He picked up a pebble
and threw it into the sea.
And another, and another.
He couldn’t stop.
He wasn’t trying to fill the sea.
He wasn’t trying to empty the beach.
He was just throwing away,
nothing else but.
Like a kitten playing
he was practicing for the future
when there’ll be so many things
he’ll want to throw away
if only his fingers will unclench
and let them go.
“Small boy” by Norman MacCaig
I
Do not
Want to step so quickly
Over a beautiful line on God’s palm
As I move through the earth’s
Marketplace
Today.
I do not want to touch any object in this world
Without my eyes testifying to the truth
That everything is
My Beloved.
Something has happened
To my understanding of existence
That now makes my heart always full of wonder
And kindness.
I do not
Want to step so quickly
Over this sacred place on God’s body
That is right beneath your
Own foot
As I
Dance with
Precious life
Today.
“Today” by Hafiz, from The Gift: Poems of Hafiz, the Great Sufi Master. Purported to be translated from the original Persian (Farsi) by Daniel Ladinsky. © Penguin Compass, 1999.
Please note that Ladinsky’s “translations” are controversial, considered by many to be less Hafiz than Ladinsky himself.
She whose gaze is heaven
has gathered up earth
and kissed herself into it,
breathed life into the clay
and made you
into an altar
for her praise.
______________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net
And now I know what most deeply connects us
after that summer so many years ago,
and it isn’t poetry, although it is poetry,
and it isn’t illness, although we have that in common,
and it isn’t gratitude for every moment,
even the terrifying ones, even the physical pain,
though we are halfway through
it, or even the way you describe the magnificence
of being alive, catching a glimpse,
in the store window, of your blowing hair and chapped lips,
though it is beautiful, it is; but it is
that you’re my friend out here on the far reaches
of what humans can find out about each other.
“Coda” by Jason Shinder
When I get old
I wonder if I will hide my stuff in weird places.
Will someone cleaning out my living space
find things like
my baptismal certificate from 1932
in a plastic Oil of Olay box
mixed with various items
like eyebrow pencils,
miscellaneous change,
and various sizes of
finger nail clippers?
Will I place a baby hair brush
in a bag wrapped in paper towels
with coffee filters
and refrigerator magnets of all sorts?
Will I hide my telephone and address book under my mattress,
and my bills under the bathroom sink?
Will I buy more shampoo than I have years left to use it all,
and put cans of soup in my entertainment center?
What will I do when i get old?
I’m sure it will be eccentric and unusual.
I’m sure it will seem totally understandable to me
when I put my socks and underwear in the bathtub
and keep my kitchen cabinets completely empty.
ACL 5/24/13
A Simple Pineapple
The pineapple is a member of the bromeliad family.
It is extremely rare that bromeliads produce edible fruit.
The pineapple is the only available edible bromeliad today.
It is a multiple fruit. One pineapple is actually made up of dozens of individual floweret’s that grow together to form the entire fruit. Each scale on a pineapple is evidence of a separate flower.
Pineapples stop ripening the minute they are picked.
No special way of storing them will help ripen them further.
Color is relatively unimportant in determining ripeness.
Choose your pineapple by smell. If it smells fresh, tropical and sweet, it will be a good fruit.
The more scales on the pineapple, the sweeter and juicier the taste.
After you cut off the top, you can plant it.
It should grow much like a sweet potato will.
This delicious fruit is not only sweet and tropical; it also offers many benefits to our health.
Pineapple is a remarkable fruit.
We find it enjoyable because of its lush, sweet and exotic flavor, but it may also be one of the most healthful foods available today. If we take a more detailed look at it, we will find that pineapple is valuable for easing indigestion, arthritis or sinusitis.
The juice has an anthelmintic effect; it helps get rid of intestinal worms.
Let’s look at how pineapple affects other conditions.
Pineapple is high in manganese, a mineral that is critical to development of strong bones and connective tissue. A cup of fresh pineapple will give you nearly 75% of the recommended daily amount.
It is particularly helpful to older adults, whose bones tend to become brittle with age.
Bromelain, a proteolytic enzyme, is the key to pineapple’s value.
Proteolytic means “breaks down protein”, which is why pineapple is known to be a digestive aid.
It helps the body digest proteins more efficiently.
Bromelain is also considered an effective anti-inflammatory.
Regular ingestion of at least one half cup of fresh pineapple daily is purported to relieve painful joints common to osteoarthritis. It also produces mild pain relief.
In Germany , bromelain is approved as a post-injury medication because it is thought to reduce inflammation and swelling.
Orange juice is a popular liquid for those suffering from a cold because it is high in Vitamin C.
Fresh pineapple is not only high in this vitamin, but because of the Bromelain, it has the ability to reduce mucous in the throat. If you have a cold with a productive cough, add pineapple to your diet. It is commonly used in Europe as a post-operative measure to cut mucous after certain sinus and throat operations.
Those individuals who eat fresh pineapple daily report fewer sinus problems related to allergies.
In and of itself, pineapple has a very low risk for allergies.
Pineapple is also known to discourage blood clot development. This makes it a valuable dietary addition for frequent fliers and others who may be at risk for blood clots.
An old folk remedy for morning sickness is fresh pineapple juice. It really works!
Fresh juice and some nuts first thing in the morning often make a difference.
It’s also good for a healthier mouth. The fresh juice discourages plaque growth.
