A time of transitions

The morning of the day he died of a heart attack in 1993, William Stafford wrote a poem containing the lines:
“You don’t have to prove anything,”
my mother said. “Just be ready
for what God sends.”
I listened and put my hand
out in the sun again. It was all easy.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
These words came today and I needed to post them.  I have experienced the passing of two great men this last week and these words of William Stafford seem to be
the right ones to post.  We are always in transition, our life is ever changing, turning this way and that.  What has touched me and is etched in my heart is
the greatness and goodness of people and the natural offering of the human soul.  What has mattered is being among friends, community, being in the presence of
others, even with grief and pain.  There has been a kind of raw awe and beauty sandwiched between what has been unbearable and mysterious.
Death is a gift when I surrender to the teaching it offers and out of it comes an entrance into life and embracing ‘what is’.

I’ve been thinking about FAITH

I have been thinking about FAITH, not the kind I learn from any religious training, but the kind that is expansive and travels beyond my own limited thoughts or yours.

FAITH as a noun, I feel across my back and into my toes, it is a bridge that crosses an expanse to others and it carries my imagination and builds association beyond words, emotions, images and thoughts.

If there is such a thing of particles within silence, it is FAITH that connects these particles together. In a teaching group I did recently, I asked the question about interconnectedness….all five women arrived dressed in grey and black! Is this coincidence, synchronicity, randomness or the collective unconscious becoming conscious through FAITH?

There are many people suffering in the world these days, we are in a time of discordance and tensions. There are many who are witnessing and holding their own suffering and those close to them. This is what we do as humans, we rejoice in our connections and we grieve our losses…these are the particles that weave us together.

This is what matters most, to be a part of the thread that is woven together….

Tell me, what is most important to you about your connections?

FAITH

I want to write about faith,
about the way the moon rises
over cold snow, night after night,

faithful even as it fades from fullness,
slowly becoming that last curving and impossible
sliver of light before the final darkness.

But I have no faith myself
I refuse it even the smallest entry.

Let this then, my small poem,
like a new moon, slender and barely open,
be the first prayer that opens me to faith.

– David Whyte

Welcome to my new blog site!

Ok, so you think that I know what I am doing, well, I don’t and I don’t care…what matters most is a place where I will be writing things, posting things, asking questions, inviting you to be a part of this blog along with connecting with others who also think that what matters most is actually something we should all be thinking about together.  My intent for this blog is about connecting and not just with dots or dot coms, but with one another.  So, what matters most today is learning something new, how to choose a name, a picture, what to eat for dinner and what time to go to bed.  Mundane, yes, but this is how we start….

I realized after seeing Mary Oliver last night, listening to her wise words that it is not always that easy to see, to see on a regular basis what is right in front of me, the moment opening to the many layers of perception.  This is a deep desire to see…this is what matters…..to be able to really completely read a poem, to let it wash inside my mouth and let the images twirl around inside….to slow down, to listen again…this is what matters….so I begin and invite you to join me….

Morning Poem

Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches —
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead —
if it’s all you can do
to keep on trudging —

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted —

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.

- Mary Oliver