January 4, 2022
Through the wall of frozen water, I see the earth behind, shimmering, singing of life, as the icicle drops from my roof. I can barely see it, hear it, dim as it is. Like the icicle, behind the ice of these wintry days, hard have we become. May our own hearts, warmed by the winter sun climbing north in these early January days, as the melting ice drips slowly, peek out tenderly, gingerly, caringly, greeting each day as a gift, a new year, revealing the sights and sounds of a loving earth.
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December 21, 2021
Your reluctance to make peace with yourself, to love yourself, your younger self, that is, can now be seen, and named. The demons that usually block the entrance to the temple door now beckon you to come in. You have to do one thing only: Put your arm around your younger self (the one that hurt the most) give up the reluctance, and speak. It does not matter how old you were. Put your arm around yourself. Speak your compassion. Speak your connection. Speak your understanding. And, finally, and most importantly, speak your love. And, then, keep on walking through…
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November 24, 2021
Slowly, ever so slowly, one by one, they opened. Heart by heart, they spoke. Story by simple story, they let us in to the truth of lives lost and gained. With each speaking, a shedding. With each speaking, a new heart opened like a rose petal in the spring sunlight, little by little coming out of winter little by little coming out of the grief little by little coming into the peace. Even those who never cry, having bowed to fear as their god, cried, shared with us their wounds, exposing their heart for all to see. As the Silence…
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November 9, 2021
Your beloved Merced embraces you in its arms, singing its happiness. Just your name brings back to hear and thought the delightful pleasure of hearing your voice laughing for the very first time Just as your river flows and dances, gurgles, and prances, around, above and under Great Boulders that give you your voice, like white horse mains leaping, flying, cavorting over the hills, Just like that‑ Like the bubbles and whirlpools, white water falls and rushing speeding non‑stop racing my heart, too, races my ears open to your sounds of singing and all my senses awaken to your Voice.…
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October 26, 2021
Somewhere in the fall of this second year still in the passage still in the migration still moving into Stillness still not hearing the future, we nourish our spirit. The ghosts of what might have been are leaving now, to plague us no longer with their voices and their “coulda, woulda, shoulda” charms, and drop photos in our minds which leave us with regrets. Let their bony fingers wave goodbye to this time of grieving for what might have been. Time, instead, for new words: Accept. Embrace. Surrender. Create. Choose. Trust. We can look newly at the sea the sun…
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October 12, 2021
“Pick up your pen and write,” she says, that wise and ancient Voice: the devoted Muse, speaking to me in the grey morning, white ball of sun in the sky, in the water, below. Below, where the surface conversation has long since disappeared, I ask a private question: “Of what shall I write?” “Anything you hear in the deep well of your own heart.” “Write about the loon mourning the days away. Write about the turtle who belongs in the pond among the lilies. Write about a world of wonders. Write about me, who will always encourage you to find…
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September 27, 2021
Hello, Great Blue! You, who walk so stealthily, so faithfully, so gracefully, so quietly, on your long, lanky, legs, looking, waiting for your first, tasty morsel from the sea, yellowing sea. Good morning, Great Blue, Long Necked Warrior of the Morning birds, you, who work so attentively alertly, keen for your morning fish. looking outwards toward the rising, brightening, sun. Do you watch for the sun to rise? Are you single pointedly moving towards the exact place where the fish meet your beak? This is the way I want to awaken each day, saying hello to the wild world before…
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September 15, 2021
On the porch now. I drink my morning healing tea. The aroma and warmth make my body feel good, like I am meant to be here. It is always good to know that I am meant to be where I am. The sailboat, with its white, full sail glides soundlessly, effortlessly, past the island nearby, wind at its tail. I glide effortlessly into no time. There, I find my Inner guide, speaking a blessing: May the divine wind lift my sails of trust, May I intuit and attune, allowing the breeze to carry me effortlessly home, knowing that I am…
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August 31, 2021
The Universe took one Great Breath and cracked you open Exposing your Heart for all to see. And you raised your Great Arms in celebration of your woundedness, Up, up to the sky.
