life: acoustic & amplified
poetry, quotes & thoughts about life
Archive for the category “Losing”
be strong & be courageous
I am heavy
Stepping with sand bag feet
Slow
Hello life
In this dark day
I look for beauty
It’s always there
I wonder if I would have jumped or gone back to die
If I had really known how hard it would be
On and on
Do I really believe it will ever get better?
No answer comes
I move away from the question
I made my choice
I go curl up
In the Legacy Garden
On the round plaque with Wendell Berry’s words of understanding
I part the out thrusting branches
And come in beneath the blessed and the blessing trees.
Though I am silent
There is singing around me.
Though I am dark
There is vision around me.
Though I am heavy
There is flight around me.
– Wendell Berry
Underneath the gondola’s painted ever-green leaves –
I wish there was a raven
Who cares if people see me?
🌑
AL – 12/3/12
I fell down,
Broken
Down beneath the curtain of a world that wasn’t mine
I fell down,
Hurting
Down under the pressure of a life I couldn’t find
Watching
Others
There were times that I felt nothing but the pain of being me
Watching
Wondering
Why and how and when would I be able to be free
I tried
Hiding
Nothing kept the darkness from surrounding me with grief
I tried
Crying
But nothing kept the demons that were haunting me
The fear
The aching
The desperation etched upon my heart in every beat
The scars
Appearing
Like a chain around my soul, stealing all I used to be
I sought comfort
I sought courage
I sought loving in the hands of those that only caused me pain
I sought refuge
I sought freedom
I sought counsel in the places that left me filled with guilt and shame
I fell down,
Broken
Down beneath the curtain of a world that wasn’t mine
I fell down,
Hurting
Down under the pressure of a life I couldn’t find
Then it came
The flicker
Of hope and understanding that I could be alive again
Then it came
A glimmer
The ember of the flame inside my heart began to shine
Watching
Others
I looked inside their minds and saw that I was not the only one
Watching
Wondering
How I could share the message that all of us are one
I tried
Learning
Taking all the knowledge that the world gave unto me
I tried
Doing
And realized the healing came from giving all I had to give
The love
Replaced fear
My heart beats now for others and keeps me going on and on
The scars
On show now
Proving that with courage our soul can set us free
I give comfort
I give courage
I give loving to the ones of those that are only feeling pain
I give refuge
I give freedom
I give counsel to those needing me with kindness, without blame
I fell down
Humble
Down to show my gratitude for living life this way
I fell down
Thankful
Vowing to show others life is better every day
💔🔥❤️
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A remembering
December 3, 2012
a lifetime from then to now
Hello Life
echoing in the chambers
of empty shattered walls
of broken will
and weary traveling
worn and scarred
soldier of God
warrior of the light
no longer even able
to pretend to carry the cross
just laying on it
too tired to fight
with arms willingly outstretched
scorched and branded
by Your glory
carried into the ocean
of Your love
within the arc
of silence
knowing I am
undone
by ruthless grace
my life is Yours
and now I wait
for You
to part the waters
like only You can do
I burned to ash
completely consumed
now I rise
the flame
alive
🔥
AL
Beneath the shouting,
quieter and more steady,
listen for my voice.
Be still, and listen.
You are doing a difficult thing.
And I am with you.
I have gathered up your life,
your triumphs and failures,
your powers and your weaknesses,
and I hold it all in grace.
You have died,
and your life is hidden in me now.
I bear your grief,
the river of it flows through me,
and I am the spring it comes from.
When you are alone I am the body
that weaves you with everyone.
When you are discouraged
I bind your hope to you.
When you are weary
I am your strength and breath,
the life that carries you.
When the road is rough and long
I go onward,
and bear you in my love and wisdom.
Keep your mind on this.
Forget the little things.
Remember my presence.
Forget whatever you can cling to.
Remember I hold you.
Never mind the demons and discouragements.
You are in me
and it is I who walk through this world
with you hidden deep within me.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
stand up now
The World needs people…
Who cannot be bought;
Whose word is their bond;
Who put character above wealth;
Who possess opinions and a will;
Who are larger than their vocations;
Who do not hesitate to take chances;
Who do not loose their individuality in a crowd;
Who will be as honest in small things as in great things;
Who will make no compromise with wrong;
Whose ambitions are not confined to their own selfish desires;
Who do not believe that shrewdness, cunning and hardheadedness are the best qualities for winning success;
Who are not ashamed or afraid to stand for the truth when it is unpopular;
Who can say “no” with emphasis, although the rest of the world says “yes”.
