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