The Impossible Truth


May you feel your spirit rise today,
rolling away the stone from the entrance
and bursting forth into the shining garden.

May you sense the impossible truth today.
As you huddle in your anguished grieving,
may you hear the Gardener call your name
as you turn into the light.


Gratitude List:
1. A shining morning
2. Making things: clothing and poems and bread
3. All the colors out there: flashes of red and yellow in the trees, blue and green
4. Courage
5. Sunlight in the hollow

May we walk in Beauty!


“Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.” ―Rumi


“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” ―Buddha


Some words on my River, from Robert Louis Stevenson:
“I have been changed from what I was before;
and drunk too deep perchance the lotus of the air,
Beside the Susquehanna and along the Delaware.”
―Robert Louis Stevenson


“. . .and as I saw, one after another, pleasant villages, carts upon the highway and fishers by the stream, and heard cockcrows and cheery voices in the distance, and beheld the sun, no longer shining blankly on the plains of ocean, but striking among shapely hills and his light dispersed and coloured by a thousand accidents of form and surface, I began to exult with myself upon this rise in life like a man who had come into a rich estate. And when I had asked the name of a river from the brakesman, and heard that it was called the Susquehanna, the beauty of the name seemed to be part and parcel of the beauty of the land. As when Adam with divine fitness named the creatures, so this word Susquehanna was at once accepted by the fancy. That was the name, as no other could be, for that shining river and desirable valley.” ―Robert Louis Stevenson


“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” ―Elie Wiesel


Rob Brezsny:
Plato said God was a geometer who created an ordered universe imbued with mathematical principles. Through the ages, scientists who’ve dared to speak of a Supreme Being have sounded the same theme. Galileo wrote, “To understand the universe, you must know the language in which it is written. And that language is mathematics.”

Modern physicist Stephen Hawking says that by using mathematical theories to comprehend the nature of the cosmos, we’re trying to know “the mind of God.”

But philosopher Richard Tarnas proposes a different model. In his book “Cosmos and Psyche,” he suggests that God is an artist—more in the mold of Shakespeare than Einstein.

For myself―as I converse with God every day―I find Her equally at home as a mathematician and artist.

Prayer Bundles

A couple years ago, as I was traveling down one of the internet’s rabbit trails, following the deeper definition of a word, I came across an idea that caught my attention and fired me up.  Like a dream that slips out of focus and disappears but still hangs at the edges of consciousness with an urgency, begging, “Remember me, remember me,” the word and the web page have eluded me as I have tried to run down the memory, to find the source of this idea.

Here is the basic premise: You gather a small grouping of interesting materials, pack them tightly into a smallish bundle, leave it out in the elements for a period of time, then bring it inside, unpack it, and make a work of art.

I have made little bundles in the past, little magic spells or prayers that help me to carry my intentions, to hold the dreams and visions that I am willing into being.  Then when the vision is complete, when the work is done, the bundle is returned to the elements.  But wouldn’t it be interesting to do a prayer bundle like those little art bundles, so that part of the prayer or magic involves exposing the bundle to the elements while I am working on the intention?

What if I gave my bundle to the transforming power of the sun’s fire as I am giving the vision the fire of my own energy?
What if I released my bundle to the working of water in rain as I release my own emotional attachments surrounding my desires?
What if I offered my bundle to the rich power of earth as I am willing my own dream to manifest itself?
What if gave my bundle to the changeable working of breezes as I am clarifying in my own thoughts the vision that I seek?

So.  Thursday is the first day of Spring, a time when we celebrate the hatchings and the first shoots of plants reaching above soil into sun.  I am going to begin a prayer bundle for this season, to see if it helps me to carry and transform my own vision of what I want to bring into my life in the next few months.  For me, the process will be about finding fulfilling work that uses my skills and creative impulses, and brings in the stabilizing element of greater financial security for my family.  Feel free to join me.  It might be a good way to focus a desire to rid oneself of an addiction, or to make a lifestyle change.  It might be a good way to help focus on the essentials, or on becoming more fully your own free self.  Here are some of the questions I am looking at for myself as I begin.  I plan to do some journal-writing about these in the next few days.

What is my heart’s desire in this season of my life?
Keeping in mind that who I am now is already good, what do I want to change, and why?
Where am I now on the journey?
What are some steps that I need to make in the concrete, real world in order to meet my goals?
I want to brainstorm a word or phrase that I can return to, like a prayer, like a mantra, to keep myself focused on what I am looking to accomplish.

Now, in the next few days, along with meditating and journalling about my goal, I am going to start gathering some materials.  Pieces of cloth to wrap the bundle.  String and yarn.  Images (from magazines or my own drawings) that represent my desire.  Small tokens or symbols.  Because part of my process in the next few months will be to decipher the particular vocational path that I want to follow, I think I will choose some items that represent my teaching certificate, my work history in the college setting, my farming work, poetry, editing, and my work at Radiance.  I also want to find some strong symbols to represent the work-family balance.  And perhaps a little something to represent prosperity.

On Thursday, I will wrap up the bundle and leave it outside for the spring season, to open up on May 1 and create a piece of artwork.  Join me?

Gratitude List:
1.  Liver and onions
2.  Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Spirit
3.  The slant of sunlight in spring
4.  Successful Leprechaun traps
5.  Time to write and mull and brood

May we walk in Beauty.