin: Taking up the priestessing role, putting on the mantle
5. The Coronation of the Virgin: The Summoning to the coronation of the Queen, living in the glory of the Mystery

This past summer, when I felt caught in cycles of unrelenting Sorrowful Mysteries, it was a comfort to meditate every three days on the process of meeting the challenges and then to remind myself that the Glorious Mysteries follow. And of course, while this is a linear telling, there’s also a layering quality, a sense in which we live all the stages at once.

Gratitude List:
1. Denise Levertov’s poetry
2. Writing practice. I long to have a writer’s life, but in the meantime, I can carve out time for a consistent writing practice
3. Circles of beloved community
4. The quiet misty green of the grove in the morning
5. Always new things to learn
May we walk in Beauty!

“Things aren’t so tangible and sayable as people would have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered, and more unsayable than all other things are world of art, those mysterious existences, whose life endures beside our own small, transitory life.” —Rainer Maria Rilke

“We don’t think ourselves into a new way of living. We live ourselves into a new way of thinking.” —Richard Rohr

“To create one’s world in any of the arts takes courage.” —Georgia O’Keeffe

“Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. Hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth’s treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal… To hope is to give yourself to the future – and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.” ―Rebecca Solnit

“The child’s hand
Folding these wings
Wins no wars and ends them all. “
―Thomas Merton

“I never sanction violence. Never. But I wonder how we got to the point when destruction of property deserves greater coverage and a greater portion of our attention than the destruction of human life. Since when do shattered windows matter more than shattered spines, shattered voice boxes, and shattered dreams? When did we become a people who mourn the destruction of things over the destruction of lives?” —Omid Safi