Thursday, December 30, 2010
slow motion test
slow motion test
Originally uploaded by cypherone - Taiwan
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
"this is your hand"-Separateness...Creativity...Growth
"You Begin" ,by Margaret Atwood
You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye.
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.
Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only
the colors of these nine crayons.
This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn than I have said.
You are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange: the world burns.
Once you have learned these words
you will learn that there are more
words than you can ever learn.
The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
your hand to this table,
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.
This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,
which is round but not flat and has more colors
than we can see.
It begins, it has an end,
this is what you will
come back to, this is your hand.
I am thinking about beginnings, starting afresh,clearing the slate. This has been a rough few days as I think of moving away. I feel I am riding the harsh ,crashing,unrelenting waves of a tsunami.They are however waves and waves by nature and design undulate and contain a rhythmic periodicity, which allows one to gasp for a deep breath to prepare for the next submergence amidst the roaring oceanic forces. I am remembering when I weaned my now adult daughter from nursing amidst her toddlerhood. It was a process of unentangling of a web that entwined the blurry boundaries of mother and child. It was not the easiest of processes for me or my child. There was the constant urge to regress to old patterns of entanglement that prevented individual growth. I remember that I cut open a big brown paper bag and drew a calendar of 30 days where I mapped out the sequence of the gradually letting go,lessening, deleting the frequency of nursing. I remember the pain of the "let down " response that I needed to sit still with and accept.The beginning was a great struggle. I remember showing my daughter how the days were marked, that this was what our plan was and it became a game of sorts with time, a ritual, a pact we had come to become proud of that each of us in our own right was emerging into a new person hood. The distance that grew between us in that month gave me as mother and she as daughter an authentic arena to play,to breathe , to dance,to respect that we are unique and separate and in that separate space real growth and creativity has the possibility to emerge. So these days, I am reminded that growth only occurs in the context of appreciating our separateness and that is the only way it can be and allow it to be,to unfold as the alternative is stagnation, the opposite of living ang growth. I feel the faintest tinge of the let down response again. It is never easy or graceful, it is the painstaking but elegant flow of allowing life to unfold .
You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye.
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.
Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only
the colors of these nine crayons.
This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn than I have said.
You are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange: the world burns.
Once you have learned these words
you will learn that there are more
words than you can ever learn.
The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
your hand to this table,
your hand is a warm stone
I hold between two words.
This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,
which is round but not flat and has more colors
than we can see.
It begins, it has an end,
this is what you will
come back to, this is your hand.
I am thinking about beginnings, starting afresh,clearing the slate. This has been a rough few days as I think of moving away. I feel I am riding the harsh ,crashing,unrelenting waves of a tsunami.They are however waves and waves by nature and design undulate and contain a rhythmic periodicity, which allows one to gasp for a deep breath to prepare for the next submergence amidst the roaring oceanic forces. I am remembering when I weaned my now adult daughter from nursing amidst her toddlerhood. It was a process of unentangling of a web that entwined the blurry boundaries of mother and child. It was not the easiest of processes for me or my child. There was the constant urge to regress to old patterns of entanglement that prevented individual growth. I remember that I cut open a big brown paper bag and drew a calendar of 30 days where I mapped out the sequence of the gradually letting go,lessening, deleting the frequency of nursing. I remember the pain of the "let down " response that I needed to sit still with and accept.The beginning was a great struggle. I remember showing my daughter how the days were marked, that this was what our plan was and it became a game of sorts with time, a ritual, a pact we had come to become proud of that each of us in our own right was emerging into a new person hood. The distance that grew between us in that month gave me as mother and she as daughter an authentic arena to play,to breathe , to dance,to respect that we are unique and separate and in that separate space real growth and creativity has the possibility to emerge. So these days, I am reminded that growth only occurs in the context of appreciating our separateness and that is the only way it can be and allow it to be,to unfold as the alternative is stagnation, the opposite of living ang growth. I feel the faintest tinge of the let down response again. It is never easy or graceful, it is the painstaking but elegant flow of allowing life to unfold .
"comfort to overflowing"
again from the Writer's Almanac
A Short Testament
by Anne Porter
Whatever harm I may have done
In all my life in all your wide creation
If I cannot repair it
I beg you to repair it,
And then there are all the wounded
The poor the deaf the lonely and the old
Whom I have roughly dismissed
As if I were not one of them.
Where I have wronged them by it
And cannot make amends
I ask you
To comfort them to overflowing,
And where there are lives I may have withered around me,
Or lives of strangers far or near
That I've destroyed in blind complicity,
And if I cannot find them
Or have no way to serve them,
Remember them. I beg you to remember them
When winter is over
And all your unimaginable promises
Burst into song on death's bare branches.
"A Short Testament" by Anne Porter, from Living Things. © Zoland Books. Reprinted with permission
I like this one,
"if I have wronged ,Repair,comfort to overflowing"
In my world, that is in the domain,the duty of all humankind,it is not godly....but humanly mundane, what needs to be,what can be,what is....
A Short Testament
by Anne Porter
Whatever harm I may have done
In all my life in all your wide creation
If I cannot repair it
I beg you to repair it,
And then there are all the wounded
The poor the deaf the lonely and the old
Whom I have roughly dismissed
As if I were not one of them.
Where I have wronged them by it
And cannot make amends
I ask you
To comfort them to overflowing,
And where there are lives I may have withered around me,
Or lives of strangers far or near
That I've destroyed in blind complicity,
And if I cannot find them
Or have no way to serve them,
Remember them. I beg you to remember them
When winter is over
And all your unimaginable promises
Burst into song on death's bare branches.
"A Short Testament" by Anne Porter, from Living Things. © Zoland Books. Reprinted with permission
I like this one,
"if I have wronged ,Repair,comfort to overflowing"
In my world, that is in the domain,the duty of all humankind,it is not godly....but humanly mundane, what needs to be,what can be,what is....
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
the "unfurling of one's DNA"....change
How much experience needs to be , in what way for change
to occur
what is the difference between change and transformation.
what sensory modalities are necessary for change to occur,
can or is change enduring,
is transformation a disappointment
as often the hard painful work that changes us evades us in transformation.
caterpillars notoriously transform to butterflies,babies to children, children to adults
,is that change.
does change really mean"work" sweat blood scars tears pain.
Do tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, births, deaths, illness, recovery
Does love change us or transform us
Is it not the the time that glacials move in
That the steel gates of our dna slowly crack open
that painstaking unwinding and unfurling occurs
that leads to be breathing land creatures that walk the earth, give birth a child that has nested in our womb,
suckled at our breast
How do we change
It is evident why we must change
Can we change
For. the. better.
to occur
what is the difference between change and transformation.
what sensory modalities are necessary for change to occur,
can or is change enduring,
is transformation a disappointment
as often the hard painful work that changes us evades us in transformation.
caterpillars notoriously transform to butterflies,babies to children, children to adults
,is that change.
does change really mean"work" sweat blood scars tears pain.
Do tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, births, deaths, illness, recovery
Does love change us or transform us
Is it not the the time that glacials move in
That the steel gates of our dna slowly crack open
that painstaking unwinding and unfurling occurs
that leads to be breathing land creatures that walk the earth, give birth a child that has nested in our womb,
suckled at our breast
How do we change
It is evident why we must change
Can we change
For. the. better.
Monday, December 27, 2010
"ubuntu"
Words today from author,poet Chris Abani, from my inbox from the Writer's Almanac
Today the sun has reappeared in the very blue skies above, Such a good day.
to find ,see,discover,be "ubuntu"
he says that he does not at all believe in “the role of the poet as polemic educator.” He said, “If writers and poets have any role, it is this one: to not limit in any way the ability of their imagination to engage the world.” He said the difficulty he faces is how to “balance narratives that are wonderful with narratives of wounds and self-loathing . . . to balance the idea of our complete vulnerability with the complete notion of transformation or what is possible.”
Chris Abani said, “What I've come to learn is that the world is never saved in grand messianic gestures, but in the simple accumulation of gentle, soft, almost invisible acts of compassion, everyday acts of compassion. In South Africa they have a phrase called ubuntu. Ubuntu comes out of a philosophy that says, the only way for me to be human is for you to reflect my humanity back at me.”
Oh. the pic, I was at the Shedd Aquarium with a friend this weekend,we watched the Baby Beluga swim with its mom. My friend
has taught me much ....... "ubuntu"
And he said, "You know, you can steel your heart against any kind of trouble, any kind of horror. But the simple act of kindness from a complete stranger will unstitch you."
"unstiched' is about as good as it can get
"REFLECT" my humanity to you and yours to me....
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Sublime....Good Will to All Men
Christmas Bells
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men."
As I awoke this morning, I was aware that today being Christmas, the pace has slowed, the world seems so quiet, that the possibility of quiet can exist on this planet at least sometimes.I was thinking about a favorite topic of mine, "goodness".Sometimes we desperately want to do something very good, for ourselves, for others that is good, meaningful, sublime. Sometimes despite our best efforts that is not enough to change the course of human suffering. I think.... that is where "good will " steps up to the plate. Sometimes the knowing that we are wished well from the bottom of one's heart in transformational. So on this quiet Christmas day, I wish all inhabitants of this planet a wish of sweet sublime good will.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Music ....within on a winter's eve
Bach captures the essence of the churnings of our souls, the Winter Solstice today is a time to look inward and listen to the music that lies within...
Monday, December 20, 2010
Lifting of the darkness....
Winter-Worship
by Charles Wright
Mother of Darkness, Our Lady,
Suffer our supplications,
our hurts come unto you.
Hear us from absence your dwelling place,
Whose ear we plead for.
End us our outstay.
Where darkness is light, what can the dark be,
whose eye is single,
Whose body is filled with splendor
In winter,
inside the snowflake, inside the crystal of ice
Hung like Jerusalem from the tree.
January, rain-wind and sleet-wind,
Snow pimpled and pock-marked,
half slush-hearted, half brocade
Under your noon-dimmed day watch,
Whose alcove we harbor in,
whose waters are beaded and cold.
A journey's a fragment of Hell,
one inch or a thousand miles.
Darken our disbelief, dog our steps.
Inset our eyesight,
Radiance, loom and sting,
whose ashes rise from the flames.
"Winter-Worship" by Charles Wright, from Negative Blue: Selected Later Poems © Macmillan, 2001. Reprinted with permission
Yesterday, as I was driving in car on a midwinter sunday afternoon, i was struck by a feeling of cold darkness. I realized it had already been dark for almost three hours, that the moon had begun to appear in the sky around 3pm.to me, it felt like midnight, that the winter night had this luminous ,expansive, never endingdness.for some reason,not yet revealed to me the darkness of winter as it looms upon us earlier and earlier afore the approaching equinox is densely palpable to me this year ,more than any other that I remember. I searched for words to express something coherent of this troubling desolate sentiment and then this poem appeared this morning. sometimes a voice that gives words to our deepest thoughts ,a kindred spirit can begin to lift the darkness....
by Charles Wright
Mother of Darkness, Our Lady,
Suffer our supplications,
our hurts come unto you.
Hear us from absence your dwelling place,
Whose ear we plead for.
End us our outstay.
