ME: When are things going to get easier? 

OLD WOMAN: They already are. 

ME: Doesn’t feel like it. I keep waiting for Creator to step in. 

OLD WOMAN: She already has. She always will. Keep faith burning in your heart. 

ME: I have. I’ve been waiting for things to change. 

OLD WOMAN: Faith isn’t about waiting for things to change. Faith is the constant effort to keep pushing through. 

ME: What’s on the other side? 

OLD WOMAN: You. 

― Richard Wagamese, Embers: One Ojibway's Meditations

All that we are is story. From the moment we are born to the time we continue on our spirit journey, we are involved in the creation of the story of our time here. It is what we arrive with. It is all we leave behind. We are not the things we accumulate. We are not the things we deem important. We are story. All of us. What comes to matter then is the creation of the best possible story we can while we’re here; you, me, us, together. When we can do that and we take the time to share those stories with each other, we get bigger inside, we see each other, we recognize our kinship – we change the world, one story at a time. 

― Richard Wagamese 

I am constantly surrounded by noise: TV, texts, the internet, music, meaningless small talk, my thinking. All of it blocks my consciousness, my ability to her the ME that exists beneath the cacophony. I am my consciousness, my awareness of my circumstance, my presence in every moment. So I cultivate silence every morning. I sit in it, bask in it, wrap it around myself, and hear and feel me. Then, wherever the day takes me, the people I meet are the beneficiaries of my having taken that time - they get the real me, not someone shaped and altered by the noise around me. Silence is the stuff of life.

― Richard Wagamese, Embers: One Ojibway's Meditations

Me: What if we're wrong?

Old Woman: Wrong about what?

Me: All this ceremony, prayer, meditation. What if, at the end of it, all there is is nothing?

Old Woman: Then we still come out better people.

Me: How?

Old Woman: Can you think of a better way to live than in gratitude? Can you think of a better way to be than to be kind, loving, compassionate, respectful, courageous, truthful, and forgiving? Even if we're wrong, can you think of a better way to breathe than through all that?

...

I couldn't. I can't. I continue.

― Richard Wagamese, Embers: One Ojibway's Meditations

If grief can be a doorway to love, then let us all weep for the world we are breaking apart so we can love it back to wholeness again.

--Robin Wall Kimmerer

"come to your senses"

isn't about using your brain

(or at least it shouldn't be)

it is an instruction to come into the current moment

imagine if we stopped

a few times each day

and truly came to our senses

maybe for a moment

all of our collective narratives

would pause

and we would simply

hear the sound of rain

smell the lilacs blooming

taste sweetness of an orange

see the colours of a rainbow

feel the warmth of a human hand

everybody, come to your senses

--daniel baylis

Winter, Spring

Winter is black and beige down here

from drought. Suddenly in March

there’s a good rain and in a couple

of weeks we are enveloped in green.

Green everywhere in the mesquites, oaks,

cottonwoods, the bowers of thick

willow bushes the warblers love

for reasons of food or the branches,

the tiny aphids they eat with relish.

Each year it is a surprise

that the world can turn green again.

It is the grandest surprise in life,

the birds coming back from the south to my open

arms, which they fly past, aiming at the feeders.

by Jim Harrison

from Dead Man’s Float

Shoulders

A man crosses the street in rain,

stepping gently, looking two times north and south,

because his son is asleep on his shoulder.

No car must splash him.

No car drive too near to his shadow.

This man carries the world’s most sensitive cargo

but he’s not marked.

Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,

HANDLE WITH CARE.

His ear fills up with breathing.

He hears the hum of a boy’s dream

deep inside him.

We’re not going to be able

to live in this world

if we’re not willing to do what he’s doing

with one another.

The road will only be wide.

The rain will never stop falling.

--Naomi Shihab Nye

From Red Suitcase

People don't live on [Earth]. ... Oh, [it] may be the place where the body eats, but they live elsewhere, in worlds of their own which orbit... the centre of their heads. 

