Breathing is Important

Breathing is Important

...like when you meditate and your mind wanders
you don’t beat yourself up for it
you just gently go back to focus
so be sweet with yourself when you worry
it's ok
it's not like you are shooting heroin
you just got distracted from what's best for you
the present
so delicious
it's peach season and i just thought of juicy sweet peaches
seems so simple and pure and good


~Wisdom from Cynthia Stewart

Grayson, our granddaughter, eating a Georgia peach and enjoying every bite photo by Savannah Grandfather
The World is a Peach photo by wanderingnome

Invitation

Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy

and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistles

for a musical battle
to see who can sing
the highest note
or the lowest

or the most expressive of mirth
or the most tender?
Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the air

as they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mine

and not for the sake of winning
but for the sheer delight and gratitude-
believe us, they say
it is a serious thing

just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in this broken world
I beg of you

do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance

it could mean something.
it could mean everything.
it could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote
You must change your life

by Mary Oliver from her new book Red Bird

Thank you Lucianne for the poem
And tcd123usa for the photo

Pieces of a Puzzle

Each lifetime is the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
For some there are more pieces.
For others the puzzle is more difficult to assemble.
Some seem to be born with a nearly complete puzzle.
And so it goes.
Souls going this way and that
Trying to assemble the myriad parts.

But know this. No one has within themselves
All the pieces to their puzzle . . .
Everyone carries with them at least one and probably
Many pieces to someone else's puzzle.
Sometimes they know it.
Sometimes they don't.

And when you present your piece
Which is worthless to you,
To another, whether you know it or not,
Whether they know it or not,
You are a messenger from the Most High.

--Lawrence Kushner, Honey from the Rock

Photograph by Right Eye

Absolutely Clear

Don’t

Surrender

Your loneliness so quickly.

Let it cut more

Deep.



Let it ferment and season you

As few human

Or even divine ingredients can.



Something missing in my heart tonight

Has made my eyes so soft,

My voice so

Tender,



My need of God

Absolutely

Clear.



-- By Hafiz

Balancing Knowing and Not-Knowing

knowing

my cells breathe
a deep knowing clarity

my body resonates
with recognition

my heart is awake
a full knowing awareness

not-knowing

I open, accept, surrender

being with
the mysterious emergence
of this moment

falling, floating, flailing, flying
a flower turning inside out
a void of total stillness

knowing is trusting
the sacred listening
of my human instrument

not-knowing is trusting
the sacred wholeness of wisdom
transcending my personal reach

~ knowing photo by Right Eye in an inspiring series called Essence: What shapes our identity?
~ not-knowing photo by Denis Collette
~ monkey photo by pandiyan
~ poem a Woven Essence collaboration

Gentle Breath of Being

…To be human
is to become visible
while carrying
what is hidden
as a gift to others…
— David Whyte

A beautiful New Year's wish from Mike. Thank you.

"There is a voice that doesn't use words. Listen." ~ Rumi

photo by kiri :D

Leave the familiar for a while

Today I open a gate, inviting myself into a journey where I hope to learn more about some of my habitual patterns of relating... relating with myself, relating with others, relating with the internet, relating with time and space.... this list could go on and on... so much relating!

I am entering an inquiry. I am experimenting through a practice of shifting what is known and comfortable so that I may better feel what it's like to sit with the unknown and to be with myself in discomfort. If some of the habits and routines I have grown to depend upon are shifted, how will I respond? How might I come to better know and relate to myself ? to others? Where have I used these habits to help me feel whole? How might I grow towards wholeness through new ways of facing and relating with myself and others?

I've recently returned to referencing a 13-Moon Natural Time Calendar. I enjoy seeing when my day resonates with the tone and glyph of this calendar. Below is part of today's description... feels in alignment!

"With deep roots into the earth and broad antennas into the sky, receive the medicine your soul needs to endure life's transitions and discover trust in the unknown."

"As we release that which no longer serves, we make way for new opportunities and understandings to emerge. Setting us free from expectations or definite notions, Spectral energy breaks us out of routine, releasing us into the spectrum of possibility, provoking us to see aspects of our wholeness that may be yet undiscovered."

~from 13 Moon Natural Time Calendar

As part of this shift I am inquiring into my relationship with the internet. I don't know how regularly I'll be posting in this coming time. I leave you with another poem that caught me sweetly today. I found this one at Rich Life Cafe.

Leave the familiar for a while.
Let your senses and bodies stretch out

Like a welcomed season
Onto the meadow and shores and hills.

Open up to the Roof.
Make a new watermark on your excitement
And love.

Like a blooming night flower,
Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness
And giving
Upon our intimate assembly.

Change rooms in your mind for a day.

All the hemispheres in existence
Lie beside an equator
In your heart.

Greet Yourself
In your thousand other forms
As you mount the hidden tide and travel
Back home.

All the hemispheres in heaven
Are sitting around a fire
Chatting

While stitching themselves together
Into the Great Circle inside of
You.

Hafiz – 14th century Sufi mystic and poet

The Way WIngs Should

Photo source

THE WAY WINGS SHOULD

What will
our children do in the morning?
Will they wake with their hearts wanting to play,
the way wings
should?

Will they have dreamed the needed flights and gathered
the strength from the planets that all men and women need to balance
the wonderful charms of
the earth

so that her power and beauty does not make us forget our own?

I know all about the ways of the heart - how it wants to be alive.