Where darkness is light, what can the dark be,
whose eye is single,
Whose body is filled with splendor
In winter,
inside the snowflake, inside the crystal of ice
Hung like Jerusalem from the tree.
January, rain-wind and sleet-wind,
Snow pimpled and pock-marked,
half slush-hearted, half brocade
Under your noon-dimmed day watch,
Whose alcove we harbor in,
whose waters are beaded and cold.
A journey's a fragment of Hell,
one inch or a thousand miles.
Darken our disbelief, dog our steps.
Inset our eyesight,
Radiance, loom and sting,
whose ashes rise from the flames.
"Winter-Worship" by Charles Wright, from Negative Blue: Selected Later Poems © Macmillan, 2001. Reprinted with permission
Yesterday, as I was driving in car on a midwinter sunday afternoon, i was struck by a feeling of cold darkness. I realized it had already been dark for almost three hours, that the moon had begun to appear in the sky around 3pm.to me, it felt like midnight, that the winter night had this luminous ,expansive, never endingdness.for some reason,not yet revealed to me the darkness of winter as it looms upon us earlier and earlier afore the approaching equinox is densely palpable to me this year ,more than any other that I remember. I searched for words to express something coherent of this troubling desolate sentiment and then this poem appeared this morning. sometimes a voice that gives words to our deepest thoughts ,a kindred spirit can begin to lift the darkness....
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Today is Marie Rainer Rilke's Birthday...his 9th Elegy
The Ninth Elegy
Rainer Maria Rilke
Why, if this interval of being can be spent serenely
in the form of a laurel, slightly darker than all
other green, with tiny waves on the edges
of every leaf (like the smile of a breeze)–: why then
have to be human–and, escaping from fate,
keep longing for fate? . . .
Oh not because happiness exists,
that too-hasty profit snatched from approaching loss.
Not out of curiosity, not as practice for the heart, which
would exist in the laurel too. . . . .
But because truly being here is so much; because everything here
apparently needs us, this fleeting world, which in some strange way
keeps calling to us. Us, the most fleeting of all.
Once for each thing. Just once; no more. And we too,
just once. And never again. But to have been
this once, completely, even if only once:
to have been one with the earth, seems beyond undoing.
And so we keep pressing on, trying to achieve it,
trying to hold it firmly in our simple hands,
in our overcrowded gaze, in our speechless heart.
Trying to become it.–Whom can we give it to? We would
hold on to it all, forever . . . Ah, but what can we take along
into that other realm? Not the art of looking,
which is learned so slowly, and nothing that happened here. Nothing.
The sufferings, then. And above all, the heaviness,
and the long experience of love,– just what is wholly
unsayable. But later, among the stars,
what good is it–they are better as they are: unsayable.
For when the traveler returns from the mountain-slopes into the valley,
he bings, not a handful of earth, unsayable to others, but instead
some word he has gained, some pure word, the yellow and blue
gentian. Perhaps we are here in order to say: house,
bridge, fountain, gate, pitcher, fruit-tree, window–
at most: column, tower. . . . But to say them, you must understand,
oh to say them more intensely than the Things themselves
ever dreamed of existing. Isn’t the secret intent
of this taciturn earth, when it forces lovers together,
that inside their boundless emotion all things may shudder with joy?
Threshold: what it means for two lovers
to be wearing down, imperceptibly, the ancient threshold of their door–
they too, after the many who came before them
and before those to come. . . . ., lightly.
Here is the time for the sayable, here is its homeland.
Speak and bear witness. More than ever
the Things that we might experience are vanishing, for
what crowds them out and replaces them is an imageless act.
An act under a shell, which easily cracks open as soon as
the business inside outgrows it and seeks new limits.
Between the hammers our heart
endures, just as the tongue does
between the teeth and, despite that,
still is able to praise.
Praise this world to the angel, not the unsayable one,
you can’t impress him with glorious emotion; in the universe
where he feels more powerfully, you are a novice. So show him
something simple which, formed over generations,
lives as our own, near our hand and within our gaze.
Tell him of Things. He will stand astonished; as you stood
by the ropemaker in Rome or the potter along the Nile.
Show him how happy a Thing can be, how innocent and ours,
how even lamenting grief purely decides to take form,
serves as a Thing, or dies into a Thing–, and blissfully
escapes far beyond the violin.–And these Things,
which live by perishing, know you are praising them; transient,
they look to us for deliverance: us, the most transient of all.
They want us to change them, utterly, in our invisible heart,
within–oh endlessly–within us! Whoever we may be at last.
Earth, isn’t this what you want: to arise within us,
invisible? Isn’t it your dream
to be wholly invisible someday?–O Earth: invisible!
What, if not transformation, is your urgent command?
Earth, my dearest, I will. Oh believe me, you no longer
need your springtimes to win me over–one of them,
ah, even one, is already too much for my blood.
Unspeakably I have belonged to you, from the first.
You were always right, and your holiest inspiration
is our intimate companion, Death.
Look, I am living. On what? Neither childhood nor future
grows any smaller . . . . . Superabundant being
wells up in my heart.
translated by Stephen Mitchell
"If we surrendered to earth's intelligence we could rise up rooted, like trees. "
— Rainer Maria Rilke (Rainer Maria Rilke's Book of Hours: A Complete New Translation with Commentary)
tags: environment, nature 34 people liked it
Rainer Maria Rilke
Why, if this interval of being can be spent serenely
in the form of a laurel, slightly darker than all
other green, with tiny waves on the edges
of every leaf (like the smile of a breeze)–: why then
have to be human–and, escaping from fate,
keep longing for fate? . . .
Oh not because happiness exists,
that too-hasty profit snatched from approaching loss.
Not out of curiosity, not as practice for the heart, which
would exist in the laurel too. . . . .
But because truly being here is so much; because everything here
apparently needs us, this fleeting world, which in some strange way
keeps calling to us. Us, the most fleeting of all.
Once for each thing. Just once; no more. And we too,
just once. And never again. But to have been
this once, completely, even if only once:
to have been one with the earth, seems beyond undoing.
And so we keep pressing on, trying to achieve it,
trying to hold it firmly in our simple hands,
in our overcrowded gaze, in our speechless heart.
Trying to become it.–Whom can we give it to? We would
hold on to it all, forever . . . Ah, but what can we take along
into that other realm? Not the art of looking,
which is learned so slowly, and nothing that happened here. Nothing.
The sufferings, then. And above all, the heaviness,
and the long experience of love,– just what is wholly
unsayable. But later, among the stars,
what good is it–they are better as they are: unsayable.
For when the traveler returns from the mountain-slopes into the valley,
he bings, not a handful of earth, unsayable to others, but instead
some word he has gained, some pure word, the yellow and blue
gentian. Perhaps we are here in order to say: house,
bridge, fountain, gate, pitcher, fruit-tree, window–
at most: column, tower. . . . But to say them, you must understand,
oh to say them more intensely than the Things themselves
ever dreamed of existing. Isn’t the secret intent
of this taciturn earth, when it forces lovers together,
that inside their boundless emotion all things may shudder with joy?
Threshold: what it means for two lovers
to be wearing down, imperceptibly, the ancient threshold of their door–
they too, after the many who came before them
and before those to come. . . . ., lightly.
Here is the time for the sayable, here is its homeland.
Speak and bear witness. More than ever
the Things that we might experience are vanishing, for
what crowds them out and replaces them is an imageless act.
An act under a shell, which easily cracks open as soon as
the business inside outgrows it and seeks new limits.
Between the hammers our heart
endures, just as the tongue does
between the teeth and, despite that,
still is able to praise.
Praise this world to the angel, not the unsayable one,
you can’t impress him with glorious emotion; in the universe
where he feels more powerfully, you are a novice. So show him
something simple which, formed over generations,
lives as our own, near our hand and within our gaze.
Tell him of Things. He will stand astonished; as you stood
by the ropemaker in Rome or the potter along the Nile.
Show him how happy a Thing can be, how innocent and ours,
how even lamenting grief purely decides to take form,
serves as a Thing, or dies into a Thing–, and blissfully
escapes far beyond the violin.–And these Things,
which live by perishing, know you are praising them; transient,
they look to us for deliverance: us, the most transient of all.
They want us to change them, utterly, in our invisible heart,
within–oh endlessly–within us! Whoever we may be at last.
Earth, isn’t this what you want: to arise within us,
invisible? Isn’t it your dream
to be wholly invisible someday?–O Earth: invisible!
What, if not transformation, is your urgent command?
Earth, my dearest, I will. Oh believe me, you no longer
need your springtimes to win me over–one of them,
ah, even one, is already too much for my blood.
Unspeakably I have belonged to you, from the first.
You were always right, and your holiest inspiration
is our intimate companion, Death.
Look, I am living. On what? Neither childhood nor future
grows any smaller . . . . . Superabundant being
wells up in my heart.
translated by Stephen Mitchell
"If we surrendered to earth's intelligence we could rise up rooted, like trees. "
— Rainer Maria Rilke (Rainer Maria Rilke's Book of Hours: A Complete New Translation with Commentary)
tags: environment, nature 34 people liked it
Teaching independence to a whale calf in its first breath
Today on the the radio on npr on the "third coast audio" festival they were playing old audio pieces from the early days of npr.One of the pieces which touched me was by Keith Talbot called "Ocean Hour". It is a musing of memories, sounds,feelings evoked by the ocean. The piece included a small excerpt of the work of Dr. Marie Poland Fish who worked as an oceanographer collecting audio pieces of the marine life of our oceans.This was done as part of a government project in the context of differentiating between the sound of submarines and marine life sounds.The sound that I heard today was heart wrenching. It was the sound of a mother whale screeching, wailing,rumbling in search of her lost whale calf. I found the piece haunting and searched for it online to share on my blog. I could not find it, so I will share the link here.
http://www.thirdcoastfestival.org/library/89-ocean-hour
What I found instead was the you tube of a mother whale teaching her newborn calf the beginnings of independence in its first moments of life. One can see in the video that the mother whale stays very lose and gently nudges her calf up to the surface where the calf can open its spout and take in its first breath. Each time the mother whale gives the calf a little more space,a little less nudging until the calf freely and spontaneously with exuberance swims up on its own and flips around in space moving freely in space on its own. This graceful act of gently and patiently teaching her calf self reliance brought tears of joy to my eyes.It is so profound,simple yet auspicious to facilitate the growth,wonder and self discovery for any other being.It is joy in its essence!
Friday, December 3, 2010
Mermaids must return to the.....sea
Lyrics: English Translation:
Is cosúil gur mheath tú nó gur thréig tú an greann It seems that you have faded away and abandoned the love of life
Tá an sneachta go freasach fá bhéal na mbeann' The snow is spread about at the mouth of the point
Do chúl buà daite 's do bhéilÃn sámh Your yellow flowing hair and little gentle mouth
Siúd chugaibh Mary Chinidh is à ndiaidh an Éirne shnámh We give you Mary Chinidh to swim forever in the Erne
"A mháithrÃn mhilis" duirt Máire bhán "My dear mother," said blonde Mary
Fá bhruach an chladaigh 's fá bhéal na trá By the edge of the shore and the mouth of the sea
"Maighdean mhara mo mháithrÃn ard" "My noble mother is a mermaid"
Siúd chugaibh Mary Chinidh is à ndiaidh an Éirne shnámh We give you Mary Chinidh to swim forever in the Erne
Tá mise tuirseach agus beidh go lá I am tired and will be forever
Mo Mháire bhruinneall 's mo Phádraig bán My fair Mary and my blond Patrick
Ar bharr na dtonnta 's fá bhéal na trá On top of the waves and by the mouth of the sea
Siúd chugaibh Mary Chinidh is à ndiaidh an Éirne shnámh We give you Mary Chinidh to swim forever in the Erne
Lullabye for a cold winter eve
Artist: Kate Rusby
Title: Who Will Sing Me Lullabies?
