I just sit and look,
Watching life go on outside,
Spectator no more.
Like these ducks I saw,
Swimming in the pool last night,
On the lam, they were.
Water all around,
Ducks don’t care if tame or wild,
Swimming’s what they do.
I want to be free,
Of my judgments, fears, wrong sight,
Not the truth, just thoughts.
Each new day I must,
See the blessings, give my thanks,
For all life to flow.
Who knows where I’ll be,
In two months, it matters not,
This day I am free.
Opening my heart,
Letting go of cords and binds,
I feel free again.
Trying hard is good,
When the work is keenly known,
And the steps are clear.
But when one is blind,
Moving here, then moving there,
Staying still can help.
List’ning to the voice,
Slowing down to hear the sounds,
That can be the key.
Once again there’s hope!
Letting all just find its way,
Recognizing joy.
I may still be fooled,
But my heart says look beyond,
All is lining up.
Sitting by the sea,
Is my joy, my deep heart’s way,
Coming home to rest.
All feels easy now,
Whether here or perhaps there,
Clarity feeds joy.
Cats or puppies too?
Hard to say as vistas loom,
Mem’ries I can’t lose.
Grateful here am I,
All the blessings now to see,
In the bright new day.
Storm and wind have passed,
Ocean still a roiling sea,
Spirit in the waves.
In the midst of storms,
I can not hear inner voice,
Guiding me to shore.
So I float and trust,
All will pass and soon one day,
I will hear again.
On this Sunday morn,
Sun peeks bright through leaden clouds,
Slowly ocean calms.
On the shore I see,
Lovely mother tall in skirt
With her tiny child.
Back and forth they dance,
To the edge of waves’ approach,
Then back to the sand.
Ah, the skirt is gone!
Now they venture past the edge,
Water up their legs.
Grandma is now there,
Crouching over baby boy,
Showing him the waves.
It is mother though,
Holding hands with girl child now,
Braving waves’ first cold.
So much happens here,
Families come and live their lives,
Stories I don’t know.
Up above I sit,
In my room close to the sea,
Loving change below.
Seagulls and their pals,
Squadrons of brown pelicans,
Catch my eye in flight.
Little did I know,
Pelicans are often white,
But just here, they’re brown.
Black or white or brown,
Colors of our lives, our clothes,
All our lights do shine.
Sometimes in the night,
I forget the sun will shine,
Bringing a fresh day.
All can seem so dark,
Hope a dream to never know,
Drowning in the waves.
Then a ray of light,
Starts to form far out to sea,
Just a glimmer then.
But it soon expands,
Flowing over sea and land,
Bringing dawn and hope.
So these cycles go,
Dark and light, spring, winter, fall,
Summer’s joy my home.
Still I welcome fall,
With its time to rest and know,
Changes are all part.
Autumn leaves do fall,
Winter brings its bleakness then,
Clarity of view.
Now we feel the spring,
New awake’nings, rebirth all,
We can breathe again.
May the lessons stay,
As with fresh eyes we do grow,
Blossoming once more.
I commit to telling the new story, despite a strong need to keep retelling the old.
I am so grateful my spirit has caught up to my body again today. I have been able to let go of doubt, worry, confusion. I embrace gratitude, helping others, seeing even my own light.
As I searched for inspiring quotes by women this morning, I met a new woman by her work, Mary Anne Radmacher. I came to find her by way of another unknown woman, Beth Buelow of The Introvert Entrepreneur.
What a gift to discover these women, writers, artists, introverts. They are each living out their own dreams and adventures, famous to some, unknown to most. I begin to listen to Beth Buelow’s final podcast from a series from 2010-2018, entitled “Endings and Beginnings.” I love Beth’s sentences about her personal evolution. She echoes my own knowing that we all are creative, creating not only expressions of art but our lives themselves.
Even as I age and evolve myself, I may express that Self in different ways. But I am always the same Self, just pivoting in different ways.
This is where having compassion for ourselves is so necessary as well as our compassion for others. No one can see inside. No one knows our true selves. By allowing ourselves to pivot and go in new directions or begin new things we discover more of who we have always been.
I arrive at my April scene by the sea, not the quiet winter refuge I know so well, but the beginnings of summer crowds. Easter crowds escape this covid year by basking in the sun, people, people everywhere, they love being free!
In the stores I’m glad to see masks are still required. I am happy to have shots. This is not about a pandemic, but about sitting quietly by myself to absorb the peace of the ocean.
Sitting here I write,
Feelings, views, what comes to me,
On this April day.
Nature must be part,
Of my haiku for my heart,
Even with these crowds.
Here I sit by sea,
Hearing all the welcome waves,
Wash up on the shore.
Things seem new to me,
How I know that each day’s good,
Knowing all is well.
Something’s changed in me,
Knowing each day might be last,
Focused on the good.
Somehow fear is gone,
In this day of giving thanks,
For just where I am.
How lovely it is,
Emily’s words to read now,
Filling me with joy.