Love so needs to love
that it will endure almost anything, even abuse,
just to flicker for a moment. But the sky's mouth is kind,
its song will never hurt you, for I
sing those words.

What will our children do in the morning
if they do not see us
fly?

~ Rumi ~

Embracing Love

"I knocked on the door
of the One who embraces Love.
He opened it, saw me there and began to laugh.
He pulled me in....
I melted like sugar cubes...
in the arms of the Lover,
that wizard of the world... "

~Rumi

photo source and poem found at Ineffable Bliss

Emerging Independence

More personal confessions...

It’s strange to me how much I “need” to have others validate things that I do or experience, how much I can deny my own experiencing, minimizing it, not honoring the fullness of intensity that is my living or the guided action that emerges from my listening. For example, I've noticed lately how I experience a touch of wholeness when someone validates how deeply I feel. It surprises me (and then often moves me to tears) how healing and confirming it is to have someone else simply acknowledge that I experience life intensely, that I feel deeply. How curious that I don’t trust my own experiencing as proof. Intellectually I do, but at a sensing level there is still so much I am learning to trust.

I am grateful for people in my life who reflect these realities back to me. Through the interdependence of our relationships, I am invited into greater independence, a fuller knowing of what it's like to be me. What a blessing.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

~ Mary Oliver

The World I Want to Live In

A sunny morning reflecting, writing and creating. This poem and post catches my attention and leaves me with tears in my eyes. It's possible. Keep dreaming your dreams. Let's celebrate our connections and bring these visions to life... together.

This is the whole post from CharityFocus Blog

The wonderfully inspiring Arab-American poet, Naomi Shihab Nye wrapped a poem around an unexpected experience of kindness she encountered at an airport in Albuquerque and sent it off to exactly two friends ... who passed it on to friends, who passed it on to friends who ... and so the ripple of poetry and goodness went, and courtesy of Daily Good reader, Cynthia Loebig, here it is in front of all of you. At a recent reading of the poem, Nye ended the evening remarking, that this spontaneous series of people passing the poem on had probably resulted in more people reading it than would have had it appeared in a print magazine ...

Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal
by Naomi Shihab Nye

After learning my flight was detained 4 hours,
I heard the announcement:
If anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any Arabic,
Please come to the gate immediately.

Well -- one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there.
An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress,
Just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly.
Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her. What is her
Problem? we told her the flight was going to be four hours late and she
Did this.

I put my arm around her and spoke to her haltingly.
Shu dow-a, shu- biduck habibti, stani stani schway, min fadlick,
Sho bit se-wee?

The minute she heard any words she knew -- however poorly used -
She stopped crying.

She thought our flight had been cancelled entirely.
She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical treatment the
Following day. I said no, no, we're fine, you'll get there, just late,

Who is picking you up? Let's call him and tell him.
We called her son and I spoke with him in English.
I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and
Would ride next to her -- southwest.

She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it.

Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and
Found out of course they had ten shared friends.

Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian
Poets I know and let them chat with her. This all took up about 2 hours.

She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life. Answering
Questions.

She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies -- little powdered
Sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts -- out of her bag --
And was offering them to all the women at the gate.

To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a
Sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the traveler from California,
The lovely woman from Laredo -- we were all covered with the same
Powdered sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookies.

And then the airline broke out the free beverages from huge coolers --
Non-alcoholic -- and the two little girls for our flight, one African
American, one Mexican American -- ran around serving us all apple juice
And lemonade and they were covered with powdered sugar too.

And I noticed my new best friend -- by now we were holding hands --
Had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing,

With green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always
Carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.

And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought,
This is the world I want to live in. The shared world.

Not a single person in this gate -- once the crying of confusion stopped
-- has seemed apprehensive about any other person.

They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too.
This can still happen anywhere.

Not everything is lost.

Dear Loving You

Dear loving You, (says the moon)

I see you lying there
held with earthen hands.
Your radiance reaches me
in an arc of divine light.

Your warmth is like a blanket of love
draped over your friends, family, and kin.

I see your light reflecting upon all that you touch,
the nearby waves shimmer with
your gratitude and devotion.

Dear loving You,
Your companionship has been unfailing.
Each time I seek you
you have always been there.

You are my familiar friend -
So wise and still full of surprise.
You are a beautiful mystery,
A paradox of known and unknown.

You and I breathe into the space
between us, dear One.
I, too, feel this expansion --
now filling again with light – yours
(I am a mere reflection of your light).

I wonder how it is
that you can be so loving?
such radiance pours from you. . .

I am illuminated with gratitude, dear You
(says the moon).



Poem by Meredith at Graceful Presence and comic from Ineffable Bliss

A Dear Companion

Settling into the sacredness, I lie in the moon's light . . .

her radiance bathing me in divine light
showering upon me a familiar blanket of love

so close... family... kin

a wave and another and another
of gratitude and devotion

memories of how this moon has been
such a dear companion throughout life
for me. with me

familiarity
safety
surprise
so much dependability and so much mystery

lying here in the moon’s light
i feel the earth supporting my back

i breathe into the space between me and the moon
i feel my space -- my self --
filling to touch her light
i feel the warmth between me and her
as my sense of self
she's so close

how can she be so loving?
such radiance. . .

At black water pond
the tossed waters have settled
after a night of rain.
I dip my cupped hands. I drink
a long time. It tastes
like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold
into my body, waking the bones. I hear them
deep inside me, whispering
Oh what is that beautiful thing
that just happened?

Mary Oliver

(thank you graceful presence)