Lay me down gently, lay me down low,
I fear I am broken and won't mend, I know.
One thing I ask when the stars light the skies,
Who now will sing me lullabies,
Oh who now will sing me lullabies.
In this big world I'm lonely, for I am but small,
Oh angels in heaven, don't you care for me at all?
You heard my heart breaking for it rang through the skies,
So why don't you sing me lullabies,
Oh why don't you sing me lullabies.
I lay here; I'm weeping for the stars they have come,
I lay here not sleeping; now the long night has begun.
The man in the moon, oh he can't help but cry,
For there's no one to sing me lullabies,
Oh there's no one to sing me lullabies.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Does Compassion start in the viscera before it enters the Soul
This weekend I had the good fortune of doing as ashtanga workshop with the senior ashtanga teacher Richard Freeman from Boulder,Colorado. I had previously studied with Richard in various ashtanga trainings of his, but this time it felt like what he was imparting upon me gently fell inside of me to a place of understanding and knowing that I could not explain very well in words. I will do my best at explaining to you that which really does not have words to explain.
Of late, I have been puzzled personally by the meaning of the word "compassion" and what does it really mean to live one's life by doing acts of compassion at times when feel burdened,annoyed or even with disdainful,discompassionate feelings towards other human beings. At times, lately I have felt annoyed by the cavalier usage of the word that seems to appear everywhere these days. I was thinking about my yoga practice and whether it had anything a all to do with putting compassion into action in the world and I am I only deluding myself and participating in a form of narcissism and calisthenics looking down at my own navel.
This weekend, I had a startling realization as I closely listened to what Richard was trying to teach us. Richard talked at one point about the ashtanga practice really being "just pranayama". I was amused at hearing the word "just" next to pranayama, as I experience the practice of pranayama to be so infinitely complex ,yet so simple.Richard explained how the breath moving up through the soft palate creates the opening and closing of the uvula in such a way that one is almost saying "Aaahhh" and how this visceral sensation drops through the body through the psoas muscle eventually and down into the mula bhanda. He talked of this dropping sensation, this feeling of relief, leading to a feeling of suspension of thought. Richard explained that in this position of the palate, it is not really possible to speak. I thought about how speech and words are linked directly to memory and thoughts and without the spontaneous retrieval of words ,thoughts blur,and thus we have less judgements available in such a state of being.. Richard talked about the sensation of this dropping in the palate down into the pelvic floor to be similar to laughing, the aaahhh feeling when something in nature is so majestic we are stunned, with no words,where we are in a state of extreme listening and attention, but at the same time not really thinking. He then talked about this is the state from which compassion arises for ourselves, for all sentient beings.
I thought for a minute of how I have felt micro moments of this sensation during an asana practice where my body felt like the breath had dropped down releasing my muscles into this relaxed state of equanimity, forgiveness in some strange way for myself. The feeling is fleeting, ineffable, uncontainable. I asked Richard, if it is possible for me to have these brief moments of such exquisite compassion, how can I carry this with me into the moment by moment yoga of my life where compassion really matters when I am challenged by anger, hostility,fear, ignorance, judgement. impatience and intolerance. Richard explained that the feeling of that letting go , of neutrality , of coming down is present and contained in our breath as it traverses the palate to the mula and is always accessible if we listen to ourselves first, our own breath/It is possible from that neutral position within to see more clearly that in me is everything I fear or dislike or love or admire in any other person, and in the other, there is all of me that I may care not to see, that in the absence of gripping in visceral space I can experience the rich and complex fabric of our sameness and humanness and from that position of calm,letting go the imagined perception of myself and others dissolves in the present moment as it is becomes unavailable ,unobscured , without the mirage of memory, preconceived notions and judgement. It starts with a soft smile in the palate ,with movement through the muscles of the soft palate to a profound space of softness within where compassion can and does exist.I am more aware now that ancient practices described in the yoga sutras and other ancient texts of other cultures were created by human beings like me and you trying to find instruction and guidance to live more harmoniously with ourselves and in our interactions with others. I do believe that yoga is one of the many practices, if practiced diligently and sincerely that can allow us to consider a life filled with greater compassion and joy in its truest form. Thank you, Richard Freeman for helping to come closer to this understanding.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Are We not ,all of us....Baby Tortoises...."not yet awake"
Baby Tortoise
by D. H. Lawrence
You know what it is to be born alone,
Baby tortoise!
The first day to heave your feet little by little from
the shell,
Not yet awake,
And remain lapsed on earth,
Not quite alive.
A tiny, fragile, half-animate bean.
To open your tiny beak-mouth, that looks as if it would
never open
Like some iron door;
To lift the upper hawk-beak from the lower base
And reach your skinny neck
And take your first bite at some dim bit of herbage,
Alone, small insect,
Tiny bright-eye,
Slow one.
To take your first solitary bite
And move on your slow, solitary hunt.
Your bright, dark little eye,
Your eye of a dark disturbed night,
Under its slow lid, tiny baby tortoise,
So indomitable.
No one ever heard you complain.
You draw your head forward, slowly, from your little
wimple
And set forward, slow-dragging, on your four-pinned toes,
Rowing slowly forward.
Wither away, small bird?
Rather like a baby working its limbs,
Except that you make slow, ageless progress
And a baby makes none.
The touch of sun excites you,
And the long ages, and the lingering chill
Make you pause to yawn,
Opening your impervious mouth,
Suddenly beak-shaped, and very wide, like some suddenly
gaping pincers;
Soft red tongue, and hard thin gums,
Then close the wedge of your little mountain front,
Your face, baby tortoise.
Do you wonder at the world, as slowly you turn your head
in its wimple
And look with laconic, black eyes?
Or is sleep coming over you again,
The non-life?
You are so hard to wake.
Are you able to wonder?
Or is it just your indomitable will and pride of the
first life
Looking round
And slowly pitching itself against the inertia
Which had seemed invincible?
The vast inanimate,
And the fine brilliance of your so tiny eye,
Challenger.
Nay, tiny shell-bird.
What a huge vast inanimate it is, that you must row
against,
What an incalculable inertia.
Challenger,
Little Ulysses, fore-runner,
No bigger than my thumb-nail,
Buon viaggio.
All animate creation on your shoulder,
Set forth, little Titan, under your battle-shield.
The ponderous, preponderate,
Inanimate universe;
And you are slowly moving, pioneer, you alone.
How vivid your travelling seems now, in the troubled
sunshine,
Stoic, Ulyssean atom;
Suddenly hasty, reckless, on high toes.
Voiceless little bird,
Resting your head half out of your wimple
In the slow dignity of your eternal pause.
Alone, with no sense of being alone,
And hence six times more solitary;
Fulfilled of the slow passion of pitching through
immemorial ages
Your little round house in the midst of chaos.
Over the garden earth,
Small bird,
Over the edge of all things.
Traveller,
With your tail tucked a little on one side
Like a gentleman in a long-skirted coat.
All life carried on your shoulder,
Invincible fore-runner.
"Are we able to wonder" despite,being"over the edge of all things" and with "all life carried on your shoulder"
by D. H. Lawrence
You know what it is to be born alone,
Baby tortoise!
The first day to heave your feet little by little from
the shell,
Not yet awake,
And remain lapsed on earth,
Not quite alive.
A tiny, fragile, half-animate bean.
To open your tiny beak-mouth, that looks as if it would
never open
Like some iron door;
To lift the upper hawk-beak from the lower base
And reach your skinny neck
And take your first bite at some dim bit of herbage,
Alone, small insect,
Tiny bright-eye,
Slow one.
To take your first solitary bite
And move on your slow, solitary hunt.
Your bright, dark little eye,
Your eye of a dark disturbed night,
Under its slow lid, tiny baby tortoise,
So indomitable.
No one ever heard you complain.
You draw your head forward, slowly, from your little
wimple
And set forward, slow-dragging, on your four-pinned toes,
Rowing slowly forward.
Wither away, small bird?
Rather like a baby working its limbs,
Except that you make slow, ageless progress
And a baby makes none.
The touch of sun excites you,
And the long ages, and the lingering chill
Make you pause to yawn,
Opening your impervious mouth,
Suddenly beak-shaped, and very wide, like some suddenly
gaping pincers;
Soft red tongue, and hard thin gums,
Then close the wedge of your little mountain front,
Your face, baby tortoise.
Do you wonder at the world, as slowly you turn your head
in its wimple
And look with laconic, black eyes?
Or is sleep coming over you again,
The non-life?
You are so hard to wake.
Are you able to wonder?
Or is it just your indomitable will and pride of the
first life
Looking round
And slowly pitching itself against the inertia
Which had seemed invincible?
The vast inanimate,
And the fine brilliance of your so tiny eye,
Challenger.
Nay, tiny shell-bird.
What a huge vast inanimate it is, that you must row
against,
What an incalculable inertia.
Challenger,
Little Ulysses, fore-runner,
No bigger than my thumb-nail,
Buon viaggio.
All animate creation on your shoulder,
Set forth, little Titan, under your battle-shield.
The ponderous, preponderate,
Inanimate universe;
And you are slowly moving, pioneer, you alone.
How vivid your travelling seems now, in the troubled
sunshine,
Stoic, Ulyssean atom;
Suddenly hasty, reckless, on high toes.
Voiceless little bird,
Resting your head half out of your wimple
In the slow dignity of your eternal pause.
Alone, with no sense of being alone,
And hence six times more solitary;
Fulfilled of the slow passion of pitching through
immemorial ages
Your little round house in the midst of chaos.
Over the garden earth,
Small bird,
Over the edge of all things.
Traveller,
With your tail tucked a little on one side
Like a gentleman in a long-skirted coat.
All life carried on your shoulder,
Invincible fore-runner.
"Are we able to wonder" despite,being"over the edge of all things" and with "all life carried on your shoulder"
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Poetry starts in childhood
The Eagle
BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Yoga .....control on the mat and into my life
There are many days in my life that I am grateful that the art,discipline presence of yoga has entered my life or shall I say that I have been learning how to accept the presence of yoga into my life and value its presence. Today is such a day. Often on a "good" yoga day I use words like ease,smooth,light,gliding,one of less effort. Today none of those words really describe a quality of "goodness" or "rightness" that came with this morning's practice. Of late, in my interpersonal sphere I have been feeling that experiences,feelings,words sometimes come at me with a randomness that seem out of my control, that I would not invite into my space if it truly were under my control. It is my choice, and under my control, how I respond to the various fluctuations and perturbations that stir me up.
