Three Feet or So

When I'm weary lost or sad
Overwhelmed or just fed up
I say grace for what I have
And most the time that is enough

We are body, skin and bones
We're all the loss we've ever known
What is gone is always near
We're all the love that brought us here

[Chorus]
And the things that have saved us
Are still here to save us
It's not out there somewhere
It's right here, it's right here

If I start by being kind
Love usually follows right behind
It nods its head and softly hums
Saying "Honey that's the way it’s done."

We don't have to search for love
Wring our hands and wring our hearts
All we have to do is know
The love will find us in the dark

[Chorus]
And the things that have saved us
Are still here to save us
It's not out there somewhere
It's right here, it's right here

I can't change the whole world
But I can change the world I know
What's within three feet or so

We are body, skin and bones
We're all the love we've ever known
When I don’t know what is right
I hold it up into the Light
I hold it up into the Light
I hold it up into the Light

--Carrie Newcomer (Lyrics)

What Can I Say?

What can I say that I have not said before?
So I’ll say it again.
The leaf has a song in it.
Stone is the face of patience.
Inside the river there is an unfinishable story
and you are somewhere in it
and it will never end until all ends.

Take your busy heart to the art museum and the
chamber of commerce
but take it also to the forest.
The song you heard singing in the leaf when you
were a child
is singing still.
I am of years lived, so far, seventy-four,
and the leaf is singing still.

-- Mary Oliver

Grow Silently

A seed grows with no sound but
a tree falls with huge noise.
Destruction has noise, but
creation is quiet.
This is the power of silence...
Grow Silently.

--Confucius

A Circle of Seasons

This is how we love
In the golden light of autumn.
We know what is coming
And so we walk further
And longer
Just to feel it and live it,
And take it
Completely and joyously
Into our hearts.

But let go we must
Although we resist,
As surely as each leaf
Bids farewell to the branch,
Launching and lifting
Into the air.

Late autumn is the season
Of abundance and loss,
The harvest comes in,
The gardens are made ready.
The nights are getting longer,
And every day the leaves fall
Like so many golden coins.

But this loss does not feel
Like the wailings of grief.
It is more like the final notes
Of beautiful song,
When we lean into the ache
Of those last vibrations,
Our hearts broken open,
Empty hands reaching
As the sound fades
Into soft memory.

The dark nights are coming,
But they are not here yet.
So let us be grateful
For what was and what is,
For the air filled with rain
And dust
And the circling descent
Of fire colored leaves.

--Carrie Newcomer (excerpt)

The Cure

We think we get over things.

We don’t get over things.

Or say, we get over the measles,

But not a broken heart.

We need to make that distinction.

The things that become part of our experience

Never become less a part of our experience.

How can I say it?

The way to “get over” a life is to die.

Short of that, you move with it,

let the pain be pain,

not in the hope that it will vanish

But in the faith that it will fit in,

find its place in the shape of things

and be then not any less pain but true to form.

Because anything natural has an inherent shape and will flow towards it.

And a life is as natural as a leaf.

That’s what we’re looking for: not the end of a thing but the shape of it.

Wisdom is seeing the shape of your life without obliterating (getting over) a single instant of it.

-- Alfred Huffstickler

Wisdom

“There is a pervasive form of modern violence to which the idealist…most easily succumbs: activism and over-work. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence.

To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence.

The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his (or her) work… It destroys the fruitfulness of his (or her)…work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”

--Thomas Merton

Now Blue October

Now blue October, smoky in the sun,
Must end the long, sweet summer of the heart.
The last brief visit of the birds is done;
They sing the autumn songs before they part.
Listen, how lovely — there’s the thrush we heard
When June was small with roses, and the bending
Blossom of branches covered nest and bird,
Singing the summer in, summer unending —
Give me your hand once more before the night;
See how the meadows darken with the frost,
How fades the green that was the summer’s light.
Beauty is only altered, never lost,
And love, before the cold November rain,
Will make its summer in the heart again.

