Good morning. I have a jam packed day. Welcome to Soul Sunday. Here is a classic poem that is always a good one to read again and again. Have a beautiful day.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
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.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
The other day, a few members of my family and I were crowded around my phone, looking for a particular photo from a particular trip. As we were scrolling through my pictures, it became evident to all of us that almost half of my photo roll contained screenshots of words, and quotes, and excerpts from books and short poems. We all laughed. It was one of those moments that you get a true screenshot of your own self, and what truly moves you and captures your attention. Today, use this day to discover yourself. Scroll through your picture roll. Be a sleuth. Look at the clues. Open the doors. Look at the patterns. Feel what feels right. Feel what feels wrong, and change it. Fall in love with yourself. Make a point to see what those who know the real you, and who love the real you, love about you, and then, decide to heartily agree with them.
Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Here is my poem for the day:
“I wonder”
I wonder what this day would look like,
if half of it wasn’t crying in lament about the past,
All of the old stories and questions rehashed and rehashed.
I wonder what this day would look like,
if half of it wasn’t spent in worry about the times ahead,
filled with concern, and a queasy stomach consumed with dread.
I wonder what this day would look like,
If I just take it as it comes,
Deeply feeling every moment’s hums,
Moment by moment. Here. Gone. Here. Gone.
I wonder.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Good morning. It feels like a particularly soulful, hopeful Sunday. My friend sent a video of the most adorable little bird creating a nest in her tree this morning. Nature is hope. Nature continues no matter what. Nature keeps doing its natural thing, oblivious to wars and politics and disasters. Nature is truly the physical manifestation of hope.
Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. I hope that you write a poem today. As Hemingway states, writing is clearing. Here is my poem for today:
I worked so hard on the raft.
I found directions to make it,
And guidelines on how to make the journey,
To get away. I made room for all of us.
And I begged you to come aboard.
But you obstinately refused.
You wanted to stay on the Isle of Anger and Pain.
And I wanted to leave,
You are outraged that I floated away,
And I am disappointed that you stayed.
And the distance between us now,
is full of turbulent waves,
and scary, dark unknown things,
swimming and circling below the surface.
I won’t go back, and you won’t start a raft.
And so, here we are, so far away.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Good morning. What I love about most of my weekends these days, (now that my children are mostly grown and independent) is that I can live these weekend days through my most spontaneous nature. I feel free to live moment-by-moment, following my whims and my fancies and my curiosities more than I have been able to do (or more honestly, allowed myself to do), for most of my adult life. So much of today can be unstudied and unplanned. I can let my most inner impulses and inclinations lead the way. This is why Sunday is devoted to poetry on my blog. Poetry is a more spontaneous form of writing than other forms of communication. Poetry reminds me of those mystery grab bags you buy for a set amount of money with “???” written all over them. The delight in these bags is the excited, anticipation of what may be inside. There is no expectation of what could be in the bags, so curiosity and a sense of fun are the main emotions of the experience. In Japan, many stores offer these mystery bags at the beginning of each year. These “lucky bags” are called fukubukuro. Poetry is the fukubukuro (even this word rhymes!) of our written communication! Indulge in poetry today. Delight in the ways that you discover yourself more fully, by seeing what comes out of your heart, in written form! Here’s my poem for today:
This day is your painting,
your poem,
your living NFT.
It is uniquely yours.
The emotions, the observations, the experiences, the prayers, the meditations, the creations, the relations, the rest, the activity, the obsessions, the possessions, the delicacies, the piquancies, and the frequencies that you tune into today, are all of yours.
This day is your poem.
Your living, breathing poem.
What does it say?
What does it mean?
What will it bring to tomorrow’s on-going poetry in motion?
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Good morning friends. It is a gorgeous morning here. My husband is biking, my daughter is doing a beach clean-up for one of her high school clubs (tough work – ha!) and I have the quiet, sensuous morning all to myself, here at the house. Even our three dogs are lazily lounging in their own spots in the sun. I am basking in this moment, because everything feels right in my world, and it reverberates throughout my entire being. I wish the same for you.
