As the weather is changing
and the light is changing
and the birds at the feeder
in the yard are changing,
as the leaders are changing
and the feelings are changing
and the way that we see
each other is changing,
I notice the invitation to turn
toward the truth
of what does not change—
something so vast, so unnamable,
so unable to be grasped and held,
something so present
there is no life without it,
that knows itself
through you, through me,
through clover and tree and cloud
and goes on and on and on forever.
That. I turn again and again
toward that.
Posts Tagged ‘what is’
Placing Attention
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged attention, change, what is on November 13, 2024| 6 Comments »
What the Self Really Wants
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, infinite self, naked, self, story, what is on March 18, 2024| 4 Comments »
When the story of self
slips off like a mask, the sky
is more sky and an apple
more apple and the self
less self and more
what a wind is. How easy
to love then when I’m naked.
And how is it that always
some new story arrives,
solidifies less like a cast,
more like a strait jacket?
I notice because life
starts to fit too tight.
I notice because
I start to think I’m right.
But it’s no failure when a story
appears. Just an invitation
to notice how it feels
to be dressed in a story.
An invitation to pray
to the mystery, please,
once again undress me.
An invitation to be grateful
for the hands (whose hands?)
that loosen the story
and free me. An invitation
to let the self remember this:
how it longs to be spacious,
to be as infinite as what is.
The Medicine of Surrender
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged medicine, surrender, what is on January 19, 2024| 18 Comments »
comes with no spoonful of sugar.
No promises, no back up plans,
no returns, no insurance.
The medicine of surrender
never tastes the way you expect,
never tastes the same next time,
seldom has the hoped for effect.
And if there were some part of you
that thought it might not be affected,
that thought it might hold back,
that part is most likely the first part
to be flooded with the relentless
truth of what is. Oh surrender.
The surest medicine that exists.
There are infinite side effects.
Wonder. Freedom. Rawness.
It’s like opening the dictionary
to the word heaven. Or obliteration.
And knowing it’s the same thing.
It’s like playing spin the bottle with life,
and you French kiss whatever you get.
It’s the only remedy that can help you
be whole. The only real medicine there is.
Dare
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cruelty, falling in love with the world, what is on January 29, 2020| Leave a Comment »
On a day when the world is cruel,
I do not try to fall in love with cruelty.
No, I invite myself to fall in love
with the what is beneath what is cruel.
In the meadow, it is a herd of elk walking through the snow.
In the room, it is a kitten curled in a crescent on the couch.
In myself, it is the part of me that defies any label—
woman/man, Christian/Jew, good/bad, knower/unknower.
I invite that ineffable part of me to go find itself
in the world. And everything is beautiful then.
There is nothing I cannot love.
How It Goes with Hope
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cat, grief, hope, loss, tenderness, what is on January 15, 2020| 7 Comments »
|
Eventually a burning hope |
More Practice
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged allowing, happiness, love, poem, poetry, present, what is on May 23, 2013| 7 Comments »
There I go again,
thinking that if
life were different
it would be better.
In specific, I wish
that you were different.
Which is to say,
more like me.
Which would,
I do not need to think
long about this,
be a total disaster.
Okay, so that’s not
what I want, I don’t
know what I want,
I just know that I don’t
want what is. And that,
I don’t need to read
Tricycle magazine
to know this, is the recipe
for unhappiness.
Okay. So I tell myself,
pretend everything
is the way it should be:
You the way you are.
Me the way I am. And
all those other folks
screwing up too, just
like screwing-up you,
just like screwing-up me.
And then there’s the goldfish
that died in the middle of it all.
And the rash that came back.
And the news. There is always
the news. The night leans in
to laugh at me.
I lean back, knowing
I won’t be caught.
For a moment,
I almost believe
that everything’s for the best
till I see the one who thinks
she has to think that,
and then I’m falling again
into the night’s leaky net.
A Long Farewell
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged breaking open, Hemingway, peace, poem, poetry, rabbit brush, surrender, what is on August 31, 2012| 5 Comments »
The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.
—Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
Dear World,
Thank you for breaking me.
The rabbit brush are in full bloom.
Yellow in the field. Yesterday
I mowed the edges of the drive
and as a matter of course
I mowed whatever rabbit brush
was in my path. The air
smelled so good then,
a clean, sharp scent,
almost like sage,
only softer.
I have not been very good.
I have not been very gentle.
I have not been very brave.
But I have been sincere.
And I have loved.
There was a time when
I wanted to weed all the rabbit brush
from the field. I wanted only field grass.
I would wait for it to rain for days,
then pull up as much rabbit brush as I could.
World, I have not been very good.
And you have broken me so perfectly—
always leading me to just the right place
for falling apart. World, how do you do that?
The rabbit brush always come back
and eventually I learned to leave them
wherever they leap up. And eventually I learned
to find them beautiful.
I have not been very gentle, world.
I have taken what I wanted, sometimes mercilessly.
And you take every opportunity to kill me,
sometimes with fear, sometimes
with great or small beauty.
Yellow. Yellow. Yellow.
Thousands of yellow hands
all waving each time I arrive.
World, I have not been very brave.
I am not like Hemingway. When the war comes
I try to hide. And still you come to kill me
like a warrior, like a soldier,
only much, much slower.
The rabbit brush does not mind drought.
It thrives in cracked, parched soil.
The rabbit brush does not mind the rain.
It thrives. It thrives.
I can’t say I like being broken, world.
I can’t say I like being killed.
But you do it so well and I do admire
your insuperable skill. Keep killing me,
world, keep breaking me. Keep finding
my flaws. Press until I crack.
I am broken, dying, thriving. I am waving
at you waving back.
As In All Things
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged allowing, poem, poetry, rain, what is on August 26, 2012| 3 Comments »
Rain in our hair and rain
in our hands, rain on our
cheeks and rain in our lashes,
our pockets, our plans.
The rain, how it rains, how
we forget how we longed
to be dry. How we tiptoed
around the puddle. How
we huddled beneath the tree.
How we tried so hard not
to be what now feels so wetly fine.
Rain harder, rain, there is still
too much of me that tries to hide.
Camping in the Monsoon Tanka
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged camping, hope, monsoon, poem, rain, surrender, what is on July 18, 2012| 3 Comments »
wet hair,
wet dress, wet feet
wet eyes
across the field
blue sky
A Poem Not Really About Apricots
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged allowing, apricots, denial, loss, poem, poetry, what is on June 20, 2012| 6 Comments »
Perhaps
I thought
by leaning
into loss,
it would become
more comfortable.
But it is like
overripe apricots.
There is no
managing,
no pretending,
no way
to make
it anything
but what
it is.
They are overripe.
Nothing
to be done
about a gift
like that
except to walk
the rows
and gather
the sunwarmed
flesh, bruised
and soft,
and eat it until
you can’t
eat another
sweet bite,
then gather
the fruit
to freeze
until the freezer
will hold no more
and then
when the orchard
floor is still
mottled with
fruit on the edge
of moldering,
know there
is really
nothing
to be done,
and though
it is uncomfortable
stop naming
this experience
loss and
start leaning
into what is,
the only
place
we can
rest.