I Am a Prayer

I am a prayer

I am a prayer of rain in the desert when the flowering ones need a drink

I am a prayer

I am a prayer of sun when there is no end to night

I am a prayer

I am a prayer of ocean when there is no more blue

I am a prayer

I am a prayer of clouds when few make rain songs

I am a prayer

I am a prayer of roads that lead everywhere but home

I am a prayer

I am a prayer of white birds who cannot fly through a storm of fear

I am a prayer

I am a prayer of fire who arrived to care for humans, then was misused to destroy

I am a prayer

I am a prayer of wind, whose breathing carries seeds, pollen, and songs to feed the generations

I am a prayer

I am a prayer of moon who wears the night as a shawl to hide that which should never be spoken

I am a prayer

I am a prayer of grief, when life gambled with death and gave up families for guns

I am a prayer

I am a prayer of smoke, wandering the broken houses, the littered ground looking for a white flag of reason

I am a prayer

I am a prayer of mountains, those tall humble ones who agreed to lift our eyes to see

I am a prayer

I am a prayer of forever making a path of beauty through the rubble of eternity

I am a prayer

I am a prayer of poetry speaking the soundlessness of the dead who return to speak in prayer

I am a prayer with children on my back roaming the earth house of destruction and creation

I am a prayer without end

--Joy Harjo

Published in The New Yorker, November 27 2023 issue

How to Open Your Heart

Do not try to open your heart now. That would be a subtle movement of aggression towards your immediate embodied experience. Never tell a closed heart it must be more open; it will shut more tightly to protect itself, feeling your resistance. A heart unfurls only when conditions are right; your demand for openness invites closure. This is the supreme intelligence of the heart.

Instead, bow to the heart in its current state. If it's closed, let it be closed; sanctify the closure. Make it safe; safe even to feel unsafe. Trust that when the heart is ready, and not a moment before, it will open, like a flower in the warmth of the sun. There is no rush for the heart.

Trust the opening and the closing too; the expansion and the contraction; this is the heart's way of breathing; safe, unsafe, safe, unsafe; the beautiful fragility of being human; and all held in the most perfect love.

--Jeff Foster 

Today I am taking sides.

I am taking the side of Peace.

Peace, which I will not abandon

even when its voice is drowned out

by hurt and hatred,

bitterness of loss,

cries of right and wrong.

I am taking the side of Peace

whose name has barely been spoken

in this winnerless war.

I will hold Peace in my arms,

and share my body’s breath,

lest Peace be added

to the body count.

I will call for de-escalation

even when I want nothing more 

than to get even.

I will do it

in the service of Peace.

I will make a clearing

in the overgrown 

thicket of cause and effect

so Peace can breathe 

for a minute

and reach for the sky.

I will do what I must

to save the life of Peace.

I will breathe through tears.

I will swallow pride.

I will bite my tongue.

I will offer love

without testing for deservingness.

So don’t ask me to wave a flag today

unless it is the flag of Peace.

Don’t ask me to sing an anthem

unless it is a song of Peace.

Don’t ask me to take sides

unless it is the side of Peace.

     —Rabbi Irwin Keller, Oct. 17, 2023

With Thanks to the Field Sparrow, Whose Voice is So Delicate and Humble

I do not live happily or comfortably

With the cleverness of our times.

The talk is all about computers,

The news is all about bombs and blood.

This morning, in the fresh field,

I came upon a hidden nest.

It held four warm, speckled eggs.

I touched them.

Then went away softly,

Having felt something more wonderful

Than all the electricity of New York City.

-- Mary Oliver

Before Dark

From the porch at dusk I watched

a kingfisher wild in flight

he could only have made for joy.

He came down the river, splashing

against the water’s dimming face

like a skipped rock, passing

on down out of sight. And still

I could hear the splashes

farther and farther away

as it grew darker. He came back

the same way, dusky as his shadow,

sudden beyond the willows.

The splashes went on out of hearing.

It was dark then. Somewhere

the night had accommodated him

—at the place he was headed for

or where, led by his delight,

he came.

by Wendell Berry

From Collected Poems.

Adrift

Everything is beautiful and I am so sad.

