Tag: poetry

Soul Sunday

Good morning, soul mates. I hope that you all are having a lovely, restful yet rejuvenating holiday weekend. Welcome to summer! My regular readers know that Sundays are devoted to poetry. Poetry is much like the “summer” of language. It is slow and contemplative and full and sometimes heavy, meandering and inquisitive, full of background humming. On Sundays, I either write a poem or I share a poem, written by someone else, which has moved me. And also on Sundays, I implore you to write a poem, as well. Please feel safe and comfortable enough to share your poem in my Comments section. Today’s poem is a classic, popular poem by a poet named Marge Piercy. It speaks of the first days of summer.

MORE THAN ENOUGH by Marge Piercy

The first lily of June opens its red mouth.
All over the sand road where we walk
multiflora rose climbs trees cascading
white or pink blossoms, simple, intense
the scene drifting like colored mist.

The arrowhead is spreading its creamy
clumps of flower and the blackberries
are blooming in the thickets. Season of
joy for the bee. The green will never
again be so green, so purely and lushly

new, grass lifting its wheaty seedheads
into the wind. Rich fresh wine
of June, we stagger into you smeared
with pollen, overcome as the turtle
laying her eggs in roadside sand.

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

Soul Sunday

Good morning, soulmates. We are experiencing an extraordinary and lovely weekend here. What is more beautiful than the lush, fully green, fully ripe, late spring days, hinting at the free-spirited summer around the corner? My regular readers know that Sundays are devoted to poetry, a poetry workshop of sorts. Usually I write a poem, although sometimes I share a poem by another poet who has moved me. As always, I strongly encourage you to share your poems, or at the very least, to write one. Writing a poem is the perfect way to have a conversation with your heart and with your soul. Here’s my poem for the day:

Beautiful Days

Today is beautiful outside. We don’t often count the beautiful days.

The counted days are the fierce, savage days,

which insist on being experienced by rapid force,

And held in our memories by fear and prowling.

The beautiful days leave the door open, with a soothing invitation,

to bring inside, the calm, clear colors, and the soft shimmering of the outside,

to softly cleanse and to shine up and to clear up the view,

for the inner core of our very being and awareness.

The beautiful days are gentle and quiet and nourishing,

and far more prevalent than we ever truly care to admit.

The dramatic storms, with their ravenous anger and destruction,

hold us in rapt attention and rumination and trepidation.

The vicious days have made industries of defense and calculation.

The beautiful days just offer themselves freely. Love requires no invitation.

Soak in the beauty of the day. And expect more beautiful days.

Storms are just angry reminders to remember to count the beautiful days.

The storms are just intermittent nudges to bask in the plethora of beautiful days.

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

Bonus thought for the day: It doesn’t really matter what happens. We have very little control about what happens, in most cases. What matters is how we handle what happens.

Soul Sunday

Good morning, soul mates. I hope that this Sunday finds you tranquil and at peace. Here at the blog, Sunday is devoted to poetry. Poetry is a pouring out of one’s heart, and the seeping out of one’s soul. Poetry always evokes mood, whether it be funny or sad or reflective or passionate. Poetry is a great way to get to know yourself. Write a poem today. Share it in my Comments section, if you like. You’ll be inspired by yourself. Here is my poem for today:

I love that all of the roads that we take, are well worn by experience.

Every twist and turn has a memory of you and me tied with it.

Our nights are filled with remembrances of different stages of you and me.

And we laugh and we smile and all of our looks between us, hold so much knowing.

We are the shared holders and keepers of a lovely urn,

A conjoint container full of stories of life, and brimming with living.

May we each hold our own handle carefully and reverently,

That the vessel of our ongoing adventure, may not be shattered nor destroyed.

When it is time for our shared potiche to be shelved,

May it be a relic that deserves a spotlight for posterity.

May it be a holder of the highest form of love and unity,

Inside of it, two eternal flames forming one fire.

Until then, we carry it on together down the road.