💪🏽
– Ted w. Engstrom, from Motivation to last a lifetime
It doesn’t change when we stare at it from across the room. It doesn’t change when we sit in prayer and wish it away. It doesn’t change when we skirt the edges of the shadow. It doesn’t change when we pretend it’s all Go(o)d. It changes when we cross the sacred battleground willing to die to our truth. It changes when we look the lie in the eye until it has nowhere left to hide. It changes when we pick up the sword of truth and cut the falsity until it bleeds right through. The era of the sacred activist is upon us. Not the warrior run amok, but the benevolent warrior who fights for our right to the light. Some battles are worth fighting.
💪🏽
– Jeff Brown
It’s not easy
to do the hard thing
to lose
to stand
to eat
to sleep
alone
to wait
to be patient
to be strong
to allow the pain
the grief
the tears of exhaustion
frustration
weariness
to press on
to refuse to settle
to believe in spite of loss
to keep the fire warm
to build wells
to send out love
to melt your defenses
to keep touching the lepers
to allow healing to come
to ruthlessly let go
to remain open
and ready
to keep saying yes
not easy,
well worth it
💪🏽
AL
blinders off
IN A FAR OFF CORNER
In a far off corner of a wide wide world
lies the circumstance that faces another.
A circumstance so abject that life
never really begins. And then it
dies quietly, announced by
an unheard whisper.
And from our corner of this world,
safe and secure under bejeweled roofs,
we pay our cursory glance of sympathy.
We forget that all corners connect, and
that the experience of each life lives
within us all. Albeit in disguise.
And we miss the possibility hidden
in the circumstance of another.
The possibility that compassion might soften
the edges of our own uneven experience,
and that the simple act of togetherness
might liberate our disheartened lives.
There are no far off corners
in this wide wide world.
And there are no separate lives.
💔
Nic Askew
I ride Greyhound
because it’s like being in a John Steinbeck novel. Next best thing is the laundromat. That’s where all people who would be on the bus if they had the money hang out. This is my crowd. Tonight there are cleaning people appalled at the stupidity of anyone who would put powder detergent into the clearly marked LIQUID ONLY slot. The couple by the vending machine are fondling each other. You’d think the orange walls and fluorescent lights would dampen that energy but it doesn’t seem to. It’s a singles scene here on Saturday nights. I confide to the fellow next to me that I suspect I am being taken in by the triple loader, maybe it doesn’t hold any more than the regular machines but I’m paying an extra fifty cents. I tell him this meaningfully holding handfuls of underwear. He claims the triple loader gives a better wash. I don’t ask why, just cruise over to the pop machine, aware that my selection may provide a subtle clue. I choose Wild Berry, head back to my clothes.
🌎
I Ride Greyhound by Ellie Schoenfeld
I spot one.
a coin laudro-mat
I feel blessed to be able to wash my clothes.
towels and unmentionables.
a small bag.
I walk into the familiar,
yet for a while now,
Blessedly Unfamiliar.
I remember the years of this in my life
my most missed luxury in all of life
was washing and drying clothes
at home.
So hard this part of life became.
So challenging and humbling.
$4.50 to wash
a quarter for 5 minutes to dry.
I struggle to adjust.
I hadn’t planned on this.
I don’t look the part today.
I have to ask questions to reacquaint myself with this system.
Here in the midst of
hard working-and-living men,
tired mothers and crying babies,
the immigrants and struggling,
These to whom I belong.
those who make their living
through making clean the dirty.
I stand and watch the circle go round
Hot tears stinging my eyes
I remember.
Those days.
Those tough-as-nails days.
Plunged from luxury to poverty
in a heartbeat-break of life.
So soon we forget…
So quickly we remember…
I watch the water rise –
I didn’t put in enough soap.
There are no suds.
I pray that hot water I chose
for those 2 extra, hard-earned quarters,
will do it’s work
and my clothes will smell good.
I will not prolong my stay –
or use more of my precious coins.
I pray each of our guardian-laundry angels
will bless each of us
doing laundry every day
in all types of conditions.
This would be pure luxury in parts of this world.
I pray for grace.
I pray to remember.
I pray to be grace.
I pray to be The Words of God to heal the broken.
I pray for grace.
I pray for the crying baby,
and the tired man,
whose current outfit could use a good washing itself.