This is how the heart makes a duet of

wonder and grief. The light spraying

through the lace of the fern is as delicate

as the fibers of memory forming their web

around the knot in my throat. The breeze

makes the birds move from branch to branch

as this ache makes me look for those I’ve lost

in the next room, in the next song, in the laugh

of the next stranger. In the very center, under

it all, what we have that no one can take

away and all that we’ve lost face each other.

It is there that I’m adrift, feeling punctured

by a holiness that exists inside everything.

I am so sad and everything is beautiful.

--Mark Nepo

Perhaps the most radical act of resistance in the face of adversity is to live joyfully.

--Ari Honarvar

Song for Autumn

In the deep fall

don’t you imagine the leaves think how

comfortable it will be to touch

the earth instead of the

nothingness of air and the endless

freshets of wind? And don’t you think

the trees themselves, especially those with mossy,

warm caves, begin to think

of the birds that will come – six, a dozen – to sleep

inside their bodies? And don’t you hear

the goldenrod whispering goodbye,

the everlasting being crowned with the first

tuffets of snow? The pond

vanishes, and the white field over which

the fox runs so quickly brings out

its blue shadows. And the wind pumps its

bellows. And at evening especially,

the piled firewood shifts a little,

longing to be on its way.

-- Mary Oliver

“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.” 

― Howard Zinn

Wild Geese

Horseback on Sunday morning,

harvest over, we taste persimmon

and wild grape, sharp sweet

of summer’s end. In time’s maze

over fall fields, we name names

that went west from here, names

that rest on graves. We open

a persimmon seed to find the tree

that stands in promise,

pale, in the seed’s marrow.

Geese appear high over us,

pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,

as in love or sleep, holds

them to their way, clear,

in the ancient faith: what we need

is here. And we pray, not

for new earth or heaven, but to be

quiet in heart, and in eye

clear. What we need is here.

-- Wendell Berry

The World Has Need of You

everything here seems to need us…

—Rilke

I can hardly imagine it

as I walk to the lighthouse, feeling the ancient

prayer of my arms swinging

in counterpoint to my feet.

Here I am, suspended

between the sidewalk and twilight,

the sky dimming so fast it seems alive.

What if you felt the invisible

tug between you and everything?

A boy on a bicycle rides by,

his white shirt open, flaring

behind him like wings.

It’s a hard time to be human. We know too much

and too little. Does the breeze need us?

The cliffs? The gulls?

If you’ve managed to do one good thing,

the ocean doesn’t care.

But when Newton’s apple fell toward the earth,

the earth, ever so slightly, fell

toward the apple as well.

-- Ellen Bass

"When someone strips another of his clothes, he is called a thief. Should not someone who has the power to clothe the naked but does not do so be called the same? The bread in your larder belongs to the hungry. The cloak in your wardrobe belongs to the naked. The shoes you allow to rot belong to the barefoot. The money in your vaults belongs to the destitute. You do injustice to everyone who you could help but do not." 

--St. Basil the Great 

 Intoxicants take you away from reality; meditation takes you toward reality. Which do you want? You are already intoxicated by ignorance, anger, and attachment and suffer as a result. Why do you want to take more intoxicants?

Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron

 “Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”

― Jean-Paul Sartre

Dear Failure,

It is easy to meet you in meditation.

Today, when I failed to focus on my breath,

I kept breathing anyway. Easy to meet you

in the garden where I planted the green beans too late

and harvestless, bought some at the store.

Harder to meet you when I fear

I am failing as a wife because

I missed my anniversary

to stay bedside with my mother.

Harder to meet you when I am afraid

I am failing as a daughter

when I leave my mother’s bed

to go to my own daughter.

I so want to get it right,

this showing up for the people I love.

I so want to get it right,

this longing to be enough.

Oh failure, I have not wanted

to learn your lessons, have wanted

to believe I could fix, could be all.

And you, great teacher, have humbled me

again and again, helping me see

how much I care.

There’s more than getting it right at stake.

You help me debunk perfection,

offering yourself as a friend.

Each time I fall,

you reach out to take my hand

saying, Fail on, sweetheart.

