Category: Main blog

A Brave And Startling Truth 

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet 
Traveling through casual space 
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns 
To a destination where all signs tell us 
It is possible and imperative that we learn 
A brave and startling truth 
And when we come to it 
To the day of peacemaking 
When we release our fingers 
From fists of hostility 
And allow the pure air to cool our palms 

***
We, this people, on this small and drifting planet 
Whose hands can strike with such abandon 
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living 
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness 
That the haughty neck is happy to bow 
And the proud back is glad to bend 
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction 
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines 

When we come to it 
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body 
Created on this earth, of this earth 
Have the power to fashion for this earth 
A climate where every man and every woman 
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety 
Without crippling fear 

When we come to it 
We must confess that we are the possible 
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world 
That is when, and only when 
We come to it.

~ Maya Angelou ~   (A Brave and Startling Truth)

This is a meditation created by and for children, but it is a sweet meditation that can be done easily and by anyone. Highly recommended.

Here’s a YouTube of a teacher reading about this meditation:

From our dear Jamal Rachman

Starlings in Winter 

Chunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly they are acrobats

in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings, dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star

that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented, then closes again;
and you watch
and you try

but you simply can’t imagine how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life. 

Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,
even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it; 

I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard.  I want 

to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings. 

~ Mary Oliver ~ 

(Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays)

In this article Maria Popova looks at Pema Chodron’s book “When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times.”

As we all work through our difficult times, these treasures are a wonderful reminder. Some quotes to whet your appetite:

“Fear is a universal experience. Even the smallest insect feels it. We wade in the tidal pools and put our finger near the soft, open bodies of sea anemones and they close up. Everything spontaneously does that. It’s not a terrible thing that we feel fear when faced with the unknown. It is part of being alive, something we all share. We react against the possibility of loneliness, of death, of not having anything to hold on to. Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.

“If we commit ourselves to staying right where we are, then our experience becomes very vivid. Things become very clear when there is nowhere to escape.”

“To stay with that shakiness — to stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feeling of hopelessness and wanting to get revenge — that is the path of true awakening. Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic — this is the spiritual path.”

“Hopelessness is the basic ground. Otherwise, we’re going to make the journey with the hope of getting security… Begin the journey without hope of getting ground under your feet. Begin with hopelessness.”

Check out the full article:

https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/07/17/when-things-fall-apart-pema-chodron/?mc_cid=ba0cc5f88d&mc_eid=aba969cd81

Kindness

Naomi Shihab Nye, 1952

 Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

Today I want to share poetry from two of my favorites: the recently transitioned and missed, Mary Oliver, and the inimitable David Whyte as important reminders of the precious beauty of our world and our lives:

The Deer

You never know.
The body of night opens
like a river, it drifts upward like white smoke,

like so many wrappings of mist.
And on the hillside two dear are walking along
just as though this wasn’t

the owned, tilled earth of today
but the past.
I did not see them the next day, or the next,

but in my mind’s eye –
there they are, in the long grass,
like two sisters.

This is the earnest work.  Each of us is given
only so many mornings to do it –
to look around and love

the oily fur of our lives,
the hoof and the grass-stained muzzle.
Days I don’t do this

I feel the terror of idleness,
like a red thirst.
Death isn’t just an idea.

When we die the body breaks open
like a river;
the old body goes on, climbing the hill.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(House of Light)

The Journey

Above the mountains
the geese turn into
the light again

Painting their
black silhouettes
on an open sky.

Sometimes everything
has to be
enscribed across
the heavens

so you can find
the one line
already written
inside you.

Sometimes it takes
a great sky
to find that

small, bright
and indescribable
wedge of freedom
in your own heart.

Sometimes with
the bones of the black
sticks left when the fire
has gone out

someone has written
something new
in the ashes of your life.

You are not leaving
you are arriving.

~ David Whyte ~

(House of Belonging)

Dear friends,

As I’ve mentioned before – our choir, the Seattle Peace Chorus is heading to the Southwest tomorrow to share the beauty of music with our friends who are working with immigrants and with the immigrants themselves.

We will also be assisting with some of the work while we are down there – and we are donating money that we have raised through the following gofundme page to two of the non-profits that are doing such important work on the border.

Please hold us in your prayers and thoughts.

Again, with the travel and work we’ll be doing, these blog postings may come less often – but I hold you all in my heart and meditations.

If you’d like to help out financially, your donation would be deeply appreciated:

https://www.gofundme.com/spc-music-crosses-borders-tour

When Death Comes 

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse 

to buy me, and snaps his purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox; 

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades, 

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering;
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness? 

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility, 

and I think of each life as a flower, as common 
as a field daisy, and as singular, 

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence, 

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth. 

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. 

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened
or full of argument. 

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

~ Mary Oliver ~ 

(New and Selected Poems, Volume I)