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Posts Tagged ‘ritual’

Sometimes When I’m Quiet, I Think of Art Goodtimes

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on March 9, 2026| 6 Comments »


 
 
I hear the beat of his hand on the drum as he chants,
We are an old people, we are a new people, we are
the same people deeper than before. I have seen
his body explode with poetic energy, sparks leaping
from his fingers, his full voice booming inside my cells
like monsoon thunder in the mountains, and knowing
how big he can be, I feel his restraint as he sits in a circle
and listens, taming all that shakti into quiet attention
as the gourd is passed from person to person and stories
and songs and poems are shared and Art shows us how it’s done,
how together we weave the heart strands into a basket of communion,
and there no strand not welcome—thick ropes of sorrow, gold
threads of devotion, the spidery gray strands of loneliness,
red silk of holiness, scratchy gray of desolation, the deep forest
green of elation—and the circle is always and never the same,
and Art calls us in again and again to aliveness, to share
what matters, beating his drum in time with our hearts
saying welcome, welcome, welcome.

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Before I Read the News

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on January 5, 2026| 22 Comments »


 
How courageous can I be to let all of life in?
                  —Leslie Odom, Jr.  on The Hamilcast with Gillian Pensavalle
 
 
I press both hands
to my chest, then
look at the trees
and the road outside.
I imagine the world
beyond what I see,
cities, continents, space,
then close my eyes
to open.
I listen to what is here,
attune to the silence
that holds up all sound.
Feel my heart beat
against my palm.
Hello heart, I say.
Hello heart.
If I am to read the news,
I want to invite not only
my head but my body.
Want to receive it as if
I am river and sky
as much as I am human.
The ache of the news
is no less great,
perhaps greater, but
I know I am not alone.
In the barren branches
of my fear, the chickadees
come to sing.

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For When We Greet Each Other

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 10, 2024| 28 Comments »


 
 
I want a new ritual for when we meet each other—
strangers or beloveds, friends or rivals, elders or children.
It begins by holding each other’s eyes
the way we behold sunrises or the first cherry blooms,
which is to say we assume we’ll find beauty there.
And perhaps some display of open hands—
a gesture with palms up—that suggests both
I offer myself to you and I receive you.
There should be a quiet moment in which
we hear each other breathe—
knowing it’s the sound of the ocean inside us.
If there are words at all, let them be formed
mostly of vowels so they’re heard more as song
than as spitting, more like river current and less
like throwing stones, words that mean something like
I do not know what you carry, but in this moment
I will help you carry it. Or something like,
Everything depends on us treating each other well.
And if we said it enough, perhaps we’d believe it,
and if we believed it enough, perhaps we’d live it,
treating every other human like someone
who holds our very existence in their hands,
like someone whose life has been given us to serve,
even if it’s only to walk together safely down the street,
hold a door, pass the salt, share a sunset,
offer a smile, and say with our actions you belong.

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Temporal

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 20, 2022| 7 Comments »

for Kayleen


As the tide rose and the waves grew nearer,
she took a stick and drew in the sand
a small labyrinth. In the center
she placed a dried tangle of roots,
some sodden gray feathers,
and the broken open shells of oysters.
White stone at the entrance.
Warm sun on our skin.
On the short path, we wrote with a stick
the names of people and places we longed to heal.
All around us the whirling of dark sea birds
seeking higher places to land.
All around us the sound of waves crashing on rocks,
sound of cliffs slowly eroding into sand.

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Walking with Lulu Down to the River

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 8, 2022| 10 Comments »



She carries a vase
of delphiniums and daisies
and I carry a tune
and we toss them all
like wishes
into the river.
Some wishes
are more beautiful
for knowing they will never
come true.
When we are done
we hold hands in the twilight
and watch the last
of the flowers float
in the shimmering eddies.
This is the moment
I would not have known
to have wished for.
I lean into this moment.

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With Violet Petals Strewn Around

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 2, 2022| 4 Comments »


 
 
Somehow the body knows what it needs.
Like how, minutes after the change of the year,
I find myself in the hot shower washing off
the old year’s skin with a violet sugar scrub.
I didn’t plan to scrape away the self
that no longer fits, but here I am,
sharp crystals in hand, my everywhere
feeling the tingle, the thrilling sting of the new.
What magic a simple ritual can do.
Can’t change the losses, no,
but I feel surprisingly willing to meet it all
as I step lighter, softer, back into the world.

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One Enormous Gratitude

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on March 30, 2018| 4 Comments »

 

 

my mother began my mornings

by singing to me “it’s going to be

such a lovely day”—

over thirty years later

I still believe her

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But I Thought I Needed Something

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on August 2, 2014| 3 Comments »

After the smudging of desert sage,
after the wearing of white,
after breaking and eating the bread,
after chanting the Sanskrit words,
after dancing in a circle,
after the secret handshake,
after the incense, the bell,
the candles, the cushion

I sit wherever I find myself
and notice how there
is nowhere that is not
an altar.

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