It is my lightest, and my easiest, and my most precious load,

the love that has created, and continues to fuel, our shared story.

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

Soul Sunday

Good morning! Happy Mother’s Day!!! Sundays are devoted to poetry here at the blog. On Sundays, I either write a poem or I share a poem written by another poet who has moved me. Write a poem today, friends. There are no rules. Poems tend to just be the natural outpouring of what’s in your heart, in the form of words.

Every female whom I have ever known (including all of our female dogs, over the years), has had a mothering way of relating to the others in her life, whether she has her own children or not. I used to think that every which way that I needed to be mothered had to come from one woman, which is an unfair expectation of my own mother. As a mother of four amazing people, I am thankful for the ways “the others” have mothered my children, in ways that I was unable to fill the void. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. What is mothering? Here is my poem for today:

Mothering is a force of nature,

Mothering, the purest force of nurture,

Mothering is taking responsibility for caring,

For all of creation, for seeing the gift of all that is,

like no one else can. Her eyes are as wide open as her heart.

Perhaps this overwhelming instinct of care,

is the result of being chosen by Creation,

As the vessel to bring forth more Love into physical form.

Mothering is perhaps the most vulnerable,

and yet also the most powerful action,

one can ever perform in life.

The strength of a mother, is the iron rod of a family,

the support beam of a country,

And it is the Love of a Mother,

A beautiful blue and green globe spinning in eternity,

that holds and feeds and nurtures all of the Life that we live.

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

Soul Sunday

Good morning, soul mates. I hope that today finds you feeling centered and whole. I have been enjoying all sorts of fun experiences, with my entire family this weekend. Nothing makes me feel more centered than being with my family. Sundays, as my regular readers know, are devoted to poetry here at Adulting – Second Half. Why do so many people groan when someone utters the word “poetry”? I think that is an interesting thing to ponder. There is no other form of writing that is more personal, more emotional, nor more poignant than poetry. And yet so many people turn away from it, under the guise of calling it “boring”. Is that really the case? Or is the “dissing” of poetry more of an overall avoidance of facing, and then really feeling, our deepest, most soulful feelings?

For most of this year I have used this tagline on my blog: Are passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain, and pass on love. How do you heal your pain? You face it. You acknowledge it. You let yourself feel it. Your pain will dissipate. Your pain just wants to be acknowledged. Your pain just wants to be understood and to be explored and most importantly, to be felt, so that it can be healed. Again, once pain is faced with compassion and empathy, once pain is physically and emotionally felt, it is spent. Once it is felt, your pain will dissipate. Your pain has just been serving as a dark cloud, over the light of your beautiful, light-filled core of love. Your pain has just served as clouds over the sunshine of your timeless soul. Shine the light on your pain. Ironically, we tend to hold on to our pain, by ignoring it, and by trying to pretend that it isn’t there. And that exhausting act of avoidance just makes our pain grow, like a dark, fierce, quickly growing storm cloud, in a desperate plea to be seen, and to be felt. Pain that is ignored and pain that is unacknowledged, cannot be healed, and cannot be released. Love is greater than pain. Love is. Love your pain away. Clear the clouds.

This is my poem for the day:

My Children In the Other Room

I revel in the sound of your voices,

All together humming, occasionally interrupted by laughter,

A calming cadence of familiar tones.

I don’t listen for the words,

I listen to the harmony of your hearts,

As you share casual conversation.

There is no sound that is more beautiful to me,

Than the blending of your voices,

Sounding the tones of our common love.

Together, your voices, sing the rhythm of my heart.

Soul Sunday

afaoipdvishuqb v4jlgbv sL (Kidding. If you read yesterday’s blog, you’d get it. Ahem.)