— Robert Nathan

Three Gratitudes

Every night before I go to sleep
I say out loud
Three things that I am grateful for,
All the significant, insignificant
Extraordinary, ordinary stuff of my life.
It's a small practice and humble,
And yet, I find I sleep better
Holding what lightens and softens my life
Ever so briefly at the end of the day.
Sunlight and blueberries,
Good dogs and wool socks,
A fine rain,
A good friend
Fresh basil and wild phlox,
My father's good health,
My daughter's new job,
The song that always makes me cry,
Always at the same part,
No matter how many times I hear it....

And after three things,
More often than not,
I get on a roll and just keep on going,
I keep naming and listing.

Until I lie grinning,
Blankets pulled up to my chin,
Awash with wonder
At the sweetness of it all.

--Carrie Newcomer

A Serious Frivolity

Savoring the substance
of existence
is a serious
frivolity.
Someone must do it.

Someone must love
luminous hours when leaves
marry light and refuse
to stop
shining.

Someone must speak
the sweetness
of lilacs
before it is lost
beneath smog.

Someone must bask
in the beauty of blessing
because the news knows only
brokenness.

When you give yourself
to a particular place
the power
and peace
of that place
give themselves
through you.

So savoring the substance
of existence
is a serious frivolity.
Someone must do it.

Will that someone
be you?

--

 Bernadette Miller

Because There is Not Enough Time

I used to think

That because life is short 


I should do more be more

squeeze more

into each and every day.

I’d walk around with a stick ruler

with increasing numbers

as the measure of fullness.

But lately

I’ve sensed a different response

to a lack of time.

Felt in my bones

The singular worth

of each passing moment.

Perhaps the goal is not to spend this day

Power skiing atop an ocean of multi-tasking.

Maybe the idea is to swim slower

surer

dive deeper

and really look around.

There is a difference between

A life of width

and a life of depth.

by Carrie Newcomer

SELF-PORTRAIT

It doesn’t interest me if there is one God
or many gods.

I want to know if you belong or feel
abandoned,

if you can know despair or see it in others.
I want to know

if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need

to change you. If you can look back
with firm eyes,

saying this is where I stand. I want to know
if you know

how to melt into that fierce heat of living,
falling toward

the center of your longing. I want to know
if you are willing

to live, day by day,
with the consequence of love

and the bitter
unwanted passion of your sure defeat.

I have heard, in that fierce embrace, even
the gods speak of God.

--David Whyte

A Blessing for Today

A Blessing for today...not just A day, but Your day

May you wake with a sense of play, an exultation of the possible,
May you rest without guilt, satisfied at end of a day well done.
May all the rough edges be smoothed, when to smooth is to heal,
And the edges be left rough, when the unpolished is more interesting
Or honorable as a pot of soup.
May you find forgiveness from the past, which cannot be changed
And wisdom that comes only with an unchangeable past.
May you wear your years like a well-tailored coat
Or a brave sassy scarf
And may every year yet to come, be one more bright button
Sewn on a hat you wear at a tilt.
May the deep friendships you’ve sown grown tall as summer corn.
May all that is shining and momentary rise into the air
Sending seeds into the wind like wild dandelion fluff.
And may you embrace This day,
Not just as A day,
But as Your day,
Held in trust
a wild and grateful
Now.

-carrie newcomer

Blessings for the Brokenhearted

Let us agree
for now
that we will not say
the breaking
makes us stronger
or that it is better
to have this pain
than to have done
without this love.

Let us promise
we will not
tell ourselves
time will heal
the wound,
when every day
our waking
opens it anew.

Perhaps for now
it can be enough
to simply marvel
at the mystery
of how a heart
so broken
can go on beating,
as if it were made
for precisely this—

as if it knows
the only cure for love
is more of it,

as if it sees
the heart’s sole remedy
for breaking
is to love still,

as if it trusts
that its own
persistent pulse
is the rhythm
of a blessing
we cannot
begin to fathom
but will save us
nonetheless.

—Jan Richardson