Today ,as I got on my mat, I was feeling somewhat unhinged that so much of what is said to me ,expressed to me or enacted with me is far beyond my control as I do not have any control over the words feelings and actions of others. As I began my practice and began engaging my bhandas and the whispering flow of breath following and my body began deliberately moving in the sequence of asanas in the standing series came back to me as usual ,I had this profound sense of relief, an "aha" moment, that this mat is my sanctuary,this is probably the only place and time that I feel I am most master of my choices, that I do make choices that are under my conscious control in regards to the quality of my breath,the length of my breath, the rhythm and flow of my movements, where I choose to gaze how I choose to stretch or contact my muscles to move my joints.It is a foremost aspiration of mine that through this awareness of making deliberate choices and the visceral memory that my choices imprint upon me, that I will use these skills in the work and exhilaration of living every day....
Today ,as I got on my mat, I was feeling somewhat unhinged that so much of what is said to me ,expressed to me or enacted with me is far beyond my control as I do not have any control over the words feelings and actions of others. As I began my practice and began engaging my bhandas and the whispering flow of breath following and my body began deliberately moving in the sequence of asanas in the standing series came back to me as usual ,I had this profound sense of relief, an "aha" moment, that this mat is my sanctuary,this is probably the only place and time that I feel I am most master of my choices, that I do make choices that are under my conscious control in regards to the quality of my breath,the length of my breath, the rhythm and flow of my movements, where I choose to gaze how I choose to stretch or contact my muscles to move my joints.It is a foremost aspiration of mine that through this awareness of making deliberate choices and the visceral memory that my choices imprint upon me, that I will use these skills in the work and exhilaration of living every day....
Friday, October 29, 2010
What is .....Timelessness
On my way home from work today I was listening to this timeless tune by the timeless Sandy Denny. I was thinking about what constitutes timelessness and appreciation for the good timeless experiences that often come to me on my path and brighten my days,such as sweet tunes, good friendship , the capacity to listen and hear another human being's story and kind and thoughtful words
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
"what makes my toenails twinkle....Poetry"
Dylan Thomas said: "Poetry is the rhythmic, inevitably narrative, movement from an overclothed blindness to a naked vision that depends in its intensity on the strength of the labour put into the creation of the poetry. My poetry is, or should be, useful to me for one reason: it is the record of my individual struggle from darkness towards some measure of light."
And he said, "Poetry is what makes me laugh or cry or yawn, what makes my toenails twinkle, what makes me want to do this or that or nothing."
These words ring true to me everyday of my life,it too, for me is what makes me laugh,cry, ponder,ask,answer,wonder,dazzles,beguiles,understands the churnings of my heart and soul
And he said, "Poetry is what makes me laugh or cry or yawn, what makes my toenails twinkle, what makes me want to do this or that or nothing."
These words ring true to me everyday of my life,it too, for me is what makes me laugh,cry, ponder,ask,answer,wonder,dazzles,beguiles,understands the churnings of my heart and soul
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Late October Color
October
by Robert Frost
O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
To-morrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
To-morrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow,
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know;
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away;
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes' sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—
For the grapes' sake along the wall.
Such color on a late October, Sunday afternoon,"Make the hours of this day slow,make the day seem to us less brief!"
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Unrequited Dreams
This past weekend,I attended a small family gathering,a dinner at a family oriented restaurant to celebrate the passing of the bar of my little brother.The focus was on my brother to congratulate him on his hard work,effort and success.At the beginning of the meal, my uncle who I do not see all that often as families seem to move apart from one another over time.My uncle is only sixteen years older than me,so he was a teen when I was born.I am the oldest grandchild , the first grandchild of that generation.My parents married very young and I entered the world when they were 19 and 20 years old.My father had lived on a kibbutz in Israel for a couple of years before I was born.My parent's dream was to return to that kibbutz with me when I was one years old.
As life happens,the return to the kibbutz never happened and I vaguely remember it in the context of the continuous cantankerous marital discord that I witnessed during my childhood, the subject would come up as if somehow if that dream had come to fruition the layers of unhappiness,sadness,discontent would melt away.Many years have passed, my parents went their separate ways and unfortunately all that I recall of their relationship is the constant fighting and my fears and confusion and wishing they would stop.I have virtually no memories of a peaceful loving partnership, no tangible evidence of any of their shared dreams,that is, not until this weekend.
At dinner,at this family gathering,my uncle called me over.He said he had something for me.I thought it odd as it was not my celebratory day,after all it was my brother's day.My uncle slowly pulled out of the pocket of his camel colored corduroy jacket,a new appearing passport.I had this strange moment of deja vu and I knew without any doubt what this was.I had tears in my eyes and said , that is me as baby.With a bittersweet nod , he said yes.I opened the green little book and sure enough ,there was one year old me, like a little doe with bright passport picture lights flashing in her baby eyes,sitting on my not quite adult mom's lap. the passport was meant to take us to Israel, to the kibbutz dream .Oddly ,all week I have been a state of extreme hope and optimism, thinking clearly about my dreams and what would truly give me happiness at this stage of my life, how to achieve realization of my own unrequited dreams.Until now,I had no tangible evidence that my parents shared any dreams at all, it seemed to me that my beginnings started with two very young people who had a very tenuous angry partnership.Holding my passport of infancy in my hands and seeing the one year old me sitting on my mom's lap as part of their dreams to plan and share a life together helps me feel more whole and hopeful , that my beginnings did have hope, something for me to continue to nurture.I see my beginnings as different,I see myself in literally a light I did not know existed before.....
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
As life happens,the return to the kibbutz never happened and I vaguely remember it in the context of the continuous cantankerous marital discord that I witnessed during my childhood, the subject would come up as if somehow if that dream had come to fruition the layers of unhappiness,sadness,discontent would melt away.Many years have passed, my parents went their separate ways and unfortunately all that I recall of their relationship is the constant fighting and my fears and confusion and wishing they would stop.I have virtually no memories of a peaceful loving partnership, no tangible evidence of any of their shared dreams,that is, not until this weekend.
At dinner,at this family gathering,my uncle called me over.He said he had something for me.I thought it odd as it was not my celebratory day,after all it was my brother's day.My uncle slowly pulled out of the pocket of his camel colored corduroy jacket,a new appearing passport.I had this strange moment of deja vu and I knew without any doubt what this was.I had tears in my eyes and said , that is me as baby.With a bittersweet nod , he said yes.I opened the green little book and sure enough ,there was one year old me, like a little doe with bright passport picture lights flashing in her baby eyes,sitting on my not quite adult mom's lap. the passport was meant to take us to Israel, to the kibbutz dream .Oddly ,all week I have been a state of extreme hope and optimism, thinking clearly about my dreams and what would truly give me happiness at this stage of my life, how to achieve realization of my own unrequited dreams.Until now,I had no tangible evidence that my parents shared any dreams at all, it seemed to me that my beginnings started with two very young people who had a very tenuous angry partnership.Holding my passport of infancy in my hands and seeing the one year old me sitting on my mom's lap as part of their dreams to plan and share a life together helps me feel more whole and hopeful , that my beginnings did have hope, something for me to continue to nurture.I see my beginnings as different,I see myself in literally a light I did not know existed before.....
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Monday, October 11, 2010
Walking in the Autumnal Forest of Color
Fall
by Edward Hirsch
Fall, falling, fallen. That's the way the season
Changes its tense in the long-haired maples
That dot the road; the veiny hand-shaped leaves
Redden on their branches (in a fiery competition
With the final remaining cardinals) and then
Begin to sidle and float through the air, at last
Settling into colorful layers carpeting the ground.
At twilight the light, too, is layered in the trees
In a season of odd, dusky congruences‐a scarlet tanager
And the odor of burning leaves, a golden retriever
Loping down the center of a wide street and the sun
Setting behind smoke-filled trees in the distance,
A gap opening up in the treetops and a bruised cloud
Blamelessly filling the space with purples. Everything
Changes and moves in the split second between summer's
Sprawling past and winter's hard revision, one moment
Pulling out of the station according to schedule,
Another moment arriving on the next platform. It
Happens almost like clockwork: the leaves drift away
From their branches and gather slowly at our feet,
Sliding over our ankles, and the season begins moving
Around us even as its colorful weather moves us,
Even as it pulls us into its dusty, twilit pockets.
And every year there is a brief, startling moment
When we pause in the middle of a long walk home and
Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless
Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air:
It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies;
It is the changing light of fall falling on us.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
"Thy woods,....and all but cry with colour "
God's World
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
Thy mists that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag
To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!
World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!
Long have I known a glory in it all,
But never knew I this;
Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart. Lord, I do fear
Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year.
My soul is all but out of me, let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.
This fall seems to be bursting out in color more than ever to me.I am not sure if the there truly is more vibrant color or it is me that is seeing the world just so alive.This weekend,as I walked in the woods, I so understood Edna St,. Vincent Millay
"Thy woods,this autumn day,that ache and sag,and all but cry with colour!
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Music takes me on many voyages
Last night , I had the great fortune to see and hear the great, Suzanne Vega live,what a treat!It brought back so many memories to me,again music taking on me these fantastic voyages to different time in my life. Thank you Suzanne Vega.
"Look upon these brilliant creatures"
Last week, i saw this egret flying over an autumnal pond at the arboretum. It reminded me of these words
The Wild Swans at Coole
by W. B. Yeats
The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine and fifty swans.
The nineteenth Autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.
I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.
Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold,
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.
But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes, when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Music drifts us away.....to the deepest green...
They were magic nights in the Lobby Bar
With Brendan Ring playing Madame Bonaparte's
Every note that the piper would play
Would send me away, send me away
Away through the window, away through the rain
Away 'cross the city, away in the air
To a field by a river where the trees are so green
The deepest of green that you've ever seen
Where once you have been you can go back again
You can go any time, you can go any time
'Cos it's only in your mind
They were magic nights in the Lobby Bar
With Ricky Lynch and his golden guitar
Singing;
"Autumn in Mayfield and the barley was ripe
And the harvest moon hung low in the sky
We were children and our mothers were young
And fathers were tall and kind"
And every word that Ricky would play
Would send me away, send me away
Away through the window, away through the rain
Away 'cross the city, away in the air
To a field by a river where the trees are so green
The deepest of green, you've ever seen
Where once you have been you can go back again
You can go any time, you can go any time
'Cos it's only in your mind
They were magic nights in the Lobby Bar
When Ger Wolfe would sing like a lark
Singing;
" I am the blood of Erin, spilt in an empty cave
I am the flower of Ireland, out on the drifting wave
I am the lark of Mayfield, tumbling down the hill
I am the child of summer, I can remember you still"
And every word that Ger would say
Would send me away, send me away
Away through the window, away through the rain
On a carriage of music, away in the air
To a field by a river where the trees are so green
The deepest of green that you've ever seen
Where once you have been you can go back again
You can go any time, you can go any time
'Cos it's only in your mind
"It was autumn in Mayfield and the barley was ripe
And the harvest moon hung low in the sky
We were children and our mothers were young
And fathers were tall and kind."
another tune from the radio today, yes music can send us to far away places and also bring us home
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
"The best I can"
I heard this on the radio today, such a simple,but useful message always "the best I can". an old Woody Guthrie tune
Gonna Get Through This World
Well I’m gonna get through this world
The best I can if I can
And I’m gonna get through this world
And I think I can.