Sundays are devoted to poetry here at Adulting – Second Half. On Sundays, I call it poetry workshop day and I share a poem which I have written or I share a poem written by somebody else, which has moved me. Poetry is mysterious, yet exposing, all at the same time. Like a painting, poetry allows you to bring so much of yourself and your own story, to the words and to your perception of the poem. It is possible to make a poem (whether your own words, or not) completely your own, which makes it such a deeply personal and profound form of writing. I would love to see your poems in my Comments section, but regardless, write a poem today. It will show you your heart and soul in written form. Here’s my poem for today:

Thanks for coming out with me last night,

I missed your fun and your free,

I missed the frenzied energy of strangers moving together,

Noticing each other’s beautiful humanity,

Without ever sharing words.

I missed that feeling of being fully alive,

And that aliveness coursing through my being.

Last night was a glimpse of the casually carefree,

A feeling which I had almost forgotten, even existed.

Reminder to self: It is a blessing to have fun,

And to feel fun fully. It is a blessing.

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

Soul Sunday

Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always.
– Rainer Maria Rilke

Good morning, soulmates. I may come across as distracted and disoriented throughout the end of the month. We have a bunch of activities and celebrations and experiences, that ideally would occur in more spread out fashion, but this year, they all are packed into these next three weeks. One day at a time.

That being said, I am even surprised about how even keel that I feel. (there’s a rhyming poem, right there) I hope that this feeling sticks. New friends, Sundays are devoted to poetry here at Adulting – Second Half. Typically on Sundays, I share a poem which I have written, or I share a poem that another writer has written, a poem that moves me deeply. Poetry is the song of your soul. It yearns to be heard. Get it out. If you are too shy to share a poem in my Comments section, please write one down in one of your Thought Museums (your journals). Poetry is writing that typically holds the most feeling. It’s nice to see your feelings in words. Notice your bodily sensations when you read a moving poem. Those are your feelings, friends. Enjoy your feelings. Don’t be afraid.

Today, I couldn’t find the right words from my own voice, so I looked up poems to describe “turning a corner”. Despite all of the action, and the emotions tied into that action, which we currently have going on in our family life, I feel strangely calm and peaceful (that’s never been my typical internal state, which sadly, more often than not, feels like a tightly wound, shaming, defensive yo-yo). Lately, I feel like I have turned some internal corner that I’ve been moving towards my entire life. I think that the destination that I am joyfully visiting right now, is called “Acceptance of All that Is.” I pray that I can sit in this locale for a while, because it feels really, really good – not ecstatic, just utterly serene. I think this poem describes it best:

Final Curve Poem by Langston Hughes

“We don’t talk enough about the chapters where you feel comfortable with the healing you’ve done, you’re no longer repeating the same lessons, you’re at peace and that’s why you’re so quiet. There’s nothing to say, there’s just a lot of calmness.” – Valencia (Twitter)

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 soulmates! Yesterday, I spent the afternoon at the beach with my husband and my daughter and our two male dogs, who are both natural water dogs. It was a wonderful day for all of us, and my husband pointed out that it is noticeably calmer and more quiet here this morning, than it is most mornings. There was a lot of energy expended at the beach yesterday, which tired us all out, but I also think that being at the beach works like a “reset button”, to balance us back to our own natural rhythms, in sync with the nature all around us.

My regular readers know that Sundays are devoted to poetry here at Adulting – Second Half. On Sundays, I write a poem or I share a poem written by another writer. I strongly encourage you to write a poem today. Share your poem here if you like, or just share with yourself. Poetry is a form of writing which is typically more connected with your emotional side and being. It is hard to write or to read poetry, without getting your heart involved, and we all know that it is good to stretch your heart muscles. Here is my poem for today:

Yesterday was different this time.

The waters were calm. The winds were even.

I looked out into the horizon and I understood,

That it was okay for me to be on my ship,

And for you to be on yours,

Perhaps never to sail together again.

Despite our different journeys,

Despite our different vessels,

Once formed out of the same timber, from the same tree.

