Against Certainty

There is something out in the dark that wants to correct us.
Each time I think “this,” it answers “that.”
Answers hard, in the heart-grammar’s strictness.

If I then say “that,” it too is taken away.

Between certainty and the real, an ancient enmity.
When the cat waits in the path-hedge,
no cell of her body is not waiting.
This is how she is able so completely to disappear.

I would like to enter the silence portion as she does.

To live amid the great vanishing as a cat must live,
one shadow fully at ease inside another.

--Jane Hirshfield

[Photo from Newgrange, Ireland--June 2018]

A Morning Offering

There is a quiet light
that shines in every heart.
It draws no attention to itself
though it is always secretly there.
It is what illuminates
our minds to see beauty,
our desire to seek possibility
and our hearts to love life.
Without this subtle quickening
our days would be empty and wearisome,
and no horizon would ever
awaken our longing.
Our passion for life is quietly sustained
from somewhere in us
that is wedded to the
energy and excitement of life.
This shy inner light
is what enables us
to recognize and receive
our very presence here as blessing.
We enter the world as strangers
who all at once become
heirs to a harvest of memory,
spirit, and dream
that has long preceded us
and will now enfold,
nourish, and sustain us.

--JOHN O'DONOHUE

One Art

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

--Elizabeth Bishop

[Photo of Glencoe, Scotland, July 2018]

For Presence

Awaken to the mystery of being here
and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.

Have joy and peace in the temple of your senses.

Receive encouragement when new frontiers beckon.

Respond to the call of your gift and the courage to follow its path.

Let the flame of anger free you of all falsity.

May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame.

May anxiety never linger about you.

May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of soul.

Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.

Be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul.

May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.

--John O'Donohue

November 22

On this day long years ago, our promising
young President was killed. He was far too young
to die and I too young to watch my world unravel
as it did. I grieved my loss, our loss, then started
to reweave—a work, a life, a world—not knowing
then what I know now: the world unravels always,
and it must be rewoven time and time again.

You must keep collecting threads—threads of meaning,
threads of hope, threads of purpose, energy and will—
along with all the knowledge, skill that every weaver needs.
You must keep on weaving—stopping sometimes only
to repair your broken loom—weave a cloak of warmth
and light against the dark and cold, a cloak in which
to wrap whoever comes to you in need—the world
with all its suffering, those near at hand, yourself.

And, if you are lucky, you will find along the way
the thread with which you can reweave your own
tattered life, the thread that more than any other
laces us with warmth and light, making both the
weaver and the weaving true—the red thread
they call Love, the thread you hold, then
hand along, saying to another, “You.”

--Parker J. Palmer

[A favorite photo from our son's wedding to illustrate the thread of love.]

Silence

There are no words for the deepest things.
Words become feeble when mystery visits
and prayer moves into silence.
In post-modern culture
the ceaseless din of chatter has killed
our acquaintance with silence.
Consequently, we are stressed and anxious.
Silence is a fascinating presence.
Silence is shy; it is patient and never
draws attention to itself.
Without the presence of silence,
no word could ever be said or heard.
Our thoughts constantly call up new words.
We become so taken with words
that we barely notice the silence,
but the silence is always there.
The best words are born
in the fecund silence
that minds the mystery.

--John O'Donohue

November

The snow
began slowly,
a soft and easy
sprinkling

of flakes, then clouds of flakes
in the baskets of the wind
and the branches
of the trees--

oh, so pretty.
We walked
through the growing stillness,
as the flakes

prickled the path,
then covered it,
then deepened
as in curds and drifts,

as the wind grew stronger,
shaping its work
less delicately,
taking great steps

over the hills
and through the trees
until, finally,
we were cold,

and far from home.
We turned
and followed our long shadows back
to the house,

stamped our feet,
went inside, and shut the door.
Through the window
we could see

how far away it was to the gate of April.
Let the fire now
put on its red hat
and sing to us.

--Mary Oliver

[Photo from November 2018]

Dear Men and Women

In the quiet before the cockcrow when the crickets
Mandolin falters, when the light of the past
Falling from the high stars yet haunts the earth
And the east quickens, I think of those I love—
Dear men and women no longer with us.

And not in grief or regret merely but rather
With love that is almost joy I think of them,
Of whom I am part, as they of me, and through whom
I am made more wholly one with the pain and the glory,
The heartbreak at the heart of things.

I have learned it from them at last, who am now grown old
A happy man, that the nature of things is tragic
And meaningful beyond words, that to have lived
Even if once only, once and no more,
Will have been—oh, how truly—worth it...

--John Hall Wheelock

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