If one tree falls there,
Not seen, but it had a life,
It can be enough.
Lighter now am I,
Not in body but in heart,
I can fly away!
Not to leave for good,
Just to migrate, to explore,
Coming back in spring.
Spring back in the hills,
Blooming trees and daffodils,
Beauty overwhelms.
This is simply joy,
Overwhelming in the heart,
Sitting in the quiet.
So the mind does drift,
From the sky to lowest earth,
It is all the same.
“They might not need me,
But they might” I take into
My soul so glad now.
My soul with open
Arms, stands ajar to see
Unexpected love.
A wounded deer and
grieving heart can leap highest,
So I’ve read today.
Emily was here,
Leaving hope for all of us,
Opening her soul.
Grateful are we for
This day, unexpected doors
Open to the sky.
Emily Dickinson Homestead
Emily Dickinson was not well known in her time, and yet she created anyway. She had to, because writing was clearly one of the biggest parts of her purpose here on earth, to communicate these words in such a unique form that they now impact our lives today.
These words and the quotes below were posted by Christie Leigh Babirad. Thank you, Christie.
In these days filled with stress about moving, not being able to control the process myself because of a bad back and constant fatigue, I come each morning seeking inspiration.
Visitor’s footfalls are like medicine, they heal the sick.
— Bantu proverb
Here’s the true secret of life. We mostly do everything over and over. . . . I love ritual and repetition. Without them, I would be a balloon with a slow leak.
— Anne Lamott in Stiches: A Handbook on Meaning, Hope and Repair
True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupery
When you no longer burn with love, others will die of the cold.
— St. Vincent de Paul
To see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.
— Georgia O’Keefe
I set my intention to stay spiritually grounded.
Within all the spiritual traditions, short and sweet wisdom abounds: from mantras and blessings to 12-step slogans and proverbs, and more. As philosopher George Santayana once said: “To be brief is almost a condition of being inspired.” In this blog, I will take up the quest for small seeds of spiritual wisdom, which can be found everywhere if we keep our eyes and ears open.
Frederic Brussat, Short & Sweet Spirituality Blog
In the end, everyone is our teacher, on one leverl or another. The child is our teacher, our friends, our family, the stranger on the street…Every thought that bubbles up in our minds can teach us things about ourselves, if we are able to listen.
— David Cooper in Silence, Simplicity and Solitude
I have written my 10-minute timed writing for the writing group. To continue a blog of the new story, I will begin collecting the inspirational quotes from any source – Bible, poetry, essays, philosopher – that mean something to me.
I want to counterbalance the focus of news on bad things, things that make their audience watch.
First, appropriately, I remember “In the beginning…” But weirdly I was thinking “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
But I didn’t remember that that sentence was the beginning of John. Hah! Never associated that with my dad, John, before. “And that was the beginning of John.”
I am so involved with looking at the lives of these ancestors that it is a challenge to both honor their lives and stories and to be here now.
Also, it feels as if I need to play in the world which is now a world of speed, social media, zoom zoom zoom! But I want mostly to sit quietly in the woods, rather in a meadow near the woods, warm, comfy, by a meandering stream.
This is Now the Day
This is now the day? The day for what? I wake up, make coffee, read the ghastly news about women fighting each other in a Bed and Bath place, new vaccines but how will I get another Moderna? In this moment, the beginning of this now, all feels heavy, impossible, just not the loving, kind Nirvana I want to live in.
Ok. I understand that is not realistic, although growing up in a church with people, at least surfacy, trying to be kind and compassionate, I do think it’s possible to try to live in a loving way. I was going to say “Christian,” but then of course I find it hard to let go of all those people in Christian guises who say I don’t have rights, I am not equal. What would it have been to grow up Black or Asian or anything other than WASP? I can see that every moment I would have been opened to criticism, hate, ridicule, despicable actions by white people who are afraid of something.
Our differences can be such a beautiful thing, yet the “majority” feels threatened by whatever minority is around. It would happen to girls in an all-white school who would judge others by whatever criteria felt comfortable.
This is all just useless blather to me. The reality is that I need to focus each day on being the kind, compassionate person in the world I want to see. To do that I need to breathe deeply, let go of anger and my own fears, listen to inspiring things, begin the Now of Today rejoicing that I am still alive along with so many I love.
No wonder the Bible is one of the most read books in history. We all need to read inspirational things, whether from Buddhist texts or the Koran or the Bible – wherever we read the truth of the Golden Rule: love each other as you would like to be loved.
Ahhh. I breathe even as I write. All is not lost. There are psalms and parables and beautiful poetry and words of beauty and images of truth and beauty that can uplift just by reading them. Ahh, I breathe again. This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be thankful! I lift up mine eyes to the hills. From whence cometh my help? My help cometh from the Lord who made heaven and earth.
A quote attributed to Emerson
For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.
Gerry Jampolsky’s words that
Love is letting go of fear.
Light and Dark: Riding the Waves 