I pray for the immigrant family,
quietly folding together,
speaking Spanish in hushed voices.
I pray for the fabulous girl at the dryers,
with the faux Burberry scarf flung jauntily over her shoulder,
I hope to carry myself with such flair and dignity.
We are all here –
Bearing the high cost,
and inconvenience,
of poverty in our society.
I pray as quiet tears run.
I stand in my washer’s corner hoping nobody sees my memories.
I blow my over-productive nose.
and give thanks for all things.
Especially that I have known these struggles.
That I know how this feels.
That I am part of this humanity.
Not separate
I am one with all God’s created people.
All seeking clean clothes,
washing machines
and hope.
The crying baby starts to laugh
I smile as well.
God is always good
I am always blessed –
If I am willing to see the blessings –
even if it takes years and years to see them.
🔘
AL
progress
In this long dark, logic and plain sight are useless. You navigate by the diffuse and reflective attention of the moon and stars. Bringing a deep, penetrating silence to the knowing that lives in your bones, stirs in your womb and emanates from your dreams, you recognize that you are no longer who you used to be and not yet still who you will become. You are both, you are neither, you are perfectly between things.
Even if distantly and dimly at first, abilities you never had during the day are coming alive. Where you used to seek leadership outside yourself, now yours is the deciding voice. Fear is becoming your strange ally, as you learn to honour and cradle its soft underbelly. Instinct and the mystical pull of your feeling leads the way. You can sense the density of objects around you, hear the songs of stones and know things are coming even before they’ve left.
For you, brave pilgrim, I hold this lantern at the crossroads. While others are anxious to see you arrive, I praise your vast withstanding of the uncertainty from which all meaning is born.
❤️
– Love, Toko-pa
And then there comes a moment
when all you have suffered
all you have learned
all you have lost and found
rise up and become
and suddenly you are
here
you are
who you dreamed of being
so many years ago
suddenly you have arrived
at what you caught glimpses of
for so many years
and the search,
the free fall of broken dreams,
broken hearts
broken everything
tumbling down rabbit holes
stumbling over the feet
of your own lack of knowledge
is over
you find yourself on solid ground
stable
steady
raising your Ebenezer
those tributes to God
for all the mighty stones of help
building this foundation on the solid rocks
you know so well
and though the pilgrimage may continue
though the journey is definitely not over
though life is fragile
and security an illusion
there is a new sureness to your step
a trusting unshakable
a calm in it all
a new assurance of provision
a new traveling song to be sung as you walk forward
always forward
always pilgrim ready for new adventures
forgetting the names of what lay behind
you press on to your calling
the prize set before
reveling in the mercies ever new
for each new day
there is no stopping now
you have found something
which cannot be taken
you have arrived here by your own determination
reached a place
both spiritual and physical
a place of such magnitude
the light shines from every angle
it has sealed up the oldest sores
bound up the deepest wounds
satisfied the deepest longings
changed everything
settled old scores with finality
no longer will you settle for less than you deserve
no more will you tolerate anything less than your best and highest offerings
you must be all you can be
gratitude fills you for this place
a place so lovely
it can bear up
even under the weight
of our hearts wildest desires
with just this simple name
it resounds inside our souls like a bell –
home
yes, beloved,
you are home.
right where you belong.
🏡
AL
photo sources at http://www.pinterest.com
extra special
An extra day —
Like the painting’s fifth cow, who looks out directly, straight toward you, from inside her black and white spots.
An extra day —
Accidental, surely: the made calendar stumbling over the real as a drunk trips over a threshold too low to see.
An extra day —
With a second cup of black coffee. A friendly but businesslike phone call. A mailed-back package. Some extra work, but not too much — just one day’s worth, exactly.
An extra day —
Not unlike the space between a door and its frame when one room is lit and another is not, and one changes into the other as a woman exchanges a scarf.
An extra day —
Extraordinarily like any other. And still there is some generosity to it, like a letter re-readable after its writer has died.
💌
February 29 by Jane Hirshfield
remember to remember
Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It’s the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.