Wouldn’t you like

to try again with your loving?

-- Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

How to Listen

Listening is a form of worship,

but you don’t have to kneel

on the floor with folded hands

or mouth the perfect prayer.

Just open the door of yourself

to another, become the space

they step through to show you

who they are. This is holiness:

two people seated together

on the pew of a park bench,

at the altar of a kitchen table.

Even if no one says a word

for a while, receive the silence

until it’s like a new language

only the two of you can speak.

—James Crews

Only Love

Only love is big enough to hold all the pain of this world.

— Sharon Salzberg 

And so I imagine the entire earth

as one beating heart held in the space

of this universe, inside a larger body

we can’t fathom, filling with enough

love to lead each of us out of the cave

of our personal pain and into the light—

enough love to lead all humans as one

out of collective fear, rage, and hate

into a place of peace that is found only

within our own hearts, beating in sync

with the pulse of this planet we were

born to inhabit, despite the daily storms

which overtake us and make us forget

we are the lifeblood pumped into these

veins, every particle of love we generate

running into rivers, lakes, and creeks,

evaporating into the air we breathe,

give back, and breathe again.

-- James Crews

Halleluiah

Everyone should be born into this world happy

   and loving everything.

But in truth it rarely works that way.

For myself, I have spent my life clamoring toward it.

Halleluiah, anyway I'm not where I started!

And have you too been trudging like that, sometimes

   almost forgetting how wondrous the world is

      and how miraculously kind some people can be?

And have you too decided that probably nothing important

   is ever easy?

Not, say, for the first sixty years.

Halleluiah, I'm sixty now, and even a little more,

and some days I feel I have wings.

-- Mary Oliver

the sun is hanging

a little lower

these days.

that means it's

time for you to

become another 

source of light

for this angry world.

this is your vocation: 

to become a hip-swaying 

candle in the breezeless

 October night.

~ oh how you will make 

every midnight murk

become a mid-day miracle.

my love,

the earlier the darkness comes

the brighter you are asked to burn.

the longer the shadows

~ the hotter your fire.

this is how we survive 

the coming fall. 

we will gather under your signal fire

and watch how you transform 

the lingering gloom

into sunsoaked glory.

--John Roedel

Little Hope

Some days, what we need

is a clean, hard rain to wash

away the world’s troubles,

to pool in each crack of the

buckled sidewalk, the divots

of the newly-mended street.

See how that fresh water

offers itself to drinking robins,

gives back the blue of sky

as if hope itself had gathered

in puddles overnight.

—James Crews

Mimesis

My daughter

wouldn’t hurt a spider

That had nested

Between her bicycle handles

For two weeks

She waited

Until it left of its own accord

If you tear down the web I said

It will simply know

This isn’t a place to call home

And you’d get to go biking

She said that’s how others

Become refugees isn’t it?

--Fady Joudah

"How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one’s culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light."

- Barry Lopez (Arctic Dreams)

One of the ways that you can work for freedom is to change your mind and to move away from the space of binaries, of simplistic either / ors, and to be able to look at the picture that offers us complexity.

--bell hooks 

What to Do with Sadness

When sadness lingers,

When loneliness creeps in to sit beside you

And will not leave,

When you can no longer feel a spark of joy

In even a hidden corner,

Find something,

Anything

That is burning–

A star

A porch lamp

A candle on the table.

Then, imagine that light

At the center of your heart

And remember

You are molten love.

The only thing to do

With sadness

Is to introduce it to

Indestructible Beauty–

To the flame

Of love Present in every

Living thing.

Start with a Morning glory

Or a sparrow.

Start with the Spirited eyes

Of the woman

Who serves you Coffee.

Start with a poem.

Say,

Sadness meet cherry blossom.

Lethargy meet the Ninth Symphony.

Despair meet the eyes of a child.

And then,

Be very, very quiet,

Take a few deep breaths,

And

Let them converse for a time.

--Heidi Rose Robbins

It’s easy to look at the contours of a forest and feel a bone deep love for nature. It’s less easy to remember that the contours of your own mind and body represent the exact same nature and deserves the same love.

 The Cryptonaturalist