Posted in Uncategorized, tagged birth, meeting the self, motherhood, parenting on September 10, 2020| 9 Comments »
I meet her at the Peace Garden gathering
where she’s singing and dancing for peace.
It’s September 11, and her belly is round
and moon-ish. She has no wrinkles yet,
no flashes of gray in her hair.
She is so sincere as she recites poems,
as if with right words and right songs
and right moves she could help
create a peaceful world that her baby will enter.
She’s a month away from her due date
and I don’t tell her those cramps she’s feeling
are contractions. I don’t tell her
he’ll cry for a year. I don’t tell her
about how they’ll laugh too loud together
how they’ll both thrive in the small night hours,
how sixteen years later she’ll marvel
at how love rules her life
in the fiercest and most tender ways,
how the boy will have grown to six foot four,
how he will teach her about fast cars and graphic cards
and forgiveness and humility and apps.
Sixteen years later, she will be less herself
and more something larger, more
driven by love than ever, though it
is nothing she could have imagined.
No, I just say, Nice to meet you. You look familiar,
like a woman I used to know well.
And she smiles in a dreamy far off way.
She thinks she knows what will happen.
Yes, I remember that well.
Posted in Uncategorized on September 10, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Have you ever wanted to be a SECRET AGENT??
Perhaps you’ve already joined Secret Agents of Change–perhaps this is your first inkling that such a covert organization exists, but in all cases:
My friend Sherry Richert Belul and I invite you to participate in a very special four-part mission: Operation Love. We’ll be hosting secret missions on the 11th of every month through the end of 2020. Here’s the bottom line: For every mission I will share a poem and Sherry will offer a heart-opening, simple, surreptitious prompt to send you out into the day with purpose and love.
We’re hosting an Emergency Secret Mission on Friday, September 11th and we hope you’ll don your agent’s badge and join us. The world is in need of your love, light, and stealthy way of adding doses of compassion wherever you go.There are two ways to participate: 1. Live! Join a live Zoom call with me and Sherry on Friday morning from 7:30- 8a.m. PDT ( 8:30-9 a.m. MDT, 9:30-10 a.m., CDT, and 10:30-11 a.m. EDT) and we’ll not only share a poem and announce the mission, but we will also roll up our sleeves and get into action–together! Please join us live if you can; we’d love to see your beautiful Secret Agent faces and feel your stealthy, loving, ninja awesome agent energy while we are on live. Or, if you prefer to join audio-only or lurking-only, those are just fine, too!(Note: please bring paper or a pretty notecard and a pen.) 2. Via Replay! We will post the 30-minute video and you can participate anytime on Friday or over the weekend. If you are on our secret agent mailing list (join here), then you will receive an email with the video link + we will also post it in our Secret Agents Facebook Group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/SecretAgentsOfChange). (Note: the poem and mission will be in the first five minutes.)No matter which way you participate, you’ll report back in our Facebook Group to let us know how your mission went.No matter which way you participate, we love you and honor you!Zoom details down below our signature.Gratefully your Spymasters,Rosemerry and Sherry
PS: If you have friends whom you think would enjoy these kinds of missions, please have them sign up here: https://simplycelebrate.net/secret-agents-of-change. The more the merrier! We will notify everyone via email when the next Operation launches! Also, make sure you send them to our Facebook group if they want to join in Friday’s LOVE!How to join the live call: Topic: Secret Agents of Change: Operation Love 2020Time: Sep 11, 2020 07:30 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)Join Zoom Meeting by computerhttps://us02web.zoom.us/j/84910769888?pwd=S28xZFBBSVBQUGd4M3FBUkIwUDNBUT09Meeting ID: 849 1076 9888Passcode: 438699Join by One tap mobile:+14086380968,,84910769888#,,,,,,0#,,438699# US (San Jose)+16699006833,,84910769888#,,,,,,0#,,438699# US (San Jose)Join by phone:Dial by your location +1 408 638 0968 US (San Jose) +1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose) +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) +1 646 876 9923 US (New York) +1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown)Meeting ID: 849 1076 9888Passcode: 438699Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kpcDeqeO9
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aging, counting, numbers on September 9, 2020| 6 Comments »
Then let me measure my life
not in days, not in years,
but in how many sunflowers
grew in my gardens
and how many times
I stopped to notice
how beautiful they were.
Let me measure my life
in lines of poems
that slipped me
more deeply into the world
and in cups of earl gray tea.
Let me grow old
on belly laughs.
Let me know my true age
in kisses. And though
it is a finite number,
let me lose count.
In hug years,
let me be ancient.
In fist years,
let me always be young.
And let me measure my life
in songs that insisted I sing them.
May it equal the number of times
they were sung.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged family, game, growing up, mom on September 9, 2020| Leave a Comment »
for Grace
I’m too grown up now to play family,
says the six-year-old girl. But I hear
in her voice that part of her
still loves the game.
I long to tell her that now,
at fifty, playing family is still
one of my favorites.
I’m less wild about the version
where I’m the mom telling the kid
no, they can’t get the toy they want.
But I like the game when I sit on the couch
and say to my son or daughter,
Hey, come snuggle in, and they do.
I like it when we stand around the kitchen counter
laughing at whatever we’re laughing at.
I like when we’re driving in the car
and I say, Hey, sweetie, how was your day?
Sometimes, I play dress up in my own clothes
and wear what a mother would wear.
I even make breakfasts and lunches
and hide the M&Ms.
And I laugh to hear my own voice say
what a mother might say:
Clean up your room, please.
Time for bed now. Now.
You have got to be kidding me.
