“Love is the whole thing. We are only pieces.”~Rumi
We are all made of and from love.
We are one.
We are loved to pieces.
You and me make things whole
when love comes between us.
Tag: Reflection
Take Joy
Joy can seep into a heart,
steady and slow; seeking a way in,
making soft all that was hard.
Joy can pierce a soul
like a beautiful painted arrow
hitting its mark.
Joy can do nothing but wait;
in the sun’s warm touch,
a Pine forest’s fresh scent,
the song of winged-one greeting the new day.
In every moment,
within your reach,
joy is waiting.
Take it.
Wallow in the shadow of the world’s gloom
or dance with the light of joy and waltz over it.
I hope you dance.
Help Heal Hurt
There is that saying…
Hurt People,
hurt People.
If so, do
healed People
heal People?
I ask,
How do we heal?
Ask for help.
Take help.
Help is useful if you use it.
Help is helpless if you don’t.
Help, hurt or heal.
Only you help—
help—
help you.
Act
Change starts in you.
Inaction stops change,
action drives change.
Choices choose the direction.
Help, hurt or heal.
I becoming change,
changes you—
you changing,
changes us.
The world is us.
Help, hurt or heal.
I ask,
How do I know I’m healed?
When you don’t want to hurt,
People…yourself…anything,
you enact changes that allow you to feel
but not become hurt.
We are all helpers,
here to heal hurts
from our center out in all directions.
Our actions help, hurt or heal the world.
Remember how to be a good relative.
I Watched
I watched you in silence.
Right there, a few feet in front of me,
hunkered next to a fading violet plant,
frantically scratching at the ground near it.
I watched the violet reluctant to release the earth clasp in its roots,
exposed and vulnerable, surrender inevitable.
Sharp teeth penetrate the tender white skin with ease.
I watched intently as you nibbled off tiny pieces.
Sickle shaped claws pushing, pushing,
forcing a place for another tiny bit, then another and another.
Was there no end to Chipmunk cheek capacity?
I watched you scamper off into the nearby woods.
I watch and learn
I am a student
I am being watched
I am a teacher.
Observer and observed,
silent watching.
I wonder what am I teaching?
I will have to wait and watch.
The Salesman
“The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life.”
― Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture
I became acquainted with Robert during my search for an affordable alternative to ag lime. Soil tests the previous year revealed that most of the ground our hay fields grew on had turned sour. Their PH levels were under 7. Calcium is what you apply to the ground to correct the PH. It was the cause of our dwindling harvests. If you are a wise farmer you understand the sacredness of soil and do all you can to preserve and protect it.
Robert worked for a company that sold liquid calcium. Liquid calcium had many advantages over dry lime but I had never used it before. I had questions. Lots of them. I needed to educate myself on the product. After receiving Robert’s initial response to an email, I could tell he was a salesman through and through. The email was pages of information and customer testimonial’s singing the praises of his product. As I sifted through the information I had to wonder, was it all smoke and mirrors? Or was his perceived confidence trusted truth?
Then the phone call happened. His sentences strung together like a fine pearl necklace. I could tell the sales pitch was recited hundreds, if not thousands of times, locked in his memory from the repetition. He drew out the vowels of his words in typical southern drawl fashion. By its tone and fluctuations, I guessed he was close to retirement. Here and there his words slurred together into unintelligible sentences. Even so, it was a pleasant voice to listen to. That was fortunate because Robert did most of the talking. True to his old school sales techniques, he peppered the conversation with sweetheart bombs and young lady references. I didn’t mind. They lightened the scientific nature of the conversation and ever so gently tickled my heart. Occasionally, to make sure I was still a captive audience there would be a quick, “You follow me dear?” He had me smiling at the first sweetheart.
Questions came about long I’d been farming and the animals we kept, the joys and tribulations that come with bringing in hay. We lamented briefly about getting older. More questions came. How long had I had the horses and their names? Did I ride often? They began to reflected a genuine concern for the land and the people that tended to it. I didn’t feel any pressure. I wasn’t wasting any of Robert’s time. Whether he got the sale or not.