💓
Failing and Flying by Jack Gilbert
We are often surprised when love falls apart. It makes no sense to us—how can something so beautiful turn so ugly? But we should not be so surprised, because few of us are ready to hold love safe. Few of us are trained in the art of love. The entire world has been organized around masks and defenses. Adaptation and disguise are our specialty. But love is a different world—an unmasked, surrendered landscape that few of us have explored with any great depth. It’s easy for most of us to articulate concepts, but to hearticulate feelings is another planet altogether. We are only at the beginning of an enheartened way. We haven’t
downloaded the ways of the heart. We are learning as we crawl. Best we stop beating ourselves up when it doesn’t work out. There is so much left to learn.
💓
– Jeff Brown
excerpt from Spiritual Graffiti
photo sourcs found at http://www.pinterest.com
smoke screens
“Smoke on the Water” in Cincinnati on 12/6/15 as captured by Wayne Clause
🌀
I stand where I am
lost between worlds
the past is gone
the present space between
a foggy future
not fully workable
full of hard edges
struggling
empty air
lack of conversation
missing soft expression
draining
exhausting
my fingers clasp wispy dream clouds
of you
of love
of home
of music
my tired hopes hang on by threads
longing for what I want
a home for living full of love and happy
building a life
eating food made with love
friendship filled with
silences
conversations
passion
compassion
touch to sooth our sore places
arms to hold and be held
keep me safe
let me breathe a little easier
laugh a little
sing a lot
covering me
surrounding me with love
❤️
AL
APART OR TOGETHER
So much that was
good in her,
so much in me,
cut off now
from the future
in which we
grew together.
Now
through the window
of my new house
that hawthorn’s
crooked faithful
trunk round
an old and broken
growth,
my mouth dumb
and Dante’s voice
instead of mine
from the open book.
‘Brother, our love
has laid our wills to rest.
Making us long
only for what is ours
and by no other thirst
possessed.’
Our life not lived
together
must still
live on apart,
longing only
for what is ours
alone,
each grow round the missed branch
as best we can,
claim what is ours
separately,
though not forget
loved memories,
nor that life
still loved by memory,
nor the hurts
through which we
hesitantly
tried to learn
affection.
Our pilgrim journey
apart or together,
like the thirst
of everything
to find its true form,
the grain of the wood
round the hatched knot
still straightening
toward the light.
…
From
THE HAWTHORN
in
‘THE SEA IN YOU: Twenty Poems of Requited and Unrequited Love’
© David Whyte and Many Rivers Press
Now Available at davidwhyte.com
when will it get better?
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action: and till action, lust
Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight;
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad.
Mad in pursuit and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
🔥
– Sonnet CXXIX, William Shakespeare
I believe it is no ones intention to live as a perpetual victim.
No one ever said they wanted that as a career,
wanted to spend their valuable life having no personal power –
yet how many are there
trapped by the belief that life,
God,
some ‘other’
has taken something from them
which they should have?
they deserve(d) it
they didn’t want to lose what’s gone
(I understand that)
but now it’s gone
and they’ve been wronged
they spin in the agony of not controlling
someone,
deity,
something, anything
else.
They can’t see what they’re doing,
they can’t hear what they’re saying,
they can’t see how they’re living,
because they are sure
sure they are right,
sure they deserve to be this grand victim,
sure the very best of life,
their very happiest,
is behind them now.
They may say ‘they are not special’,
but in reality they believe they are SO special
life should only, always, give them what they want…
no matter what.
I used to try to convince them otherwise,
spend massive energy,
years invested in living with people determined not to see,
not to let go,
not to find happiness and peace.
People refusing to do the work to gain truth and freedom.
now I take it case by case,
I trust God enough to allow them to come,
allow them to go.
I do my own hard work
of letting go
of letting go
of letting go…
of loving with no expectations of return…
of finding out new insights about my own heart…
of standing in my own healing,
sight,
strength,
without being distracted by the manipulation
of people living as victims.
I remind myself (over and over) everyone has a right to live as they choose,
truth is never an argument to be won.
Then I give thanks that I chose something new for myself.
I pray for each person in the world to live with peace and joy…
I grieve my own, very personal losses,
and, eventually,
life goes on…
🌀
AL
Amidst ten thousand losses and swirling joys.
At this very instant on the sacred Earth I wait.
Come to us Beauty, Wisdom, Goodness, Peace, Solace, Grace, Counsel, Love.
See the open archway this cold night
Air, rich as gold flows.
Fine snow, glistens our faces. Each flake,
every exquisite crystal blossom is the covenant of your love
told a thousand, thousand times.
– Patricia Van Ness
Listen to Serenity Fisher sing So Far From Oh Well
life: acoustic & amplified 