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August 17, 2021
Underneath the preoccupations of the world and of my mind, Silence Speaks. I need but listen: “Let the fog engulf you, make a cocoon around you today as you read or write or cook or wash. Do not let the pulls of your mind with its tentacles of glue pull you into stories of past, of present, of future. Let the fog lift, as it does, revealing those silent islands in the mist of time in the midst of space. Let the sun shine through, bless you, and let you know you are on holy ground.”
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August 3, 2021
May I dream a deep, blue sleep while fire eats hungrily the wood, the stove top silent, content to be still, as outside purple sounds of earth settle into night. May the waves of sleep carry me to its farthest shores, stilling my beating mind of worry, healing my breathing heart of fear. Let the waves break there upon the land beyond the current horizon where lake shore rocks are ground through the gift of time into small pebbles, smooth to touch, and soft and easy sand that feet can walk on. Loons eat them to get their food down.…
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July 20, 2021
“Pick up your pen and write,” she says, that wise and ancient Voice: the devoted Muse, speaking to me in the grey morning, white ball of sun in the sky, in the water, below. Below, where the surface conversation has long since disappeared, I ask a private question: “Of what shall I write?” “Anything you hear in the deep well of your own heart.” “Write about the loon mourning the days away. Write about the turtle who belongs in the pond among the lilies. Write about a world of wonders. Write about me, who will…
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July 6, 2021
If I were a tree, I would be the dancing Cottonwood, waving at me, at us all, arms delighting in the dance of the early evening breeze. I would not know or care whose property I’m on. I would not ask how long I’m going to live. Or if God exists. I would not worry that some months hence my leaves are going to fall and my branches will get bony. I just would wave my arms in pure ecstasy to be alive, at one with the wind who holds me in his arms. Some of my leaves would be…
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June 22, 2021
Be a clearing! An empty vessel in which you can hear and taste the future filling the vessel with miraculous and astonishing surprises – the unexpected: musical food for the Heart
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June 8, 2021
Sometimes it’s time to hide, to go deep inside the well to descend into the whirlpool of wounds, of losses and griefs that ask to inhabit your mind and heart for a while. There, you have good and necessary work to do, to let your wounds bring you to compassion. Within this time, while you follow the slow and circuitous path of your heart, remember to love yourself, care for yourself while feeling your way through the pain. Know the rawness of your griefs. You and they are trustworthy. You must listen to them speak, transforming you and softening your…
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May 25, 2021
Now come the rhodies, ripe with red and readiness singing Spring, while my greening magnolia tree greets the sea. Magnificent each morning in her pink green dress changing each day. No morn is like the last. My own garden lets me know: Not only is change inevitable Not only do our little deaths give way to new births Not only if we give our focused attention, we will have the gift of amazement. Not only do the ever flowering blossoms drop to the ground making rich the soil with their pink and…
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May 11, 2021
Deep within the garden of love the peonies turn their bright faces to the sun and celebrate, fully accepting themselves and each other’s beauty.
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April 27, 2021
May the Spring’s abundant flowers, white and pink and yellow swell my heart with gladness, fill me with their surprises of sweetness and of glory, as I turn my face toward the natural world, once again. May the tight budding of the magnolia tree inside my heart slowly ripen to a full flowering, accompanying me, during these days with its delicate sweetness, springing toward life. May this tree of friendship in our yard as it blossoms into its own fullness in the next many days mirror, and beckon to me, the blossoming the ripening …
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April 13, 2021
Lest you forget who you are, let a mighty flame surround you with its sweet incense smell, carry you back through your heart’s eye and all that you hold dear, to that place in the ashram of your body you pray and remember who you are. Let yourself be found by the pure soil of your soul, the ground where all seeds flourish. Be bound by the marriage of your breath with spirit. Don’t so get caught up in the world in ways you don’t want to be remembered. Let the earth the air water and fire spirit you to…
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March 30, 2021
The wick in my candle has grown so long during these months and years of cocooning, hibernation, lock down, break down, re‑imagining. What is the ing word that you choose? Sheltering, healing, grieving, fearing, worrying, discovering, learning, re‑setting, pausing, stopping, serving, practicing, re‑imagining, kindness‑ing, giving gratitude, living in wonder, improvising, inventing, stand taking breaking through, contributing, celebrating, creating perspective, learning, giving Joy. Choose your words, carefully. Each word gives, gives you your life. Speaks, speaks you in this threshold coursing time; speaks your meaning, speaks your purpose, speaks your life, brings you and your world into Being.
