poem Archives - Adulting: Second- Half

Tuesday’s Tidbits

+ I saw this on-line. It’s a good poem. I didn’t want to wait to share it on Soul Sunday, so here it is to enjoy.

+ Last month I read about the concept of “logos”. Many of the ancient philosophers believed that “logos” was an all-powerful force that ruled the Universe. The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday gives the following analogy to explain “logos” : “We are like a dog leashed to a moving cart. The direction of the cart will determine where we go. Depending on the length of the leash, we also have a fair amount of room to explore and determine the pace, but ultimately what each of us must choose is whether we will go willingly or be painfully dragged. Which will it be? Cheerful acceptance? Or ignorant refusal?”

Interestingly, I read an article over the weekend by Rabbi Rami Shapiro who talks about a similar concept which he learned in rabbinical school. The teaching was from an ancient sage called Akiva and it goes like this: “Everything is foreseen, yet freedom of choice is given.” Rami Shapiro says that this means that we make our own choices in our individual lives, but the Universe/God/Lifeforce already knows in advance what our choices will be, and thus also, how the outcomes and consequences of these choices turn out for us.

What do you think? Do we have complete free will in our lives? Is anything or everything about life preordained? Is fate already completely set, and are we just puppets going through the motions?

These are the types of questions that plague my mind when I would probably be better off being more focused and concerned about writing out my Christmas chore list, and then doing said chores. But I think that God knows this about me and my messy mind already . . . .

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Happy Father’s Day! We have a lot of plans for the next 48 hours, so tomorrow’s post won’t be happening until late in the afternoon. (please don’t worry, late is better than never) Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. “Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.” — Percy Bysshe Shelley This is my poem for my husband today:

I always knew that you’d make a great Dad.

You’re the perfect mix of who I’d want our boys to be,

And making our daughter feel so loved and protected,

That she’ll accept nothing less for herself,

because you have shown her the way it feels to be adored.

You have made so many of my dreams come true,

This beautiful family which we have co-authored,

Tells the story of the greatest of these dreams.

Three men and a baby girl, ours to treasure for eternity.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Good morning. One thing that I loved about Italy, is that everyone greeted each other, all day long. It would have been utterly rude if you didn’t say, “Buongiorno” to anyone and everyone whom you came across, throughout your day. So, Buongiorno!! “Grazie” (thank you) and “Prego” (your welcome) were also so liberally used by everyone, that I am having a hard time not saying them constantly, even here at home. The Italians have such a friendly, warm, inviting culture.

I hope that this beautiful Sunday finds you well. I feel so lucky to have this blog to come home to, and to look forward to writing every morning. It was good for me that I took a break from writing my blog, only because it made me truly appreciate just how much writing the blog means to me. Absence does make the heart grow fonder. Here is my poem that I wrote for today. (I hope that you will write one, too. Soul Sunday is supposed to inspire the poets in all of us.)

“The Antiquities”

She was exhausted from the endless beauty . . .

One marble statue equally as exquisite as the next . . .

Their individual magnificence was lost to the mass of them . . .

Airly, she remarked:

“Perhaps, they should have made less of them,

In order for their individual perfection to be truly appreciated.”

“My dear!” he laughed. “Did you think that they made them for you?

Is it your belief that they made these statues for eager tourists,

and greedy museum goers, hundreds of years into the future?

Let me ask you this: ‘How many pictures do you have on your phone?’

Your photographs hold your memories for you,

And your memories are primarily for you.

These statues, my love, were their pictures, their memories and their experiences.

These statues were primarily for their own selves,

And yet they were kind enough to leave them behind.

You, my dear, are a voyeur borrowing their own fond, many memories, left in stone.”

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

“Children see magic because they look for it.” – Christopher Moore

Merry Christmas! May it be a magical day for all of us. Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Poetry is like a magical language. Like no other form of communication, poetry takes the alchemization of what you, the reader, brings to it, for the meaning of the poem to come to life. Better yet, each poem is unique to each and every reader, because poetry, in it’s freest, truest form, is really and truly up to individual interpretation. I read this poem last night by the poet Joseph Fasano, and I love it. Whatever your age, never lose the belief in the magical qualities of life.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Yesterday, I took my own advice and I searched “epilepsy” on my blog and I read some of what my son, myself and my family had gone through last fall. And I was utterly shocked to remember how differently I felt, than I do right now, with my son’s epilepsy stabilized and things going generally well for me and for my family. I have always preached to myself, and to my family and friends, and to you readers of the blog, that your life is the endless blue sky, and no matter how dark and torrential and scary and unrelenting they be, the storm clouds always, always pass. The human spirit is amazingly hopeful and resilient and irrepressible. Look at holocaust survivors. Look at wounded soldiers. Look at prisoners of war. Look at the survivors everywhere. We are all survivors of different storms and we shine. We look to the sun, and we reflect the hopeful sunshine. We shine through. Our peaceful, hopeful, sanguine feelings come back when the storm clouds finally pass on by.

Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Today, I didn’t have a poem in my heart to write. So, in the spirit of the strong and the valiant and the hopeful, yet repressed people of the world, I thought that I would look up poems about sunflowers. There are hundreds of poems about sunflowers listed on Google. This one spoke to me. I recommend that you look up the one that speaks to you. Or better yet, write it.

Sunflower poem poetry love lovely things beautiful ocean waves tide beach simple | Sunflower poem, Love poems, Poems

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Good morning. Welcome to the poetry day on the blog. I’m pretty direct when I speak my opinions. What you see is what you get, with me. So, writing a poem is sometimes hard for me. Poetry leans towards more mystery, intuition, and what the readers, themselves, bring to the poem. Poetry is like a painting. What it means to one person, can be interpreted entirely different by another person. It’s brave to write poetry. Poetry requires dropping some masks. Drop a mask today. Write a poem. You won’t regret it. Here’s my poem for the day:

The Starting Block

The starting gate is a little jammed, my friend.

But you’ll get through it in the end.

You want to run through with a clear mind and strong heart,

So that may mean mulling and resting before you start.

The solid, broad finish line will always be there,

but is the ending, really where you should put all of your care?

The journey is made of many new races,

Full of new things, and faces and places.

You’re eager to start a fresh, new race to the finish,

Having run many races, your fears are diminished.

But remember that each race that you run has its own unique gift.

Take your time. Take your pause. Don’t let yourself go adrift.

The starting gate is starting to break free to open itself wide.

To go beyond it, let your deepest innateness be your guide.

Soul Sunday

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Good morning. Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. (and believe it or not, you like poetry. Soul Sunday is a popular day on the blog. “Shakespeare’s a poet and doesn’t know it.” 😉 ) Today, let yourself live from your heart and from your soul. Give your analyzing mind a break. It’s Sunday. Follow your heart today. See where it leads you. A poem is a good way to start this. Here is my poem for the day:

“Amalgamation”

If I could take a gift from each of my decades,

to carry me into this new year of my life,

I would take the determined tree climbing of my childhood,

the breezy presumption of health and beauty of my twenties,

the wild rebelliousness and pride and confidence of my thirties,

the rugged, steely, determined resilience of my forties,

And I would dose all of these attributes with care and love,

And transform all of them into the best version of me yet.

An amazing amalgamation of a life experienced openly from the heart.

Soul Sunday

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Good morning! We have made it through another round of “the holiday season.” Whether it was wonderful, or it was weathered, or it was something in between, it is done. Fini. On to our hopes and to our dreams for the upcoming year!

Sundays on the blog are devoted to poetry. I consider Sundays to be a poetry workshop of sorts. I get up the nerve to write a poem (most of the time) and I bravely and vulnerably share it on my blog, and I strongly encourage you to do the same. My husband and one of my friends both purchased adult coloring books for me this Christmas, and I was fascinated at just how relaxing coloring really is for the soul. Writing poetry is much the same. Try it, you’ll like it. Here is my poem for the day:

“Blueprints”

my favorite relationships were never on purpose

my favorite relationships were never rigidly defined

by a stiff tome of archaic rules and regs and decrees

my favorite relationships can best be described as random,

they are as organic as scattered seeds, tossed in the wind

who happened to find themselves in the same bed of gravel

and they grow together, miraculously, mutually transfixed,

marveling in each other’s resiliency and vibrancy and growth

and reflectively thrilled to be part of a vivid flower garden

that was never purposefully preconceived and planned

but nonetheless, in itself, ends up vitally existing,

wildly and supernaturally, breathtakingly beautiful,

as only Nature knows how to create.

Therein lies the unerring, intuitive truth:

There are no blueprints greater than the Divine’s.

Soul Sunday

Good morning. Isn’t the extra hour of sleep delicious? Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Poems say it all, by often saying very little. Today, I am sharing a beautiful poem by Mary Oliver. If you are new to poetry and you are not sure that it’s really “your thing”, read some of Pulitzer Prize winner, Mary Oliver’s poetry. I bet you won’t be able to read just one. Here is one of my favorite poems, of hers:

Tim Ferriss on Twitter: "A short and beautiful poem from Mary Oliver. Not everything important shouts for attentio... https://t.co/cR270rYXWp… "

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Maybe I should call it Ghoul Sunday since it is Halloween?! Happy Halloween! Despite having only bought my Halloween candy this week, and despite the fact that my family insisted that I way “overbought” for our typical number of trick-or-treaters, guess who has to go out today, and buy more candy?!? I’m not complaining.

My regular readers know that Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. I was tempted to share a link to Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”, but that’s just too cliché, even for me. I actually found a poem this week that I really like. It speaks to the ruts which we get into, and the process that we take to get out of our dead ends in life, whether they be bad habits, or relationship issues, or just anything in our lives that we wish to change for the better. So today’s poem on the blog is not written by me. Still I’ll probably doodle a poem for myself, sometime today. I suggest that you do the same for yourself. Poems are an interesting way to converse with your deepest self. Here’s today’s poem (and have a fun Halloween!!):

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters - Portia Nelson | Sobriety quotes, Wise mind, Autobiography