-- The Last Continent, Terry Pratchett

when the moon passes by

and blocks out the sun

the world will see

but only for a moment

what grieving can feel like.

darkness.

and no one knowing

how to look at you.

sara rian

Words for the Road

Know, now, there is no one

who can guide you.

Know there will be nothing

to return to.

Know, now, that the trial

will be long.

Come, then. You were called to this,

this wild life.

Go in

and lie down in the darkness.

Hear them now, the wild flocks

in the starlight,

thrashing in the vastness of their passing?

If you cannot have a home, become a song.

-Joseph Fasano

If we shut our hearts to the pain of the world our celebrations become superficial. If we let that pain overwhelm our hope, we are lost in the dark. Tears in which pain and joy flow together do justice to life in its fullness.

--Brother David Steindl-Rast

The more you think you need to accumulate, the bigger fence you need to build around yourself and the fewer people you will trust and let into your life. It’s the inverse of what it means to live in true peace and security, which only comes in the context of relationship with people you can trust.

--Gareth Higgins

how do you create community?

i do not know

a hundred ways

a thousand ways

but

how do you kill community?

I can tell you one

sure to do the job.

be self-sufficient.

always have enough

always have it together

always be a giver

always have all the tools you need

never need to borrow a sewing needle

never need a cup of sugar

never tell anyone you're breaking down

never need anyone.

your pride

your insistence on competency

your unwillingness to be a burden

on us

when it is the proper time for you to collapse

may be the end of us all.

knowing what time it truly is

or knowing how to know the time at all

you

needing our help

being unable to continue without it

you

not knowing 

how to do everything

creates the occasion

for the village to reconstitute itself

and know itself again

--Tad Hargrave

Welcome Home

I understand:

for years, perhaps, you have lived

underground. Handling only

darkness, you have not become

accustomed to it. You want to get out.

One day you find an object which

may be a chair; at any rate,

a surface. Standing on

this dark thing, you reach up.

Here at the top the smell

is oppressive, sweet. You almost

fall. But you push, and the top begins

to crack. Plaster, or something, falls

around you. Emerging, you know

the smell: cake. Noise, lights:

you are outside, standing giddily on the top,

swathed in ribbons. And there

are all your friends,

dressed up, half drunk. The applause

is enormous. It is a party

for you. One of the crowd, the drunkest

and happiest, shrilling through a megaphone

“Welcome home,”

is me.

-- Everette Maddox

From The Paris Review no. 58 (Summer 1974)

Today I asked my body what she needed,

Which is a big deal

Considering my journey of

Not Really Asking That Much.

I thought she might need more water.

Or protein.

Or greens.

Or yoga.

Or supplements.

Or movement.

But as I stood in the shower

Reflecting on her stretch marks,

Her roundness where I would like flatness,

Her softness where I would like firmness,

All those conditioned wishes

That form a bundle of

Never-Quite-Right-Ness,

She whispered very gently:

Could you just love me like this?

{Hollie Holden, June 2016} https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=990659447717928&set=a.388682557915623 

Everyone is babbling about what happens after death

Everyone is babbling about what happens after death.

Superstitious villagers insist we become

peculiar wandering spirits,

while simple religious hearts assume our goal

to be sweet heavenly existence.

Lovers long to play

in eternal companionship with Divinity,

while mystics strive

to merge completely with Divine Reality.

Scriptures of radical wisdom maintain

that the apparent soul is like space within a jar.

When death shatters our earthen vessel,

only the open space of awareness remains.

Who is there to unify with whom?

This intoxicated poet who belongs to Goddess Kali

knows all opinion to be void of substance.

Mother's mystery eludes

every earnest practitioner or philosopher

who assumes negative or positive energy

to be substantial or real.

This mirror mind and rainbow body

are her marvelous play

through the transparent medium of her elements.

After death, her dancing elements flow on,

and simply Mother remains.

The singer of this liberating song

laughs loud and long:

"We will be in the end

what we were in the beginning,

clear bubbles forming and dissolving

in the stream of timeless Mother Wisdom."