Well I'm gonna work in this world
The best I can if I can
And I’m gonna work in this world
And I think I can
I’m gonna get through this world
The best I can if I can
I'm gonna work in this world
The best I can if I can
I’m gonna get through this world
The best I can.
Well I’m gonna walk in this world
The best I can if I can
And I’m gonna walk in this world
And I think I can.
I am gonna talk in this world
The best I can if I can
And I’m gonna talk in this world
And I think I can. And I think I can.
I’m gonna walk in this world
The best I can if I can
I am gonna talk in this world
The best I can if I can
I’m gonna get through this world
The best I can.
di di di
Well, I’m gonna clean up this world
The best I can if I can
And I’m gonna clean up this world
And I think I can.
I'm gonna leave this world behind
The best I can if I can
I'm gonna leave this world behind
And I think I can. And I think I can.
I’m gonna clean up this world
The best I can if I can
I'm gonna leave this world behind
The best I can if I can
I’m gonna get through this world
The best I can.
di di di
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Ripening Leaves of Fall
October
by Robert Frost
O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
To-morrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
To-morrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow,
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know;
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away;
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes' sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—
For the grapes' sake along the wall.
Today, I took a crisp hike at the Morton's Arboretum in Lisle, IL.The colors of fall were beginning to take on their full glory.When
the colors start becoming vibrant my melancholy of early fall as summer drifts away begins to dissipate.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
What do you think compassion is?
I woke up this morning quickly glancing at my Facebook page and was struck with how many posts used the word compassion,suggesting that we all become these serene compassionate generous beings.I began wondering what they all really meant.I think compassion has become the new Mc Donald's,it is literally on every street corner,every home page,every blog including my own.I am kind of sick of the cavalier ,generic,unhelpful usage of the word,so I have decided to ask you who may come onto my blogspot ,"what does compassion mean to you".I will start by saying something about what it means to me.For one thing,since childhood I have daily been beseeched even in adulthood ,by my mother to be nice,to be kind,to rise to the occasion,to repay evil with kindness,to never retaliate,to have pity,to be generous,to see the other's point of view.I guess my mother was preparing me to become an angel or a saint even before I had a chance to be a person.Entering the world of angels without being a person for a while is a great disadvantage in the career of angels.To be a worthy angel, one needs to roll around in the muck and mud a lot to feel and experience the life of personhood in order to eventually do any good.Doesn't she know that,I guess not, maybe she has not had the correct angel training herself.
So,my idea of compassion is the acknowledgement that basically we are all no different from one another in our capacity for good or evil ,it is a mat ter of circumstance often that propels us to do good or evil.Saying that, I also acknowledge that in many ways we are hugely different from one another in basic ways such; as intelligence,personal appearance,ability to tolerate pain or frustration, the capacity for motivation,creativity,problem solving, how much love and care we received as children,how much love and care we individually need.I think compassion acknowledges our uniqueness and our differences and in light of that what is realistically possible for a human being to be and accomplish in a lifetime.Compassion is about knowing,recognizing and forgiving ourselves for our expansive vastness and our claustrophobic limitations.Compassion is our knowing that based on individual endowments we have different abilities.Those endowments are mostly not our choice,so instead of comparing and criticizing,perhaps it is wiser to have a broader point of view and we can share our strengths rather than hoard them for ourselves.I I invite you ask, to share what the word "compassion " means to you...
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
So,my idea of compassion is the acknowledgement that basically we are all no different from one another in our capacity for good or evil ,it is a mat ter of circumstance often that propels us to do good or evil.Saying that, I also acknowledge that in many ways we are hugely different from one another in basic ways such; as intelligence,personal appearance,ability to tolerate pain or frustration, the capacity for motivation,creativity,problem solving, how much love and care we received as children,how much love and care we individually need.I think compassion acknowledges our uniqueness and our differences and in light of that what is realistically possible for a human being to be and accomplish in a lifetime.Compassion is about knowing,recognizing and forgiving ourselves for our expansive vastness and our claustrophobic limitations.Compassion is our knowing that based on individual endowments we have different abilities.Those endowments are mostly not our choice,so instead of comparing and criticizing,perhaps it is wiser to have a broader point of view and we can share our strengths rather than hoard them for ourselves.I I invite you ask, to share what the word "compassion " means to you...
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Friday, October 1, 2010
Passing through a phase
Passing Through
by Stanley Kunitz
—on my seventy-ninth birthday
Nobody in the widow's household
ever celebrated anniversaries.
In the secrecy of my room
I would not admit I cared
that my friends were given parties.
Before I left town for school
my birthday went up in smoke
in a fire at City Hall that gutted
the Department of Vital Statistics.
If it weren't for a census report
of a five-year-old White Male
sharing my mother's address
at the Green Street tenement in Worcester
I'd have no documentary proof
that I exist. You are the first,
my dear, to bully me
into these festive occasions.
Sometimes, you say, I wear
an abstracted look that drives you
up the wall, as though it signified
distress or disaffection.
Don't take it so to heart.
Maybe I enjoy not-being as much
as being who I am. Maybe
it's time for me to practice
growing old. The way I look
at it, I'm passing through a phase:
gradually I'm changing to a word.
Whatever you choose to claim
of me is always yours;
nothing is truly mine
except my name. I only
borrowed this dust.
"Passing Through" by Stanley Kunitz, from The Collected Poems. ©W. W. Norton & Company, 2000. Reprinted with permission
This again from the Writer's Almanac,
This again,my "fall funk"I too am passing through a phase, I guess we all are interminably passing through a phase. I share the sentiment of never really having been a birthday party girl.For now, however, I do enjoy being as well as being who I am . I have only just begun the "comfortable in being who I am phase" in the middle of my life. I do not want to practice being old right now,I am content not practicing being, but actually being. Perhaps a colorful crisp ride on my bike through an autumnal forest will bring me out of this funk more into this being...
by Stanley Kunitz
—on my seventy-ninth birthday
Nobody in the widow's household
ever celebrated anniversaries.
In the secrecy of my room
I would not admit I cared
that my friends were given parties.
Before I left town for school
my birthday went up in smoke
in a fire at City Hall that gutted
the Department of Vital Statistics.
If it weren't for a census report
of a five-year-old White Male
sharing my mother's address
at the Green Street tenement in Worcester
I'd have no documentary proof
that I exist. You are the first,
my dear, to bully me
into these festive occasions.
Sometimes, you say, I wear
an abstracted look that drives you
up the wall, as though it signified
distress or disaffection.
Don't take it so to heart.
Maybe I enjoy not-being as much
as being who I am. Maybe
it's time for me to practice
growing old. The way I look
at it, I'm passing through a phase:
gradually I'm changing to a word.
Whatever you choose to claim
of me is always yours;
nothing is truly mine
except my name. I only
borrowed this dust.
"Passing Through" by Stanley Kunitz, from The Collected Poems. ©W. W. Norton & Company, 2000. Reprinted with permission
This again from the Writer's Almanac,
This again,my "fall funk"I too am passing through a phase, I guess we all are interminably passing through a phase. I share the sentiment of never really having been a birthday party girl.For now, however, I do enjoy being as well as being who I am . I have only just begun the "comfortable in being who I am phase" in the middle of my life. I do not want to practice being old right now,I am content not practicing being, but actually being. Perhaps a colorful crisp ride on my bike through an autumnal forest will bring me out of this funk more into this being...
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Today is WS Merwin's Birthday
POEM
Vixen
BY W. S. MERWIN
Comet of stillness princess of what is over
high note held without trembling without voice without sound
aura of complete darkness keeper of the kept secrets
of the destroyed stories the escaped dreams the sentences
never caught in words warden of where the river went
touch of its surface sibyl of the extinguished
window onto the hidden place and the other time
at the foot of the wall by the road patient without waiting
in the full moonlight of autumn at the hour when I was born
you no longer go out like a flame at the sight of me
you are still warmer than the moonlight gleaming on you
even now you are unharmed even now perfect
as you have always been now when your light paws are running
on the breathless night on the bridge with one end I remember you
when I have heard you the soles of my feet have made answer
when I have seen you I have waked and slipped from the calendars
from the creeds of difference and the contradictions
that were my life and all the crumbling fabrications
as long as it lasted until something that we were
had ended when you are no longer anything
let me catch sight of you again going over the wall
and before the garden is extinct and the woods are figures
guttering on a screen let my words find their own
places in the silence after the animals
W. S. Merwin, “Vixen” from The Vixen. Copyright © 1996 by W. S. Merwin, used with permission of The Wylie Agency LLC.
Source: The Vixen (Alfred A. Knopf, 1996)
this is one of my favorites, to me it is about remembering those impressionable experiences that always stay with us,leaving permanent images to always come home to
Vixen
BY W. S. MERWIN
Comet of stillness princess of what is over
high note held without trembling without voice without sound
aura of complete darkness keeper of the kept secrets
of the destroyed stories the escaped dreams the sentences
never caught in words warden of where the river went
touch of its surface sibyl of the extinguished
window onto the hidden place and the other time
at the foot of the wall by the road patient without waiting
in the full moonlight of autumn at the hour when I was born
you no longer go out like a flame at the sight of me
you are still warmer than the moonlight gleaming on you
even now you are unharmed even now perfect
as you have always been now when your light paws are running
on the breathless night on the bridge with one end I remember you
when I have heard you the soles of my feet have made answer
when I have seen you I have waked and slipped from the calendars
from the creeds of difference and the contradictions
that were my life and all the crumbling fabrications
as long as it lasted until something that we were
had ended when you are no longer anything
let me catch sight of you again going over the wall
and before the garden is extinct and the woods are figures
guttering on a screen let my words find their own
places in the silence after the animals
W. S. Merwin, “Vixen” from The Vixen. Copyright © 1996 by W. S. Merwin, used with permission of The Wylie Agency LLC.
Source: The Vixen (Alfred A. Knopf, 1996)
this is one of my favorites, to me it is about remembering those impressionable experiences that always stay with us,leaving permanent images to always come home to
Will you get rid of me..?
I am in the process of shifting things in my work,so that means changes for me, changes for some of my patients.Transitions make us anxious,we feel in limbo,uncertain where or how we will land.There are times at work that I feel overwhelmed with the gravid nature and complexity of the many challenges that occur in my patients life.Often,I feel helpless myself andvthat what Ihave to offer in the way of help is infinitesimally small and insignificant with such larger looming problems.Yesterday , I had a unique experience in that a group of my patients were told by someone in the office that there are changes going on and I would be seeing fewer patients.A rumor had spread that I would be "getting rid of some patients", a very poor choice of words to be heard by anyone,especially those that are already feeling marginalized.
