A Return

Wow. I can't believe it's been over a year since I last posted here in My Woods. I stepped back from blogging when I started back to school to finish my English degree in pursuit of...well nothing new really. Classes have been both enlightening and distracting...good ultimately, but often drawing my attention from other important aspects of life once placed on a much higher plain. I'm feeling the need to return here--to continue the process--to write. And to share.

who are you,little i

who are you,little i

(five or six years old)
peering from some high

window; at the gold

of november sunset

(and feeling:that if day
has to become night

this is a beautiful way)

~e.e. cummings


Eight lines to capture quite possibly the most commonly shared and artfully expressed human experience throughout history---absolutely brilliant.    little i is certain of the night--coming regularly, making everything dark and quiet.  i've learned from experience. Well over 9,000 nights have come and gone in the course of my life. It happens everyday--the sun, doing its thing, making all the little i's stand still and feel that if night must come, what a comfort that we can see beauty in its coming.

 But often little i is just too little to peak over the windowpain, so i hide under the covers--afraid of the night, the darkness.  i don't always see the beauty in impending night. Instead of learning to rest, i wait, anxious for the promised joy of morning.  Here's the trick, though--and we don't even need a stepstool--Sunsets are for stillness, for feeling. sensing. Sunsets are for losing little i in Big I.  Sunsets are for that moment when little i becomes aware of a reality so much bigger--a reality that envelopes and pervades every moment, even the darkest moments. In the stillness, little i remembers what it is like for Big I and the night becomes welcome, even peaceful.  With this feelinging, I can say, "if day has to become night, this is a beautiful way."

Poetry Wednesday

For Whatever it says to Whomever reads it...this one's by me:

Look at the water drops on those leaves
Weighing them down after a shower
Sometimes I feel like those leaves
All drenched and heavy
Longing for an early Fall
To sweep in
And set me loose

Look at the water drops on those leaves
Each a glint of brightness in the sun’s path
Sometimes I feel like those leaves
Lifted by the wind
Loving all these complicated
Refracted
Bits of light

And it makes me tired—
all this holding on
And letting go—
All this loving and loosing.

R.A. Wittum

 
Poetry Wednesday

Poetry Wednesday: Pruning

It won't be long

before a storm will prune

what is ready to let go.

It will be clean and swift

Be your own storm

~

gunilla norris

~

A Mystic Garden

Poetry Wednesday

Poetry Wednesday: the kindred

Yes, it's Friday, but this poem has been simmering in my heart this week to share for Poetry Wednesday. So, here is my late offering.

 Love is a mystery...something that is difficult to put into words. A connection between two souls...deeper than any temporal appearances, labels or stories we live in this earthly existence.  I've felt this connection in my life...a kinship of souls that is so moving that it's undeniable.  A late night conversation with the Man I Love left me with this sense. I'm thankful to have loved and been loved in this way...My life has been made rich by the presence of kindred souls in whom the Beloved One has pitched his tent.

Thank you Hafiz...

The Woman I Love

Because the Woman I love lives
Inside of you,

I lean as close to your body with my words
As I can--

And I think of you all the time, dear pilgrim.

Because the One I love goes with you
Wherever you go,
Hafiz will always be near.

If you sat before me, wayfarer,
With your aura bright from your many
Charms,

My lips could resist rushing to you and needing
To befriend your blushed cheek,

But my eyes can no longer hide
The  wonderous fact of who
You Really are.

The Beautiful One whom I adore
Has pitched His royal tent inside of you,

So I will always lean my heart
As close to your soul
As I can.

~Hafiz~
Translated by Daniel Ladinsky, The Subject Tonight is Love

Enjoy more poetry from Poetry Wednesday

Poetry Wednesday: Listening...

I've been busy lately; moving, rushing, doing. My mind, too; racing, contemplating, creating. But stillness has been illusive...

Listening

Somehow, I must sit to listen.
Standing implies the readiness for action,
for the executing of the will.
To hear You I must sit down and calm down.

The magpie mind chatters.
It doesn't know about stopping.
How helpless I feel in its automatic firing,
its busy babbling. It is impossible to hear You
as long as I am full of sound.
I turn this helpless prayer toward You.
Help me to be quiet, to sit here
...slowly unknowing everything,
becoming dark, becoming yielding...
just sitting.

Here, without will, let me become willing.
Here, without concepts, help me to know.
Here, without doing, turn me toward usefulness.
Let my heart find its ears in You.
Let the countless cells of my body
open in order to listen,
Let my being come into Your presence
and experience the sound of Your light.
~Gunilla Norris~

Poetry Wednesday

Every Luminous Movement

Here's the deal--a few weeks ago, I wrote my last post on A Path to My Woods and tossed it up on Facebook with this poem from Hafiz:

Every Moment

"I rarely let the word 'No' escape
from my mouth

Because it is so plain to my soul

That God has shouted 'Yes!, Yes!, Yes!'
To every luminous movement in Existence.

~Hafiz (trans. by Daniel Ladinsky, I Heard God Laughing)


I hit the submit button with a bit of hesitation because this is such a bold and outlandish statement. The word 'no' escapes my lips daily. I'm the mother of four young children. How in the world could Hafiz be so blind? There are a bijillion things to say 'no' to in the world; a bizillion gut-wrenching injustices to fight against every day. So what was up with Hafiz? Was he blind to the craziness? Did he, as my friend replied in jest, ever have a two year old?

This was my response (more for myself than for her): "I'm certain he did. This poem was most definitely written in a more ecstatic moment when even the exploits of two-year-olds are seen as an opportunity for the growth of humankind. Hmmn. Does that sound crazy? Kind of, but that is Hafiz. There is horrific evil in the world far outweighing 'terrible-twos', and yet, to see a the broader picture is to embrace the hunger and tragedy to be weighed with generosity and compassion. Have we reached a place of wholeness, no. But can I say "yes" to the beautiful process engulfed in Divine presence, Yes! :)"

I've had moments like these, moments when the whole of existence seemed to fill me up with awareness of the Ever-Present. Knock me off my feet if I haven't had that same experience standing by a gushing river, eyes lifted towards the trees, as I have standing at a sink of dirty dishes, hands soaked in sudsy water. God's Spirit is not something for us to 'usher in' with our praises, not something for us to invite. God's Spirit IS. This is what Hafiz recognized.

It's one thing to say "Yes, Yes, Yes" to a sink full of dishes or a pile of dirty laundry. It's an entirely different thing to "shout 'Yes! Yes! Yes!' to every luminous movement in existence." How can the All-Knowing shout 'Yes!' when we can see very clearly so much to say 'no' to? Does this mean we sit back blissfully accepting all that is with no response? Well, no.

I love this quote by former UN secretary-general--and mystic--Dag Hammarskjold: "For all that has been, thanks. For all that will be, yes". Hammarskjold was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize post-humanously. On a life-time scale, his response to 'yes and thank you' was a luminous movement towards peace. On an eternal scale--every ounce of light to every ounce of darkness--we say yes, thank you.

The human experience is plagued with hunger and horror and tears upon tears. And God shouts, 'Yes! Yes! Yes!' to the luminous imperfect longing and 'Yes! Yes! Yes!' to the luminous movement of grace and compassion offered in return. And the angels in heaven whisper, "grow, grow."And we do.