I’ve been in a particularly sentimental mood this weekend, for reasons unknown. Our moods come in and out with the tides sometimes. My regular readers know that I devote the blog to poetry on Sunday. I wrote this poem, about this precious plant of ours, which I only starting pondering about yesterday, because a plant enthusiast friend of mine, and myself, were sharing pictures of our various plants with each other. Sometimes the most meaningful, reliable, steadfast things in our lives, are so easy to take for granted. This green beauty fully deserves her own poem.
“Our Philodendron”
You’ve been so easy to keep,
So hardy and resilient and adaptable,
Quietly going along for the ride,
Always just a trinket in the background,
Living in three states and at least a half a dozen houses.
You came to us in a beautiful celebration basket,
One we could scarcely afford.
We were embarking on a new, unknown adventure,
Another one we could scarcely afford.
You marked the start of our family,
Almost twenty-six years ago.
You adorned our baby’s nursery,
In the same elephant embellished pot,
That still firmly holds you in place right now.
You are vibrant, colorful and full of growth and life.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Beautiful, steadfast, Green Goddess that you are,
Let my tears of grateful joy, nourish your robust roots,
So that you may continue to thrive and to be a living symbol,
Of what truly is the heartfelt center of my very soul.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
Happy Super Bowl Sunday!!! There is something poetic about a day that almost all of our country gets at least a little bit excited about experiencing. Even if you don’t love football, there’s the food, the camaraderie, the rivalry, the half-time show and of course, my personal favorite, the commercials!! There is no other day in the year that I look forward to commercials. That’s what makes Super Bowl Sunday so special.
My regular readers know that Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Poetry is the language of our deeper depths. There is no other form of writing that marries your own personal projections, with the words that you are reading more than poetry does. In that sense, every poem that you read, is completely personal to you. Every poem is yours.
Here is my poem for today. I was inspired to write it from a picture I took yesterday when we were boating.
The dream journal states that water is the symbol of your deepest emotional depths,
And the sky is the symbol for the infinite and the sublime, the start of Heaven’s steps,
So on the days, when it is difficult to fully discern and yet, to try
To understand what scarcely separates the tranquil water from the mystifying sky,
These are the days of the calmest, sweet ecstasy, known to life on Earth.
Days when the experience leads to a profound Knowing and yet also to mirth.
These are the days of holy wholeness, when all separation disappears.
And the peaceful wisdom of the depths and the heights, clears one of all of her fears.
“Our minds create everything: the beautiful mountaintop, brilliant with snow, is yourself when you contemplate it.”
~ Tich Nhat Han
Good morning. I hope that this morning finds you well. Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Poetry is freeing your heart and your soul through the getaway vehicle of words. Use your words. Write a poem today. Your heart and soul will thank you for the fresh air and the light of day.
Earlier this week, a friend shared this beautiful poem by the young and talented Australian poet, Erin Hanson. (Interesting fun fact, Erin is the person who penned: “What if I fall? Oh but my darling, What if you fly?“) Here is the poem my friend shared this week:
And I thought that this was another excellent poem by Erin Hanson, too:
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
“Some people are museums of little things that matter.” – ghost @dead poet ______ (Twitter)
I love this quote. We all know people like this, don’t we? These are people who have a knack of putting neat little touches on anything and everything. Or these are the people who know just the right words to say, or the things to do, just at the right time. I have always said that I want this blog to be a sweet little museum of thought and ideas. I like being a curator of “things that make you go hmmm.” I like being a curator of little thoughts that can make a big difference. I like being reminded of the little things that matter.
With that thought in mind, Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog and I have discovered a new (new to me, anyway), interesting, spicy new poet. He’s a little profane and to the point, which makes his poetry so good. My amazing aunt, who has been a wonderful supporter of my blog, since day one, recently told me that she likes all of the different “voices” which I bring to the blog. She was paying me a kind compliment, but I, of course, had to make the joke that the blog’s different “voices” all come from my multiple personalities (you know, all of the little voices in my head 😉 ). Today, I celebrate the naughty, edgy side of my personality, by sharing this poet’s work. If you prefer to keep Sundays sweet and holy, perhaps it is best to read Jonny Ox’s poetry, tomorrow.
Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.
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.