Yesterday ,evening a man and his daughter came to their regularly scheduled appointment.As you know,I have a special place in my heart for fathers who give good care to their daughters.This dad is a single parent ,who works as a truck driver.He and his little girl, who is actually my patient are kind of scruffy looking,their clothes usually are stained with some kind of food that spilled on it,their hair is kind of wild and messy, the little girl is sweet , but wild and impulsive.Her dad always reports to me how she does in school, meetings he has with her teachers to make her life better,discussions he conducts with family members to teach them how to help her when he is away driving his truck.They go on little road trips together in the summer.What consistently comes across is the unflinching love and dedication that he has for his little girl's well being.I am certain that their live are not easy,but they are content, grateful and dignified.Towards the end of our visit,the dad looked at me intently and sadly with tears in his eyes and humbly asked me,"so are you getting rid of us."The dad got quiet and started crying.He started to tell me about the many times he and his daughter have been,"gotten rid of" because they are kind of scruffy and not always with the most refined manners.He said , he and his daughter were hopeful when they met me that I would not get rid of them.Little did he know,that much of the time I am so inspired by his courage,by his ability to live in dignity with very little and for his unwavering unremitting love for his child.I told him,I am not getting rid of him or his daughter,that I appreciate his sincere efforts to do what is best for his daughter and when and if I move on ,I will make sure he has a place to go with her that will care for them well. I am finding as I wind down in this job,I feel less encumbered with all the minutiae of details of paperwork, administrative duties and I am discovering that more and more I find myself in the presence of greatness and nobility.I am seeing parts of humanity that bring me to tears ,to be privileged enough to witness that which is so awe inspiring in those that have entered my life.Perhaps , it is the process of winding down and not trying so hard that allows us to see each other in grater clarity and appreciate....
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Yesterday ,evening a man and his daughter came to their regularly scheduled appointment.As you know,I have a special place in my heart for fathers who give good care to their daughters.This dad is a single parent ,who works as a truck driver.He and his little girl, who is actually my patient are kind of scruffy looking,their clothes usually are stained with some kind of food that spilled on it,their hair is kind of wild and messy, the little girl is sweet , but wild and impulsive.Her dad always reports to me how she does in school, meetings he has with her teachers to make her life better,discussions he conducts with family members to teach them how to help her when he is away driving his truck.They go on little road trips together in the summer.What consistently comes across is the unflinching love and dedication that he has for his little girl's well being.I am certain that their live are not easy,but they are content, grateful and dignified.Towards the end of our visit,the dad looked at me intently and sadly with tears in his eyes and humbly asked me,"so are you getting rid of us."The dad got quiet and started crying.He started to tell me about the many times he and his daughter have been,"gotten rid of" because they are kind of scruffy and not always with the most refined manners.He said , he and his daughter were hopeful when they met me that I would not get rid of them.Little did he know,that much of the time I am so inspired by his courage,by his ability to live in dignity with very little and for his unwavering unremitting love for his child.I told him,I am not getting rid of him or his daughter,that I appreciate his sincere efforts to do what is best for his daughter and when and if I move on ,I will make sure he has a place to go with her that will care for them well. I am finding as I wind down in this job,I feel less encumbered with all the minutiae of details of paperwork, administrative duties and I am discovering that more and more I find myself in the presence of greatness and nobility.I am seeing parts of humanity that bring me to tears ,to be privileged enough to witness that which is so awe inspiring in those that have entered my life.Perhaps , it is the process of winding down and not trying so hard that allows us to see each other in grater clarity and appreciate....
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
The Art of Stoop Sitting
When I was a child, I loved to sit on the stoop outside my house and just daydream,this video reminded me of those dreamy days....the art of stoop sitting needs to return
"They've been birthing alone for ten thousand years"
Today again from the Writer's Almanac;
Clara: In the Post Office
by Linda Hasselstrom
I keep telling you, I'm not a feminist.
I grew up an only child on a ranch,
so I drove tractors, learned to ride.
When the truck wouldn't start, I went to town
for parts. The man behind the counter
told me I couldn't rebuild a carburetor.
I could: every carburetor on the place. That's
necessity, not feminism.
I learned to do the books
after my husband left me and the debts
and the children. I shoveled snow and pitched hay
when the hired man didn't come to work.
I learned how to pull a calf
when the vet was too busy. As I thought,
the cow did most of it herself; they've been
birthing alone for ten thousand years. Does
that make them feminists?
It's not
that I don't like men; I love them - when I can.
But I've stopped counting on them
to change my flats or open my doors.
That's not feminism; that's just good sense.
"Clara: In the Post Office" by Linda Hasselstrom from, Roadkill. © Spoon River Publishing, 1987. Reprinted with permission
I am someone who grew up without a Dad,and then have been a single parent raising my child without a Dad. This poem resonates well with me. When one grows up with the only option for getting anything done whether mundane or meaningful is through your own efforts and actions, a mindset develops that you do not expect others to do for you that which you naturally can do for yourself. When I hear,people complaining about spouses, not doing this or that for them, I kind of look with a perplexed feeling ,not really understanding what the fuss is all about and often wonder, why not learn to do it yourself.I imagine there are benefits to partnerships,sharing,generosity.....
Clara: In the Post Office
by Linda Hasselstrom
I keep telling you, I'm not a feminist.
I grew up an only child on a ranch,
so I drove tractors, learned to ride.
When the truck wouldn't start, I went to town
for parts. The man behind the counter
told me I couldn't rebuild a carburetor.
I could: every carburetor on the place. That's
necessity, not feminism.
I learned to do the books
after my husband left me and the debts
and the children. I shoveled snow and pitched hay
when the hired man didn't come to work.
I learned how to pull a calf
when the vet was too busy. As I thought,
the cow did most of it herself; they've been
birthing alone for ten thousand years. Does
that make them feminists?
It's not
that I don't like men; I love them - when I can.
But I've stopped counting on them
to change my flats or open my doors.
That's not feminism; that's just good sense.
"Clara: In the Post Office" by Linda Hasselstrom from, Roadkill. © Spoon River Publishing, 1987. Reprinted with permission
I am someone who grew up without a Dad,and then have been a single parent raising my child without a Dad. This poem resonates well with me. When one grows up with the only option for getting anything done whether mundane or meaningful is through your own efforts and actions, a mindset develops that you do not expect others to do for you that which you naturally can do for yourself. When I hear,people complaining about spouses, not doing this or that for them, I kind of look with a perplexed feeling ,not really understanding what the fuss is all about and often wonder, why not learn to do it yourself.I imagine there are benefits to partnerships,sharing,generosity.....
Monday, September 27, 2010
Carer or Donor,maybe both
In writing today's post,I am writing as one of the many me's that make up myself.One of those me's is the me that is a child and adolescent psychiatrist.I often wonder how one's profession shapes their world view or how the person in the garb of their profession mirrors who they intrinsically are.This weekend I saw the movie ,"Never Let Me Go",based on the powerful 2005 novel,with the same title,by Kazuo Ishiguro.Ishiguro is also known for his complex,but subtle novel that became a movie as well, "Remains of the Day".
The simple plot of ,"Never Let Me Go"is a story of some children who live at a boarding school that is rather stern and traditional in the English country side.What enfolds is a secret that these children come to know about themselves that they were cloned from other human beings with the specific purpose of becoming organ donors to the non cloned masses of human beings so as to prolong the lives of others.The movie is a reflection on the thoughts,feelings,relationships that ensue in the context of knowing vs denying what these children learn about themselves and their impending shortened future.The movie at first glance felt bleak ,oppressive and depressing to me.The language seemed spare and sparse to me, the cinematography was slow and melancholic.There were times that it felt claustrophobic and hopeless to me ,that I even considered leaving the theater as I felt this fog of heavy discomfort hovering over me.After seeing the film initially,I felt it to be almost nonredeemable bleak.Now a couple of days have passed and I find myself revisiting scenes I saw in the movie in my mind.I am beginning to feel that the movie and the novel which I now will read ,is a brave attempt to ask difficult questions about us as human beings.The movie is not perfectly eloquent in achieving this purpose,but makes a poetic and heroic effort that has helped me reflect on the unanswerable about who we are or who I am.
In the story there are paths the cloned future organ donors as young adults can choose.One can become a donor immediately in adulthood,or one can become a"carer" to those who donated.Once one embarks on the donor path an obvious form of suffering and shortening or completing one's life begins.It is unclear how long one can remain a carer and then volunteer or become a donor.I began thinking of my life and those close to me,which of us are carers,which are donors, do we choose these paths, does it say something about expectations placed upon us, about our innate temperaments,do we have a choice,do donors or carers interchange sometimes.Then,of course is the question ,would we be or do differently if we knew exactly how long we had to live and what we may die ultimately of.
Another theme that evolved was the cloistered existence of these children in this boarding school. in order to get by in the real world they learned at times to copy others behaviors as they did not know through their cloistered lives what to say ordo.How much of each of our lives is just copying as we really don't know what to say or do or maybe we were never taught?What are the ramifications to us as creative flexible creatures if we are left only to copy.I began thinking about what are the circumstances that would lead one to neglect their creative impulses and lead robotic lives.The children were asked to engage in art, music, dance to encourage creativity. Can one ever be truly creative if their wings are clipped.The children wondered if the purpose of collecting their creative work was for their teachers or in their case imprisoners were attempting to see into their souls.the question of if and how and should it be that art is a window to one's souls was entertained.One answer that came up when the children became adults was perhaps the collection of their art work in the gallery was to ask if they as cloned children"had souls".I wondered to myself how is it possible to make such a determination and perhaps the school masters themselves had no soul.
Then there was the obvious question of why these children never tried to escape , do cloned children lose their will to survive at all costs,does one need to embrace creativity , have a human soul to want to escape and survive.does one need loving parents at a tender young age to procure the desire to live.I think that part troubled me the most.But as ,I thought more about it , I realized that in revealing nothing of an attempt to escape ,something elegant about our capacity to survive evolved.In the movie , the children as young adults were told , if they were to fall in love and really experience enduring,sustaining love and if they could prove it they could buy some time in life.There was a young couple, the protagonists ,that felt and demonstrated a pure sustaining enduring love who were portrayed as surviving some degree of turbulence in their relatedness.The question was asked about the love that we have for each other that by nature is s rare,s precious,not easily found, can that sort of love change our destiny, our fate, can it lengthen our lives, can it prevent the inevitable.The movie in it's design ,implies not, that love exists for love's sake and for nothing else and to ask love to give us more than the things it gives already in living every day is unreasonable. Is this the voice of pessimism,optimism or reality. If we lower our expectations about the reality of what being loved or loving another can truly offer us, will we have richer, more meaningful lives.This movie adds another dimension for me to continue asking about what really makes us human ,what is really of enduring value to ourselves, to each other, and how important each moment of all living is, as carers or donors or both...
,
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
The simple plot of ,"Never Let Me Go"is a story of some children who live at a boarding school that is rather stern and traditional in the English country side.What enfolds is a secret that these children come to know about themselves that they were cloned from other human beings with the specific purpose of becoming organ donors to the non cloned masses of human beings so as to prolong the lives of others.The movie is a reflection on the thoughts,feelings,relationships that ensue in the context of knowing vs denying what these children learn about themselves and their impending shortened future.The movie at first glance felt bleak ,oppressive and depressing to me.The language seemed spare and sparse to me, the cinematography was slow and melancholic.There were times that it felt claustrophobic and hopeless to me ,that I even considered leaving the theater as I felt this fog of heavy discomfort hovering over me.After seeing the film initially,I felt it to be almost nonredeemable bleak.Now a couple of days have passed and I find myself revisiting scenes I saw in the movie in my mind.I am beginning to feel that the movie and the novel which I now will read ,is a brave attempt to ask difficult questions about us as human beings.The movie is not perfectly eloquent in achieving this purpose,but makes a poetic and heroic effort that has helped me reflect on the unanswerable about who we are or who I am.
