Time change. It’s just time, just sun, just nightfall, just change. I tell myself this, again and again. Time for the happy lamp.
Today’s Prompt over at Writer’s Digest is to write a poem title “Better _______.”
better left unsaid
better said
best be gone I say begone
best step up now and do your work
best lurk in corners till the courage comes upon you
best fill your leaky pockets with compliments and rice
better red or midnight blue
better screw the lightbulb in the disco ball
better haul the garbage to the garbage dump
better pump the handle on the ancient water pump
best to do the thing you must
and leave the rest to gather rust
best say the necessary prayers
and acquaint yourself with silence.
better learn the difference
between what’s better said
and better left unsaid
Gratitude List:
1. How the sun trickles into the room on afternoons in autumn.
2. The poetry of Layli Long Soldier–We loved exploring her poem Obligations 2 in class today. It expands the way we think about the line in writing.
3. People who swim deeply, deeply, who explore the furthest reaches of Self.
4. Starting over. Resetting. Trying again. Revising.
5. Apples!
May we walk in Beauty!
“People who love the divine go around with holes in their hearts, and inside the hole is the universe.” —Peter Kingsley from the Dark Places of Wisdom
“The practice of love is the most powerful antidote to the politics of domination.” —bell hooks
“When men imagine a female uprising, they imagine a world in which women rule men as men have ruled women.” ―Sally Kempton
“Never limit yourself because of others’ limited imagination; never limit others because of your own limited imagination.” —Mae Jemison (Astronaut/Medical Doctor)
Adrienne Rich: “When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility of more truth around her.”
“Part of the tragedy of our present culture is that all our attention is on the outer, the physical world. And yes, outer nature needs our attention; we need to act before it is too late, before we ravage and pollute the whole ecosystem. We need to save the seeds of life’s diversity. But there is an inner mystery to a human being, and this too needs to be rescued from our present wasteland; we need to keep alive the stories that nourish our souls. If we lose these seeds we will have lost a connection to life’s deeper meaning—then we will be left with an inner desolation as real as the outer.” —Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee
“Walked for half an hour in the garden. A fine rain was falling, and the landscape was that of autumn. The sky was hung with various shades of gray, and mists hovered about the distant mountains – a melancholy nature. The leaves were falling on all sides like the last illusions of youth under the tears of irremediable grief. A brood of chattering birds were chasing each other through the shrubberies, and playing games among the branches, like a knot of hiding schoolboys. Every landscape is, as it were, a state of the soul, and whoever penetrates into both is astonished to find how much likeness there is in each detail.” —Henri Frederic Amiel
There is a legend that has its roots buried deep inside the prehistoric culture of these lands. It is a myth that was seeded before the stories were anchored onto the page, before rigid systems of belief tied gods and spirits into names and form, even before the people were persuaded from paths of individual responsibility into hierarchies of power. This story has been fluid and flowing, changing shape and growing over many thousands of years. It is a story of ancestors and a deep relationship with the ancient land. It is a story of memories that permeate stone and wood to rest within the body of the earth. This legend is too old to be defined by history and therefore we are not limited in our own remembering of it; creative recollection lies at the heart of our very best tales.
Memory may arrive at odd moments and in unexpected forms. Recognition may unravel along strange paths. Wherever the wild reaches through the land, we may touch the edges of this story. We start to tease out a thread, then pick and pull until first a fragment of colour, then a whole strand of story, is revealed. Now we peel away the layers, glimpse the traces of a design, watch a pattern grow until an entire story emerges, then a cycle of stories, and now we are unwinding the fabric of our ancestors’ lives.” —Carolyn Hillyer
We stumble on the journey, O God.
We lose heart along the way.
We forget your promises and blame one another.
Refresh us with the springs of your spirit in our souls
and open our senses to your guiding presence
that we may be part of the world’s healing this day,
that we may be part of the world’s healing.
—John Philip Newell
Mockingbird Chronicles 