I love you. Oh my, how you’ve grown.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged brokenness, fear, fixing, willingness on September 7, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Wholeness does not mean perfection. It means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life.
—Parker Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life
Brokenness, I am still learning
to embrace you. I would rather fix,
would rather mend, would rather solve.
Today, the hole in my security
is big enough to let fear blow in
like a strong winter wind.
I want a patch, want reinforcement,
want to stitch the seams closed.
And here I am, brokenness,
my needle and thread in hand.
Is it so wrong to want to repair?
My fingers are willing.
There is work to do. Here I am.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, frost, garden, time on September 6, 2020| 8 Comments »
In two nights, the killing frost will come.
Because I know this, I wander the garden
and talk to the broccoli, the nasturtiums,
the cilantro. I thank the beets for their willingness
to grow. I tell the onions what is coming.
Tomorrow I will pick enormous bouquets
and fill the house with orange flowers.
Tomorrow I will sit in the garden
and try to store the beauty in my body
though I know it doesn’t work that way.
Please, just one more day, just one more month,
just one more life to try to get it right,
just one more chance to be as attentive
as I am when I know it is almost over,
the basil dark green, the marigolds crinkling with gold.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged belonging, puzzle on September 5, 2020| 4 Comments »
Dozens of puzzle pieces suspended in the air.
All day, I’ve wondered why no one else
seems to see them—dangling as they are
on the hiking trail and in the kitchen this morning,
over the highway and at the birthday party.
All day, they appear with their knobs and inlets,
their gray backs and colorful fronts,
spinning like small bits of certainty.
Sometimes I feel one fit into place
in some larger puzzle I don’t actually see,
but when a piece slips in, I feel it
with my whole body—a snap, a link,
a small yes. I don’t know whose hand
is doing the work. I don’t know where
the pieces came from nor where they should go.
All day I wait for it, the feeling of being lifted
out of my life and placed back in
exactly where I belong.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged meditation, play, poetry retreat, workshop on September 5, 2020| Leave a Comment »
The Grand Embrace: Resistance & Willingness
September 13 10 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. MDT
$40-$100 sliding scale, no one will be refused for lack of funds
We are learning to stretch in so many ways, many of them very uncomfortable. Living right now can feel like being in a story with an unbearable amount of tension. If it were a book, we might be tempted to read ahead to find out what happens to relieve the tension. Well, we don’t get to skip ahead. And we don’t get to stick our heads in the sand. But we do have the chance to meet our resistance to the moment— our sticky, unadulterated top-to-bottom resistance. And we have a chance to practice being available to the moment. Join dharma teacher Susie Harrington and poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer for a day of exploring resistance and willingness through meditation and writing.
There will be meditation practice instructions, guided meditations and silent sitting. Poetry practice will include periods of instruction, time to write, and time to share what we have written and discovered. This combination of silence and discovery can be a magical process that leads us deep into ourselves and into the world. No previous experience in meditation or poetry is required to participate. We expect many will be more familiar with one of these modes of exploration than the other and this will be an opportunity to build on the experiences you bring.
If you have any questions please contact Lisa Allee at 970-570-7936 or lisaalleecnm@hotmail.com (call or text preferred).
To register, visit https://desertdharma.org/retreats.html
*
Playing with Mindfulness & Poetry
October 2, 5-8 p.m. and October 3, 8-11 a.m.
$95
It’s like recess for grownups—a chance to let your body and your mind have fun in a virtual playground. Poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer will offer playful word games and mischievous prompts for writing. Psychotherapist, yoga and meditation teacher Augusta Kantra will lead light-hearted creative movement and joyful experimentation. Play is for everyone! Leave feeling more deeply connected to the part of you who knows how to enjoy being alive. To register, visit https://calmlivingstudio.com/events/playing-with-mindfulness-poetry/
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer co-hosts Emerging Form, a podcast on the creative process. She also co-hosts Telluride’s Talking Gourds Poetry Club and is co-founder of Secret Agents of Change. She teaches poetry for mindfulness retreats, women’s retreats, scientists, hospice and more. Her poetry has appeared in O Magazine, on A Prairie Home Companion and in Rattle.com. Her most recent collection, Hush, won the Halcyon Prize. She is often found in the kitchen baking with her teenage children. One-word mantra: Adjust.
Augusta Kantra is a psychotherapist, a mindfulness and meditation teacher, and a yoga teacher. She and her husband, David, own and operate the Center for CALM Living and CALM Living Studio in Fairhope, Alabama. As a psychotherapist, she helps her clients understand and unravel the dynamics that trip them up. As a mindfulness teacher, she facilitates on-going Yoga Assisted Self-Discovery groups incorporating meditation, movement, and insight practices. As a teacher of yoga, she leads trainings at the foundational (200hr) and advanced (500hr) levels. And each week, she live-streams her fun, inspiring, and awareness-increasing yoga classes.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gift, silence on September 5, 2020| 2 Comments »
I’m sure there’s a blossom in there somewhere
And if all I can give you is silence,
then let it be the most beautiful silence,
a silence perfumed with mint and sage,
a silence that brings a quiet shine
to everything it touches.
Let it be the kind of silence
that opens into a deeper silence,
the kind that knows golden petals and sunshine
and the scent of rain unfolding in the meadow—
a silence that holds you so lightly,
the way candlelight might hold you
inside the dark. May it find you
in the morning, be waiting for you
before you rise. May you find it behind
and between every word you say,
the way sky supports the dark cursive
of starlings. And may you hear it, really hear it,
the deep silence. Like your favorite
song playing over and over again.