The road seen, then not seen, the hillside hiding
then revealing the way you should take,
the road dropping away from you as if leaving you
to walk on thin air, then catching you, holding you up,
when you thought you would fall, and the way forward
always in the end the way that you came,
the way that you followed, the way that carried
you into your future, that brought you
to this place, no matter that it sometimes took
your promise from you, no matter that it always had to break
your heart along the way, the sense of having walked
from far inside yourself out into the revelation,
to have risked yourself for something that seemed
to stand both inside you and far beyond you,
that called you back in the end to the only road
you could follow, walking as you did, in your
rags of love and speaking in the voice
that by night, became a prayer for safe arrival…
Excerpt from “SANTIAGO”
From PILGRIM: Poems by David Whyte
We are always on a journey from darkness into light. At first, we are children of the darkness. Your body and your face were formed first in the kind darkness of your mother’s womb. Your birth was a first journey from darkness into light. All your life, your mind lives within the darkness of your body. Every thought that you have is a flint moment, a spark of light from your inner darkness. The miracle of thought is its presence in the night side of your soul; the brilliance of thought is born in darkness. Each day is a journey. We come out of the night into the day. All creativity awakens at this primal threshold where light and darkness test each other. You only discover balance in your life when you learn to trust the flow of this ancient rhythm.
– John O’Donohue
It’s all connected –
All the love,
All the loss,
All the joy,
All the pain.
The world is made of God.
We live in the ocean of God’s breath,
His very words.
We are all artists.
We all speak creation.
Our words are our greatest art form,
make sure they are painting a masterpiece.
God is love is life is truth is word is love is…
every little thing is connected to each other.
Everything I really needed to know
I learned from the ocean
and the trees.
The mountains
introduced me to the angels.
Acorns were my very first teachers
the finest flock of seagulls
were my most recent.
We are the temple.
We includes the universe
we find ourselves in.
We are brothers and sisters
to stars and starships
ACL 3/31/13
It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions, my one quarrel is with words. That is the reason I hate vulgar realism in literature. The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for.
– Oscar Wilde
It is strange to be here. The mystery never leaves you alone. Behind your image, below your words, above your thoughts, the silence of another world waits. A world lives within you. No one else can bring you news of this inner world. Through the opening of the mouth, we bring out sounds from the mountain beneath the soul. These sounds are words. The world is full of words. There are so many talking all the time, loudly, quietly, in rooms, on streets, on television, on radio, in the paper, in books. The noise of words keeps what we call the world there for us. We take each other’s sounds and make patterns, predictions, benedictions, and blasphemies. Each day, our tribe of language holds what we call the world together. Yet the uttering of the word reveals how each of us relentlessly creates. Everyone is an artist. Each person brings sound out of silence and coaxes the invisible to become visible.
– John O’Donohue
We seldom hear the voice of the Holy One
who is, after all, fearsomely immense,
who sits, enthralled, perfectly still as a bird
watcher, saying nothing, offering only
the merest whispers, hidden in this world
so cleverly as to seem natural,
so as not to frighten us
away.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net
Above all temples
You chiefly prefer
Oh Spirit
The heart upright
and pure.
Instruct me
You who know
For You were present
from the first.
You sat
dove like
With might
and outspread wings
Brooding over
the vast abyss
And made
it pregnant.
Oh Spirit
what in me
is dark
Illumine.
The prayer of John Milton as he took up his pen to write Paradise Lost
Dreams we can’t envision
Once there were three little trees, all with big dreams. The first tree dreamed of being carved into a beautiful and ornate treasure box that would hold the greatest treasure the world had ever seen. The second tree dreamed of being fashioned into a great ship that would sail the Seven Seas. The third tree didn’t want to leave its home on the mountaintop. “I want to grow so tall that when people stop to look at me,” he said, “they’ll raise their eyes to heaven and think of God.”
One day when the young saplings had grown into tall, strong trees, three woodcutters climbed the mountain. As they cut down the first tree, it could barely contain its excitement – it just knew it would soon fulfill its destiny. But instead of an elaborate treasure chest, workers made the tree into a plain, ordinary feedbox for farm animals. The tree felt bitterly disappointed.The second tree got made into a ship, all right – but not the kind to crest the waves of mighty oceans. It became just a simple fishing vessel, floating in a lake – not the stuff dreams are made of.
The third tree, to its horror and dismay, got chopped down, cut into wooden beams, and then left to gather dust in a lumberyard. “All I ever wanted was to stay on the mountaintop and point to God,” it moaned.
Time passed and the trees forgot their dreams, until one night when a young woman placed her baby in the animal feedbox – and the first tree knew that indeed it carried the greatest treasure on earth.
Another night, a tired man and his friends crowded into the little fishing boat. They got halfway across the lake when a terrible storm blew in, threatening to tear the boat to pieces. The tired man stood up and said, “Peace, be still.” The second tree knew then that it was carrying the king of heaven and earth.
One Friday morning the third tree felt itself yanked from the woodpile and dragged through city streets, where crowds shouted insults. The tree felt cruel and ugly when it realized it had become an instrument of torture. Soldiers nailed a man’s hands and feet to its beams, as the tree cried in shame. But on Sunday morning, when the sun rose and the earth trembled with joy, the tree stood tall, finally knowing that from now on, it would be the tree on the mountaintop, forever pointing people to God.
-traditional folk tale
as told in, God Loves Broken People, Sheila Walsh
The power of suffering to create beauty in your life lies almost entirely with you, in how you chose to react to the difficulties and even catastrophes that invade your life.
– Sheila Walsh
God’s kind, gentle love is not the sentimental, sappy variety…Instead, this love is strong. This love is a fierce love, a positive force that conquers sin, evil, and death. It is the burning passion to overcome evil with good. It is steadfast commitment to the ultimate, highest good of another – even if that other is one’s enemy. It is a love that does not put self or stuff at the center of life, but gives itself away with joyful abandon. It is a love so secure in another that it loses its life for others, only to find its life again.
– Richard J. Vincent
life: acoustic & amplified 