In the story there are paths the cloned future organ donors as young adults can choose.One can become a donor immediately in adulthood,or one can become a"carer" to those who donated.Once one embarks on the donor path an obvious form of suffering and shortening or completing one's life begins.It is unclear how long one can remain a carer and then volunteer or become a donor.I began thinking of my life and those close to me,which of us are carers,which are donors, do we choose these paths, does it say something about expectations placed upon us, about our innate temperaments,do we have a choice,do donors or carers interchange sometimes.Then,of course is the question ,would we be or do differently if we knew exactly how long we had to live and what we may die ultimately of.
Another theme that evolved was the cloistered existence of these children in this boarding school. in order to get by in the real world they learned at times to copy others behaviors as they did not know through their cloistered lives what to say ordo.How much of each of our lives is just copying as we really don't know what to say or do or maybe we were never taught?What are the ramifications to us as creative flexible creatures if we are left only to copy.I began thinking about what are the circumstances that would lead one to neglect their creative impulses and lead robotic lives.The children were asked to engage in art, music, dance to encourage creativity. Can one ever be truly creative if their wings are clipped.The children wondered if the purpose of collecting their creative work was for their teachers or in their case imprisoners were attempting to see into their souls.the question of if and how and should it be that art is a window to one's souls was entertained.One answer that came up when the children became adults was perhaps the collection of their art work in the gallery was to ask if they as cloned children"had souls".I wondered to myself how is it possible to make such a determination and perhaps the school masters themselves had no soul.
Then there was the obvious question of why these children never tried to escape , do cloned children lose their will to survive at all costs,does one need to embrace creativity , have a human soul to want to escape and survive.does one need loving parents at a tender young age to procure the desire to live.I think that part troubled me the most.But as ,I thought more about it , I realized that in revealing nothing of an attempt to escape ,something elegant about our capacity to survive evolved.In the movie , the children as young adults were told , if they were to fall in love and really experience enduring,sustaining love and if they could prove it they could buy some time in life.There was a young couple, the protagonists ,that felt and demonstrated a pure sustaining enduring love who were portrayed as surviving some degree of turbulence in their relatedness.The question was asked about the love that we have for each other that by nature is s rare,s precious,not easily found, can that sort of love change our destiny, our fate, can it lengthen our lives, can it prevent the inevitable.The movie in it's design ,implies not, that love exists for love's sake and for nothing else and to ask love to give us more than the things it gives already in living every day is unreasonable. Is this the voice of pessimism,optimism or reality. If we lower our expectations about the reality of what being loved or loving another can truly offer us, will we have richer, more meaningful lives.This movie adds another dimension for me to continue asking about what really makes us human ,what is really of enduring value to ourselves, to each other, and how important each moment of all living is, as carers or donors or both...
,
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Sunday, September 26, 2010
nostalgia for an old friend
I haven't been blogging much lately.I have been more in my head these days I have been feeling in limbo lately,a quiet turbulence, none the less, rocky.I took a long yoga practice this morning,that oddly amidst a mind mildly storming,the practice felt smooth.I am always amazed at how just the mere focus on smoothing out my breath smooths out so much else.I felt so much more at ease with myself, that I decided to meander out to the art institute in town that is hosting a retrospective exhibit of the great photojournalist,photography master Henri Cartier Bresson. the exhibit was expansive,covering all of his career.As I roamed from room to room, I came across so many photos that I have come to know so well over the years.I felt that I had spent the afternoon with a dear old friend
.Cartier-Bresson was amongst the first photographers that I fell in love with as an adolescent in New York City.I was reminded of his humor,his compassion,his talent to capture the serendipitous and the sublime.It reminded me of my early passions, the feeling of seeing things again for the first time with the energy ,freshness,excitement of my youth.I was thinking what canI say to a friend who is no longer here,who I never met in person,but has influenced me in how I see the world.We all influence each other everyday unknowingly in such profound ways.I,today was given reprieve to get out of my head some into the world to remember the gifts of man that I have never met,but through his work I have learned about this world,about myself, about you....
To take photographs means to recognize - simultaneously and within a fraction of a second - both the fact itself and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that give it meaning. It is putting one's head, one's eye and one's heart on the same axis.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
We photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing, and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth can make them come back again. We cannot develop and print a memory.
Henri Cartier-Bresson
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Wednesday, September 22, 2010
I have to vs I want to
l have long commutes to my place of work,so I have some time as I drive to reflect on my life, my relationships, my dreams, my aspirations,what has gone right and that which has gone wrong,what I would like to change about myself and what I am content with or even proud and confident about in myself,my strengths,my weaknesses. Sometimes ,I think about a dream I had the night before and what the hidden message for me may be. Early this morning I had one of those dreams that is unnerving,though not catastrophic.I do not remember the content now,but is was long,arduous,circuitous, laborious.It was one of those dreams that felt so real that when I awoke, I believed the dream was my actual life and it caused me to feel desperate. I briefly fell back to sleep and and realized that the same feeling was occurring in my dream and indeed, to my good fortune,it was really a dream.I then ,out of nowhere started asking myself ,"how many things in your live have you had to do and how many things have you done that you really wanted to do?"As the screen of the many memories of things I have done in my life flashed before me, I realized that the list of things that I have wanted to accomplish and actually do or did was a short list, of maybe one or two things that truly mattered.It seems that most of my days are comprised of things that I have to do because it has been the right thing to do or as it happened if I did not do these things they would not be done by anyone else and they were deeds that need to come to action for good reasons.It seems that often when I have done things that I want or wanted to do,it has come at a personal cost to me or others in my life that was too onerous.So it seems that I have cultivated this "silver lining " attitude,trying to rearrange the "I have to's into I want to's".Perhaps that is the ultimate journey of adulthood , to find a way to be fulfilled, inspired and enlightened with the myriad of "I have to's" in our lives and turn them into something resplendent and sparkling that mirrors who we are,so they really become our "I want to's".
In your lives,dear reader,how much of your life is I have to or I want to......
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
In your lives,dear reader,how much of your life is I have to or I want to......
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
The Harvest or Hunter Moon...."Let's go dancin in the light"
Neil Young -Harvest Moon
The harvest moon is the moon of the autumnal equinox which is tomorrow. It is called the harvest moon or hunter moon as the light from the moon was abundant and radiant enough to guide farmers in their autumnal harvest.The moon appears lower in the sky, so it looks bigger to us. The color of the moon appears warmer as the light refracts through more atmospheric particles when it is in this position so it reflects hues of red..This year's harvest moon is unique as it will be in conjunction with Jupiter and Uranus, which apparently is a once in a life time celestial occurrence. It connotes a time for great creative energy, risk taking,adventure and mysticism. Perhaps Neil Young was feeling the effects of the radiant glow of the harvest moon when he wrote this song. I am hopeful that the radiant glow of this harvest moon will bring us a year that has the qualities of a the warmth, radiance and glow of a harvest moon and that the conjunction of Jupiter and Uranus will lead us to a bounty of creative energy to harness.
"Let's go dancin in the light, let's go feel the night"
Monday, September 20, 2010
"More than being a human being"
Translations
by Michael Dickman
My mother was led into the world
by her teeth
Pulled
like a bull
into the
heather
She only ever wanted to be a mother her whole life and
nothing else, not even a human being!
One body turned into
another body
Pulled like that
by the golden voices of children
A bull
out of hell
Called out
her teeth out in front of her
her children
pulling
*
First I walk my mother out
into the field
by a leash
by a lifetime
then she walks me out
our coats
shimmering
I brush her hair
Wipe the flies away from her eyes
They are my eyes
Who will ride my mother
when we aren't around
anymore?
Her children won't
Turned from one thing into another until you are a bull
standing in a field
The field just beginning
to whistle us
home
*
Thank you,poet, Michael Dickman,so true to my heart these words, these days. I remember vividly the days I hoped I would become a mother and gratefully have and am. I wanted it so much like you said ,"more than being a human being". In fact, on my path, it has taught me to become a human being,"pulled like that by the golden voices of children". In the Yom Kippur sermon this year the rabbi spoke of a talmudic teaching, "that the universe is sustained by the breath of children in houses of learning that teach the ways of humanity".The breath and innocent play and wisdom of children is really what makes us human....
by Michael Dickman
My mother was led into the world
by her teeth
Pulled
like a bull
into the
heather
She only ever wanted to be a mother her whole life and
nothing else, not even a human being!
One body turned into
another body
Pulled like that
by the golden voices of children
A bull
out of hell
Called out
her teeth out in front of her
her children
pulling
*
First I walk my mother out
into the field
by a leash
by a lifetime
then she walks me out
our coats
shimmering
I brush her hair
Wipe the flies away from her eyes
They are my eyes
Who will ride my mother
when we aren't around
anymore?
Her children won't
Turned from one thing into another until you are a bull
standing in a field
The field just beginning
to whistle us
home
*
Thank you,poet, Michael Dickman,so true to my heart these words, these days. I remember vividly the days I hoped I would become a mother and gratefully have and am. I wanted it so much like you said ,"more than being a human being". In fact, on my path, it has taught me to become a human being,"pulled like that by the golden voices of children". In the Yom Kippur sermon this year the rabbi spoke of a talmudic teaching, "that the universe is sustained by the breath of children in houses of learning that teach the ways of humanity".The breath and innocent play and wisdom of children is really what makes us human....
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Young or Old...Choices
The Woodcutter Changes His Mind
by David Budbill
When I was young, I cut the bigger, older trees for firewood, the ones
with heart rot, dead and broken branches, the crippled and deformed
ones, because, I reasoned, they were going to fall soon anyway, and
therefore, I should give the younger trees more light and room to grow.
Now I'm older and I cut the younger, strong and sturdy, solid
and beautiful trees, and I let the older ones have a few more years
of light and water and leaf in the forest they have known so long.
Soon enough they will be prostrate on the ground.
"The Woodcutter Changes His Mind" by David Budbill, from While We've Still Got Feet: New Poems. © Copper Canyon Press, 2005. Reprinted with permission
This was in my box earlier this week. It led to me to thinking how our minds lead us to these complicated choices that are really not our choices at all. A forest is an ecosystem of young and old,wild and timid, raw and ripe, weak and strong, just like us. I think cutting down trees is necessary to keep us warm , to build us shelter, chairs to sit on ,beds to sleep on, tables to eat on. I guess it is inevitable that we would have to choose which tree to cut down for own purposes, ...young or old, in reality we do choose, choices allow us freedoms, but also responsibility, a need to pause in thoughtfulness.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
My grandmother Sally's love for me....continues on
from Poem A Day this morning
The New Colossus
by Emma Lazarus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
This morning after a long , reflective and soothing practice,I was sitting in my car with a warm, radiant sunrays flooding over my space.I was in my post yoga , not quite here yet space and was taking a few extra moments of self reflection before driving on. I was feeling kind of vulnerable and teary eyed, which is common after an intense yoga practice with lots of second series back bends. I opened my email on my iphone to "Poem A Day" I began reading the familiar words of the poet Emma Lazarus that my beloved grandmother Sally, who was also a poet ,would recite to me quite dramatically throughout my childhood. I read the poem and felt the words indelibly posted in my mind, i could see Sally reciting to me with all her heart and soul as if she was giving me a mantra to always carry with me.I felt her presence, her gifts ,her love for me as if she had never passed and was sitting there like always, with tears in her eyes, but with great pride and bravery , she would recite,"Give me your tired.your poor. your hurdled masses yearning to breathe free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these , the homeless,tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door".