--Ramprasad Sen

Paradox of Noise

It is a paradox that we encounter so much internal

noise when we first try to sit in silence.

It is a paradox that experiencing pain releases pain.

It is a paradox that keeping still can lead us

so fully into life and being.

Our minds do not like paradoxes. We want things

To be clear, so we can maintain our illusions of safety.

Certainty breeds tremendous smugness.

We each possess a deeper level of being, however,

which loves paradox. It knows that summer is already

Growing like a seed in the depth of winter. It knows

that the moment we are born, we begin to die.

It knows that all of life shimmers, in shades of

becoming-that shadow and light are always together,

the visible mingled with the invisible.

When we sit in stillness we are profoundly active.

Keeping silent, we hear the roar of existence.

Through our willingness to be the one we are,

We become one with everything.

--Gunilla Norris

everybody wants to hear that

everything is going to be alright

here is an alternative version:

many things are going to be alright

but also some things will not be alright

some things will get broken

and then we will fix them

but other things will be so broken

that we can't fix them

and grief will be inevitable

and it will continue like this

indefinitely

so rest well

and eat good food

and drink water

because you will need stamina

I will see you out there

thank you and goodnight

--daniel baylis

Aubade

O, this morning, not a cloud in the sky, and coffee, black,

the way I like it.  I have been watching a phoebe, dark hood

and wagtail bobbing, as he flits back and forth from the beauty

bush to the eave of the shed, just yards from this red Adirondack

chair where I’m sitting, breathing the day through my skin.

It rained last night, and the chair’s damp slats are cool

on my back; there’s a scree of frogs in the swamp, a creek

of sound in the background, a river of desire: Here I am. Find me. 

Felicitous. That’s the only word to describe this. The sun pours

warm honey from its great glass jar, no matter how little we deserve it.

Some of us drag a heavy load through the day, a sack of should of’s,

or push a bushel of sorrow up a hill. But there’s the phoebe coming

back with his bit of straw or broken twig. He has a job to do,

and he sticks with it. And then he opens his beak and sings.

--Barbara Crooker

Love and the Deli Counter

At my Stop & Shop the ladies at the deli counter

give us free slices of meat so we can talk about

how thin we want it. Everyone wants it thinner

but me. A woman asks for four slices shaved

ham. She can have anything she wants. I want

two pounds of turkey, sliced thick. I never

got the thin slice thing; it's hard to pick up. It tears.

It takes the ladies longer to cut it up. Here's what

I hate: inconveniencing ladies. One of the deli ladies

tells me the provolone piccante smells like feet and I

say Way to sell it! I make her coworker laugh,

which is all I want from a trip to the Stop & Shop.

She and I keep looking at each other, nodding as if

we are listening seriously while foot-taste cheese

lady makes her case; the foot taste is a good thing!

Then she wants to talk about not wearing socks

as a kid, getting in trouble with her mom. I love

them both. I am eating a free slice of turkey, thanking

them, telling another lady in the store I love the blue

and yellow grosgrain ribbon down her jeans' seams,

telling another I love your boots. There are no men

in the store. Saturday afternoon; we stroll the aisles,

kind to each other. Some days Boston is just a bunch

of women calling out to each other I LOVE YOUR DRESS!

We eat free turkey, help each other find the sour cream.

The checkout girl's name tag says Love. Love tells me

her mom called her love so much she just changed it.

I love it, love my Stop & Shop, her name, love

when people, strangers, call me love or lovie. At the gym

Christine says Hello, love until she learns my name;

a shame. At the deli counter, a woman dries her hands,

smiles at me, says and what can I get you, my love?

-- Jill McDonough

From AMERICAN TREASURE 2022 Jill McDonough.

Words to Say When Walking Out the Door

Yes, you will be damaged.

You will fail sometimes

and wildly.

Grief may snag its antlers

in your branches

before it leaves you,

before it finds its way.

Life, my one life,

can you hear me?

Someone in the sleep they call their waking

will crush your wonder,

and you will crush their wonder.

Bring your wonder; bring it anyway.

