This is a wonderful reminder about the use of time as it flows along. It is not linear and follows its own stream bed. Without saying a thing, it always surrounds us. Use it well.
Monthly Archives: August 2013
The Coffee Shop
I spend time in the local coffee shops, read, and write. I did a lot of my blogging in that venue; however this summer I rearranged my schedule and blog at home. I notice a gentle energy in these settings and in a busy world it is a place to take time and just be.
The coffee shop;
Misnamed I think–
I sip tea
I try just be present.
We gather;
It is about talk–
A communal space,
Congregate and converse.
Companionship’s richness;
Found in quality
I cannot assign a number
It is a fool’s errand.
It is in laughter,
The reminiscing,
The sharing,
We find ourselves.
Happiness Can Be Your Choice…
Happiness is a choice. Have a great day everyone. As Kathy would say, “Smile, it will make others wonder what you are up to.”
We have the choice to choose how we will live each day. Even though we may walk through the valley of the shadow of death, how we do it is our choice.
Remember you are strong, and each step is your choice, even when you do not feel it is so. With each step you become stronger.
Look for happiness in the smallest of things, it is there just take the time to look. Happiness is ours, we can make it happen not only for ourselves, but for those we encounter. Take the challenge it is so worth it!
Happy Friday my friends…
Picture: Quotesforthemind.com
Painting With Words
I came across this blog yesterday and the first poem I read was this lovely one about poetry. We are each poets in our own right.
Painting with words is easy.
For you, it is innate
broad brushstrokes slashed across new canvas
bringing people into your thoughts, your heart
The most intimate touch of oneself on others.
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Glorious words are the medium with which you paint
your love, on the pure and powdery white of the paper.
The sound of the brush, the friction with the yielding surface, the curves,
the nuanced magic of mind and hand connected,
The mysteries solved, the enigma remaining.
*
Lines defining thoughts and feeling,
delineating between fading and brightening of images
shading so perfect as to tint your readers’ heart
Sending it through the cosmos to us denizens of your wondrous kingdom.
The Layers
Stanley Kunitz wrote this lovely poem about life and the journey we take. I look back and I am tempted to see litter and not layers of good. It seems so much easier, at times, to see the past in this light. Something speaks to me from deep within me and reminds me to consider the good that happens. When I take time and place this at the forefront there is so much more energy given to live and know I am not done with the changes.
I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.
Buddhist Monk Blesses A Dead Man
This is an incredible blog. I could have re-blogged many posts, but my suggestion is to take a few minutes and spend time there. The posts restore any lagging faith in human kindness and compassion.
An elderly person passed away in the waiting hall of the Shanxi Taiyuan train station, China. A monk who happened to be waiting for his train went forth, held the deceased’s hand, and proceeded to bless him.
I Live NOW!
We think of mindfulness and presence as being a non-Western way of thinking. Both have played a substantial role in our western culture as is evidenced by the this Emerson quote.
With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Thought-Fox
I used this poem with students to explain the source of poetic inspiration. It is probably already there and sneaks out to find literary life and expression. Ted Hughes described the creative process of poetry writing as an animal quietly emerging and appearing.
I will sit, close my eyes, and write each day in my journal. Perhaps, a thought-fox will creep out of the shrubbery of imagination. Sabbath is a good time to start.
I imagine this midnight movement’s forest;
Something else is alive
Beside the clock’s loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.
Through the window I see no stars:
Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:
Cold, delicately as the dark snow,
A fox’s nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a moment, that now
And again now, and now, and now
Sets neat prints into the snow,
Between trees, and wearily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come
Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business
Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.
A beautiful dance
Relationships need space or they do not flourish. We move together in those spaces and find newness and freshness. I think the rain mentioned in the post is a great metaphor for this growth. It nourishes and feeds the spaces.
The words and the image placed together the way I envisioned, always delights my soul in way I never imagined.
Their dance in front of my eyes opens the doors to this wonderful world of creation, I too often dismiss.
Something deep within tells me this is the way to finding myself back.
The forecast calls for showers and I am looking forward to it, I miss the smell of the rain on a Saturday afternoon.
I wish you dear friends a beautiful time filled with joy and passion, doing what ever it is your heart desires 🙂
Jasper Elk
I traveled the last couple of days and, as I went through Jasper National Park, I came across these two elk. They were just off the side of the highway and have a full rack of antlers.
This one was by himself eating.
This one was not as cooperative in showing his face.
The shy one decided the grass was greener over in the other one’s pasture and began to move over.
The interloper begins to push the original out of his pasture. You could hear the clash of the antlers and the intruder seemed able to push the first one back.
I was closer to an elk when we were in Yellowstone several years ago. There is a story to the picture I took as I climbed down the embankment into the ditch and a moment later one of the other tourists we were with tumbled down the embankment. I told her it was OK because I thought could run faster than her.
I was probably 50 or more feet away from the ones in Jasper. I was only about 15 feet from the one in Yellowstone.
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 