Sometimes I wonder how I have end up on the path as healer, as doctor. Sometime it feels so hard, that I want to turn back give up, I wonder how I got here, I wonder what will give me courage, strength, sustenance to continue to do my best . Today, in these rare auspicious moments I felt the source, the seeds that led me to this path, that continue to guide me, to nourish me , to love me. I am so so lucky to have had a grandmother that recited to me poetry every day of my life as a child and exemplified the courage, wisdom, and grace to begin to learn the path of a healer, the path to become a person, Today, my dear Sally, I miss you more than ever and feel so lucky that you were are part of who i am. Today , I wanted to share the part of me that you have given me.....
The New Colossus
by Emma Lazarus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
This morning after a long , reflective and soothing practice,I was sitting in my car with a warm, radiant sunrays flooding over my space.I was in my post yoga , not quite here yet space and was taking a few extra moments of self reflection before driving on. I was feeling kind of vulnerable and teary eyed, which is common after an intense yoga practice with lots of second series back bends. I opened my email on my iphone to "Poem A Day" I began reading the familiar words of the poet Emma Lazarus that my beloved grandmother Sally, who was also a poet ,would recite to me quite dramatically throughout my childhood. I read the poem and felt the words indelibly posted in my mind, i could see Sally reciting to me with all her heart and soul as if she was giving me a mantra to always carry with me.I felt her presence, her gifts ,her love for me as if she had never passed and was sitting there like always, with tears in her eyes, but with great pride and bravery , she would recite,"Give me your tired.your poor. your hurdled masses yearning to breathe free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these , the homeless,tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door".
Sometimes I wonder how I have end up on the path as healer, as doctor. Sometime it feels so hard, that I want to turn back give up, I wonder how I got here, I wonder what will give me courage, strength, sustenance to continue to do my best . Today, in these rare auspicious moments I felt the source, the seeds that led me to this path, that continue to guide me, to nourish me , to love me. I am so so lucky to have had a grandmother that recited to me poetry every day of my life as a child and exemplified the courage, wisdom, and grace to begin to learn the path of a healer, the path to become a person, Today, my dear Sally, I miss you more than ever and feel so lucky that you were are part of who i am. Today , I wanted to share the part of me that you have given me.....
Sunday, September 5, 2010
How is the world transformed by your presence?
If you had to name a way in which the world has been transformed by your presence, what would it be?
This was a question asked on a blog that I follow this morning. It is asked in the context of the month of Ellul in the hebrew calender which is a month of self contemplation preceding the month of Tishrei which celebrates the birth of the New Year, the creation of the universe and all its inhabitants.It is a difficult question to answer in what way the world has been transformed by my presence. I thought about it for a while, and in the meandering nature of thoughts in the mind, I remembered a recent phone conversation that I had with my father. My father left when I was very young and I did not see much of him in childhood or my adult life . He did not participate in teaching me or guiding me through the trials ,tribulations ,milestones, and joys of being or becoming a person. When I have had conversations or small visits with him ,he has usually been unduly harsh and critical, when he has really put no effort into "baking the bread"(me,being the bread).
In this recent conversation with my father,he reminded me of his mantra of survival of the fitness, that I should not be drawn into helping those seemingly in need ,frail or weak , who are only manipulating because after all, when push comes to shove everyone finds a way to survive no matter what,each to the level of his survival ability. Of course, this is his mantra as when he left me as a child, I being the oldest was left to carry on the tasks that he never wanted to take on. Yes, this has made me stronger,independent, but the child inside of me is always seeking guidance. It is true that we are genetically programmed for survival, but there are tricks of the trade in survival that a parent ideally attempts to teach one's child as I have to mine and continue to,as best as I can, even in their adult life. A parent's job is never completely done. So the conversation went as usual, chastising me for not following a path that assumes that somehow we are all equally programmed and endowed for perfect survival even without any training. My father is big on the mantra,"give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach him to fish and he will eat everyday'" Dad, you never gave me a fish ,nor did you teach me to fish. Luckily. others have replaced you and have taught me to fish well and I can teach that skill well now. Teaching one to fish requires patience,the need to hang around and repeat the gestures thousands of time with new nuances and subtleties. Teaching to fish involves lots of mistakes and trying again. Teaching to fish means there may be days that you are ill and weak and someone kind fishes for you and you will return that kindness in turn. That to me is how the world is transformed by my presence,that despite the lack of your example, your harshness, your miserliness, your cowardice, i have spent my life not emulating you, but everyday look for role models to teach me the paths of generosity,compassion and love that you could not and will not. The world can be transformed by my vigilant observations and actions to not neglect the weak, the ill, the suffering,and to patiently hang around, get a little dirty.give some of myself,because if others in the world suffer less by my actions, i too suffer less, in fact i feel joy and purpose ...
This was a question asked on a blog that I follow this morning. It is asked in the context of the month of Ellul in the hebrew calender which is a month of self contemplation preceding the month of Tishrei which celebrates the birth of the New Year, the creation of the universe and all its inhabitants.It is a difficult question to answer in what way the world has been transformed by my presence. I thought about it for a while, and in the meandering nature of thoughts in the mind, I remembered a recent phone conversation that I had with my father. My father left when I was very young and I did not see much of him in childhood or my adult life . He did not participate in teaching me or guiding me through the trials ,tribulations ,milestones, and joys of being or becoming a person. When I have had conversations or small visits with him ,he has usually been unduly harsh and critical, when he has really put no effort into "baking the bread"(me,being the bread).
In this recent conversation with my father,he reminded me of his mantra of survival of the fitness, that I should not be drawn into helping those seemingly in need ,frail or weak , who are only manipulating because after all, when push comes to shove everyone finds a way to survive no matter what,each to the level of his survival ability. Of course, this is his mantra as when he left me as a child, I being the oldest was left to carry on the tasks that he never wanted to take on. Yes, this has made me stronger,independent, but the child inside of me is always seeking guidance. It is true that we are genetically programmed for survival, but there are tricks of the trade in survival that a parent ideally attempts to teach one's child as I have to mine and continue to,as best as I can, even in their adult life. A parent's job is never completely done. So the conversation went as usual, chastising me for not following a path that assumes that somehow we are all equally programmed and endowed for perfect survival even without any training. My father is big on the mantra,"give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach him to fish and he will eat everyday'" Dad, you never gave me a fish ,nor did you teach me to fish. Luckily. others have replaced you and have taught me to fish well and I can teach that skill well now. Teaching one to fish requires patience,the need to hang around and repeat the gestures thousands of time with new nuances and subtleties. Teaching to fish involves lots of mistakes and trying again. Teaching to fish means there may be days that you are ill and weak and someone kind fishes for you and you will return that kindness in turn. That to me is how the world is transformed by my presence,that despite the lack of your example, your harshness, your miserliness, your cowardice, i have spent my life not emulating you, but everyday look for role models to teach me the paths of generosity,compassion and love that you could not and will not. The world can be transformed by my vigilant observations and actions to not neglect the weak, the ill, the suffering,and to patiently hang around, get a little dirty.give some of myself,because if others in the world suffer less by my actions, i too suffer less, in fact i feel joy and purpose ...
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Finding the crevices of oneself
The Tunnel
If you dig down deep enough
and lose the world of light
and let yourself descend
in the thick tunnel of air
and forget what it was like
to learn the outline of a hill
or breast, if you allow the pressure
of the narrowing walls, down
where you must wedge in, out of sight,
and settle in the damp cusp, the first home,
the air which stinks of grease, and read
what's written on the tunnel wall
and cannot find your name, if you dig where
there is no grip, no face, neither
friend nor foe, where the bones
which once knew the logic of your chest
scatter like thrown sticks-
there you'll wait for the good push,
the fierce act, that gives you up
and sets the tunnel aflame.
by Elliot Figman
I chose this poem today to post as lately I have been digging down deep,where as the poet says ,"there is no grip,no face,neither friend nor foe" .In "those narrowing walls where we wedge in out of sight", perhaps ,it is only in those crevices where breathing is not taken for granted nor is anything else that we begin to find ourselves.
This fall...a soft veil of.....Mercy
The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene I [The quality of mercy is not strained]
by William Shakespeare
The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'T is mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea;
Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there.
I post this today as I am a tad melancholic today,have been all week. This happens every beginning of autumn, a sadness sets in, the days are for sure shorter, the air is cooler, crisper, the leaves are beginning to lose their green color, there are some dried golden leaves that blow in the wind. It is the season of the Jewish New Year , a time of self reflection ,penitence, forgiveness and ultimately hope ,growth and change. I am easily attached to the the radiance, the abundance, the softness of summer, that I feel. It is always hard for me to let go of things,people,seasons that I love. I think this season of fall after recently having some time for self reflection at Shasta, I know there are things ,qualities about me that it is time to let go of and open myself up to the new that life has to offer and to welcome change,even though it can rattle me up at first.
So,at times like this, I call upon "mercy". I think of Shakespeare's words," The quality of mercy is not strained,It droppeth as gentle rain from heaven,Upon the place beneath."In the autumn there is often a chilling rain, may the rains of this fall season gently fall upon us all in its soft veil of mercy....
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
W.H. Auden,"we must love one another or die"
Today is September First, W.H. Auden, the poet's, reflections on Sept.1,1939, at the start of WW2
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Ashtanga yoga.. finding the flowing river of Self
This morning as I was practicing, things were clearly not the same ,not from looking on the outside or within me as I have some new poses of late in my practice which always stirs things up a lot.But there have been many days,that seem like I am repeating things over and over again in just the same way, but even on those days that seem rote and routine, ordinary, flux, transformation is subtly churning away without making a fuss or asking to be noticed. The process of change is often quiet,humble, unassuming yet present.
Today, I had a complex conversation with my daughter about topics we revisit often and my response is often the same and sometime I get frustrated with what seems to me the same question or my same response. Such encounters often lead to disconnection, discord. As I found myself hovering on the boundaries of vexation, my mind literally paused. I saw myself in my yoga practice, my same mat, my same asanas, my same breathing, yet when I saw the kaleidoscope of the thousands of times of me on my mat, each fleeting memory had a subtle difference in texture,quality and tone.As I watched myself practice in my mind , I realized that I had cultivated much patience in repeating these poses,each time a little differently with greater compassion ,depth and perception each time. I took a breath and realized,what good is this yoga , theses asanas that really have small import in my life compared to the great understanding and empathy that is required to be attuned to another human being , moreover, my own daughter,who on the outside may seem to be asking me the same question, but on the inside is struggling to reformulate something different,new, and possibly risky.So just as my yoga yoga practice changed deeply, yet subtly so too my responses today ,although on the outside may have been of the same content,yet they formed from a different more thoughtful, patient and supple person, from a new wellspring that has really been there all the time, but required a practice such as yoga for me to refind...
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