--Joseph Fasano

you don't

criticise the moon

for not shining

the same each night

you don't

look up at it and say

you're not trying hard enough

because the moon

doesn't have to be

full and bright

every night to be loved

and neither do you.

--ida banks

No umbrella, getting soaked,

I’ll just use the rain as my raincoat.

--Daito Kokushi

Too lazy to be ambitious,

I let the world take care of itself.

Ten days' worth of rice in my bag;

a bundle of twigs by the fireplace.

Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?

Listening to the night rain on my roof,

I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out.

~Ryokan

Percy (2002-2009)

This -- I said to Percy when I had left

our bed and gone

out into the living room couch where

he found me apparently doing nothing -- this

is called thinking.

It's something people do,

not being entirely children of the earth,

like a dog or a tree or a flower.

His eyes questioned such an activity.

"Well, okay," he said. "If you say so. Whatever

it is. Actually

I like kissing better."

And next to me,

tucked down his curly head

and, sweet as a flower, slept.

--Mary Oliver from  "Dog Songs"

I have just said

I have just said

something

ridiculous to you

and in response,

your glorious laughter.

These are the days

the sun

is swimming back

to the east

and the light on the water

gleams

as never, it seems, before.

I can't remember

every spring,

I can't remember

everything-

so many years!

Are the morning kisses

the sweetest

or the evenings

or the inbetweens?

All I know

is that "thank you" should appear

somewhere.

So, just in case

I can't find

the perfect place-

"Thank you, thank you."

--Mary Oliver

Abhirupananda ~ Delighting in Beauty

Haven't you spent enough time

comparing your hair

and your clothes

and your face

to the hair

and the faces

and the clothes

of those around you?

See the body for what it is.

Real beauty is in 

the clear open light 

of the nonjudgmental heart.

--Matty Weingast

Sangha ~ Community

When I left the only home I'd ever known,

I thought I'd left everything behind.

But I was still carrying

all the years

of running

back and forth

and around in circles

after this or that.

Just sitting still, 

those circles

have broken apart

and been carried away

by this simple wind

blowing in

and out.

All your old thoughts

like snow

falling

on

warm

ground.

Just sit back and watch.

--Matty Weingast

Breaking Ground

Living in the violence of spring-

living in a time

where shells are cracking

and shapes alter,

who can afford to risk

forgetting the danger,

forgetting the moment

the crocus bulb breaks ground,

never knowing whether

snow or sun or ice

await in warm or jagged welcome.

There is no safety in

this restless season.

Even the sheltering ground

rejects its own,

thrusting the life it held

into the untrustworthy

and insufficient care

of air and weather.

There are no choices here-

no careful path or

reasoned way,

no holding in reserve for

some more settled,

more propitious time,

but only the unconsidered

faith of the crocus

whose saffron petals echo

or demand the sun.

-Lynn Ungar

With Astonishing Tenderness

When, in the middle of the night, 

you wake with the certainty you’ve

done it all wrong, when you wake

and see clearly all the places you’ve failed,

in that moment, when dreams will not return, 

this is the chance for your softest voice—

the one you reserve for those you love most—

to say to you quietly, oh sweetheart, 

this is not yet the end of the story. 

Sleep will not come, but somehow, 

in that wide awake moment there is peace—

the kind of peace that does not need

everything to be right before it arrives. 

The peace that comes from not fighting 

what is real. The peace that rises

in the dark on its sure dark wings 

to meet you exactly as you are.

--Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Trust

It's like so many other things in life

to which you must say no or yes.

So you take your car to the new mechanic.

Sometimes the best thing to do is trust.

The package left with the disreputable-looking

clerk, the check gulped by the night deposit,

the envelope passed by dozens of strangers—

all show up at their intended destinations.

The theft that could have happened doesn't.

Wind finally gets where it was going

through the snowy trees, and the river, even

when frozen, arrives at the right place.

And sometimes you sense how faithfully your life

is delivered, even though you can't read the address.

-- Thomas R. Smith

From Waking before Dawn