rest in the miracle that has always already happened! – Fred LaMotte
When the world does not conform
to the story in my head
I get a feeling that
“something’s not right.”
Why is the story in my head
not down-loading properly?
Why do I sense that the world
needs to be fixed
and I must repair what is “wrong”
by imposing my story
onto the mystery
of the ineluctable?
Yet the world is not a problem.
The problem is
there’s a story in my head
but it’s not quite the same
as your story, is it?
And so there is conflict,
there is suffering,
even if our stories are about
salvation, about justice
and equality, the perfect
marriage, the cleanest
environment, or gaining
enlightenment…
Happiness cannot arise
if we slather the world in the thin
veneer of our narration.
Happiness is the dance
of atoms ordered by
the dynamics of chaos
in the heart of the now
when we let both story
and teller disperse
like a fine mist,
when we let things clarify
all by themselves
the way silt filters and falls
through a mountain brook
in liquid transparency.
Now rest in the miracle
that has always
already happened.
Just shut up and see.
A rain cloud vanishes.
There are crystal drops on
blades of grass, each containing
the sun.
💫
SOMETHING’S NOT QUITE RIGHT by Alfred LaMotte
Let us go forward quietly, forever making for the light…
Vincent Van Gogh
these anniversaries
the marking of dates
building Ebenezer memorials
from the stones of help
bringing me to this place
tasting again
the bitter herbs
the roasted lamb
the flat bread
the milk and honey flowing over everything
the fresh dates and figs
of now
sitting with this
bitter-sweet
sweet-bitter
this life
this love
this past
this practice
this present
this grateful
that gratitude
that changing
this constant
this birth
this death
this resurrection
always this love
ah this love
just.
this.
love.
always the path of thanks
always the gifts presenting
along the diamond road
this is my tradition
my version of holiday
each one
my best of days
my worst of days
feeling it wrapping around my senses
these memories clouds
wrapping around me
enveloped from behind me
me always facing forward
always facing toward the rising moment just ahead
the path before me the most important
always remembering,
along with that other Southern Belle…
tomorrow is another day…
the best is always yet to be!
🗓
AL 7/23/16 gratitude/tradition
Life
truly
is beauty
beauty
salted
by rare moments
of exquisite suffering.
Life
truly
is suffering
suffering
peppered
by rare moments
of exquisite beauty.
🌹
https://www.claudiuskeepsakes.com/collections/frontpage/products/duality-of-life-mug
there’s this summer song
of cool wind on my skin,
playing sweet percussion through the tall, lush marsh grass
gentle water
invisible birds singing in surround sound
my heart resonates with the language we have spoken
the songs we have sung
the rich vibrations of our connection
over the past few days
the new sun warms my back
my shadow sits large
writing poems
this silence my gratitude
this morning my pleasure
this day my gift
this moment my life
thank you for reaching out
for breaking through the darkness
for holding my hand
💞
AL
The worst isn’t the last thing about the world. It’s the next to the last thing. The last thing is the best. It’s the power from on high that comes down into the world, that wells up from the rock-bottom worst of the world like a hidden spring. Can you believe it? The last, best thing is the laughing deep in the hearts of the saints, sometimes our hearts even. Yes. You are terribly loved and forgiven. Yes. You are healed. All is well.
– Frederick Buechner
The Final Beast
Then I walked
straight forward
out of the gate,
through the wood,
along the river,
toward the mountain
and I thought of the future
I could make in the world
if I walked toward it
like this,
with my face toward the hills
and my eyes full of light
and the earth sure
and solid beneath me,
walking
with a fierce anticipation,
and a faithful expectation,
with the sun and the rain
and the wind on my skin
and that old sense…
of many paths
breaking from one path.
So learning to walk
in morning light
like this again,
we’ll take our first
light step
toward mortality,
walking
out of the garden,
through the woods,
along the river,
toward the mountain,
its simple,
that’s what we’ll do,
practicing as we go
and
we’ll be glimpsed,
traveling westward,
no longer familiar,
a following wave,
greeted, as we were at our birth,
as probable
and slightly
dangerous strangers,
someone
coming into view,
someone about
to find out.
Some wild
and improbable risk
about to break
on the world again.
..
David Whyte
Adapted from LEARNING TO WALK
From RIVER FLOW:
New and Selected Poems
life: acoustic & amplified 