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March 17, 2021
Look beyond yourself. Look first to the farthest horizon where lake meets sky, and then, even further. Take one easy paddle towards that horizon and notice how the wake appears, then disappears, behind you. Pilgrim, You must not go back. Only the open lake in front of you with no shoreline to mark your way. Listen with your heart. Your heart knows the way. “The happy heart is true,” St Brigid speaks. Follow your joy. I know you can live wholeheartedly, that you can be who you choose to be. I know That you can paint your life with the…
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March 3, 2021
Across the still lake
Cloud Eagle swoops ‘neath snow trees.
Forest and falls call.
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February 16, 2021
Dark green vines wet
and deep with color lie
with ease on gnarled maple bark
while below, the river gaily dances its way
to the lake, singing all the while: Fall’s Creek.
This is my birthday hike.
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February 2, 2021
A sudden gust—
I hear the movement of the trees
calling me to give them my attention
telling me to turn my head from the computer screen
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January 5, 2021
Three‑layered bank of fog.
Hills, mountains, Cascades
hover on the Sound,
a soft, stealthy cat guarding its treasure,
halfway between our shore and the sand spit.
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December 22, 2020
Let
the opportunity of these times
fill your heart with gratefulness.
Can you not see
that everything around you
is calling for a new perspective
and that you
are hungry for
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December 21, 2020
Teachings from another time are given: All is well and “shall be well.” Live in faith, know deep in heart, that endings soon (in their own time) give rise to new beginnings, and only with completion can a new beginning start. And I must rise to the tide of my life’s calling for giving endings where those endings are now due. “What must I complete?” “What endings must I cause?” I’m called to ask. Here, the heart can grow and gladden with Completion’s teaching: All is Well, “All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be…
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December 8, 2020
Thin pine boughs tremble,
chilled and thrilled as they beckon
cold winter to come.
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November 24, 2020
The first big blow and the rest of the fall leaves fall to the ground, dancing wildly with the wind, making no sound. Except if you listen underneath this wild presentation to the real conversation, you will hear: Meet me here, just here, and now, in the passing of this season into next. Meet me here in nature with your full attention and I will lead you to wonder. Meet me here with your full attention your full presence your full concentration and you will know Gratitude.
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November 9, 2020
This is my Poetry Corner.
This is where each morning
I light the candles
and watch the incense smoke
gently rise, and circle, to the ceiling of my room.
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October 26, 2020
Even here,
somewhere in the middle
of these dark days,
somewhere in the middle of this Crossing,
where lives upended stumble
blindly through their days…
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October 6, 2020
This fog filled morning
the bright lights of our family room
illuminate the whale.
Leaping with joy, he flies…
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September 28, 2020
Oh, Great Blue,
with your great grey span of wings gliding
graceful over silent grey sea:
What are you speaking to me, this morning?…
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September 15, 2020
Drop
Down
Deep.
Drop down,
beneath the Silence
where the Voice
of your Soul
— the Creative Imagination — can find you
and guide you…
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August 26, 2020
Allow
the soft tree tops of your body
to welcome the sun in the morning,
to dispel the worries,
to greet you with their glorious
embrace of this new day.
New, as if the sun arising from the horizon…
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