It was near the end of the conversation that I learned Robert was 73 years old with no plans to retire. At the conclusion of the call I was reading off my credit card number. My encounter with Robert brought to mind a quote by Theodore Roosevelt, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”.
As it turned out, Robert was just the person I needed to educate me.
Songs Pray
Dew holds tight to the bushes and berries
Its grip loosened by the soft caress of dry cloth
Mornings these days are early and damp.
Flower faces reflect the sun’s smile
Standing tall above them all
a perfectly pink Phlox bloom
I pause to savor the sniff
Heaven dreams of a smell so sweet
In the patch worry rests
You can hear songs
Ancestral songs
The kind that come on their own
The kind that sing themselves
The kind that pray
Hollow bones hold the songs
I sing the praises of mobility and ruby red raspberries
Oh, the voice may crack and pop
But it carries the tune well enough
Handfuls of delight dangle from the tips of grateful fingers
I’ll harvest all I can from this juicy life
Fill my bucket and then some
Before I’m dead ripe
Patch Ponder
It’s how I will begin every other day until the harvest ends in August, on my knees next to dew covered blueberry bushes, filling first my belly then a small bucket with berries. Its a humble prayerful posture. I seek the plump soft berries that hide among lush green leaves and bowed branches. I take only those ready to relinquish their attachment from tiny stiff stems. I always come to the patch with an attitude of gratitude. Anyone that helps pick has to be willing. No one is forced to pick because I want the bushes to feel nothing but appreciation for their gift. My movement in the patch is slow and easy. I know I will be returning many more times in the coming weeks. Great care is given to do no harm or hurt to the bushes that surrender their fruit.
When you pick blueberries there can be a large cluster but only a few will have color and of those few only one or two will be blue through to the stem. You can feel they’re ripeness by their willingness to release. I look too but each year I feel more and look less or my back yells at me. Blue to the stem are sweet. All other’s have a tang of sour.
Many of us are working on releasing negative experiences, thoughts and people. The blueberries reminded me this morning not to force this process. It’s OK to wait for the healing to be whole—ripe for the picking. You will be able to release AND relinquish attachment to the experience. There will be a willingness on your part. You will feel it and be Okay with whatever place the other(s) are in their healing in that shared experience. Only then can you move forward consistently. Healing can hide. Feel for it in a gentle way. You may have to return many more times.
Wish you all have ripe—sweet—healing!
Sky Kiss
Father Sky came down to kiss Mother Earth this morning
Reassured by the sacred union,
the hard worry in my heart softened.
The affection walked beside me around the field.
I let it inside.
Opened wide and deep,
my lungs embraced the cool moist air.
Momentarily I held its love,
Then gradually I released it to the life around me.
Going, going, gone.
Come Again
It’s coming
Ushered in on Spring’s promise
humanities aesthetic rebirth is coming.
I hear the pant of deliverance.
Almost there
Anticipation’s innocence
carries a soul
through heavy fear
and thick uncertainty.
Pushes us through deep blackness.
It’s time
The rite of passage has arrived.
Tolerances fully dilated.
Anxiously waiting to hear the wail
from our infant humanness.
All the world rejoices!
It’s here
Wrapped in the World’s love
Compassion forgives the sin
Reach out your arms
Come
Visit the prayer you prayed.
Hold joy.
Love and be loved.
We journey toward no end.
It’s coming — again.
Life is Ceremony
Isn’t life ceremony?
Breath it’s prayer,
pain and suffering the sacrifice
to grow souls;
love it’s healing,
hope it’s saving grace,
gratitude the great amplifier of joy.
Every heart a doorway
to the lodge or church or
temple that lives there.
Find your way to a seat; any seat will do.
Sit quietly and listen for a voice.
Even if nothing is heard, something is felt
that makes you better.
All around us medicine; you are medicine.
Not all medicine tastes good,
but it all does some good.
Partake in the communion with nature,
worship the ground you walk on,
have reverence for all life, everywhere.
A beautiful ceremony lives in you.
Bring it to life.
Don’t hold on to the gift.
Give it to the world.
You will make missteps along the way,
but the ceremony goes on forever.
It is still happening.
Sweet Wisdoms 