As I looked up into the even, placid sky,

And I gazed at the early, brave, bright moon,

It occurred to me that we all share the same starry navigator,

As we take our individual journeys, throughout the waters,

Sometimes rough and stormy,

Other times smooth and clear and calm,

Until it is time to return to the safe port of our heavenly home,

Where only Love resides, and where the Tree of All,

Still stands tall at the endless shore,

Where the planks and the boards all melt back into the Tree,

As if they were never separated from her graceful form,

Holding all of the stories from all of the ships’ adventures,

Soundly and effortlessly, in the wide, sturdy trunk of All That Is.

Soul Sunday

Hello to my beautiful, soulmates! On Sundays, we do poetry here at Adulting – Second Half. I write a poem or I share a poem by another poet and I strongly encourage you to share your poems in my Comments section. Sometimes sharing our poems, feels very vulnerable, because sometimes our poems bare our souls. Today, I am feeling light and silly and so my poem for today, reflects that mood. Poems are indeed good mirrors of our inner lives. If you find that you can’t journal every day, try jotting down a daily poem, even just a couple of lines. This practice will tell you a lot about yourself.

As I age, I look for role models, as I have done in every stage of my life. I look at people who seem to age well, and I wonder how to emulate their ability to age so healthfully, and so comfortably and delightfully. Betty White, Iris Apfel, and our neighbor Dave, are all people well past eighty, who look amazing, and still seem to buzz with energy and life, sometimes even more so than their younger peers.

To give you a glimpse of how my curious mind works, and how I even got to writing this particular blog post, I’ll let you know where it started. On Twitter this morning, someone posted a picture of Nat King Cole and his wife, Maria Cole. I found the picture of Maria to be absolutely stunning, so naturally, I looked up more information about her. Maria was also a talented musician, and she raised five children with Nat, until his early death in 1965. Maria went on to live until she was 89 years old. What initially struck me about Maria Cole’s picture, was her huge, radiant smile. It was a constant in almost all of her pictures.

My son once played on a team with another boy whose mother is striking. Granted, this woman is a natural beauty. She is probably about a decade older than me, but she seems to have almost a regality about her. I could never put my finger on why I found her to be so particularly stunning, in a sea of attractive soccer moms, to stand out like she did. Then one day, it occurred to me. Every time that I saw her, she was smiling. She is always smiling. She has a huge smile that is shown in every part of her being and it radiates. I remember thinking that you don’t need plastic surgery or vitamin infusions to remain lovely, as you age. Smiling does so much for anyone, even at the surface level of good looks.

With that being said, here is my poem for today:

The Prescription for Aging Beautifully

If you wish to live a long and happy life,

Peaceful, tranquil, with very little strife,

If a healthy centenarian, is what you wish to be,

With eyes which sparkle with wisdom, mischief and glee,

I have the magic potion, the elixir, the recipe.

Wait for it.

Here it is:

Smile. A lot. Every Single Day.

Just smile, smile, smile the day away.

Smile. 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

Science has just uncovered another benefit of a happy face. People who have big smiles live longer. (The Dallas Morning News)

One study found that just one smile can give you the immediate happiness of eating 2,000 bars of chocolate — without the stomachache. (Advent Health)

New research finds happier people live longer, on average, while angry ones are more likely to die early. (Pacific Standard)

A study from London University College stated that happy, cheerful people are 35% more likely to live longer. Smiling lowers the heart rate and reduces blood pressure, while relaxing your body. (RiverTea)

The study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that people who had higher levels of optimism had a longer life span. They also had a greater chance of living past age 85. (Harvard Medical School)

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

Soul Sunday

Good morning, friends. I think that I will call you “soulmates” on Sundays. Good morning, soulmates. Sundays are usually the most popular day here on the blog. I love that you all are open to poetry. I love that you have helped me to rediscover the poet in me. I hope that you have also discovered (or rediscovered) the poet, in you, as well. Sundays are devoted to the emotional, sometimes non-sensical, mysterious spillage of words called poetry. Please explore the poem which I have written for today, and please also, feel comfortable and safe to share your poems in my Comments section. It has been wonderful sharing this moment with you on this lovely, tranquil day, my beloved soulmates. I look forward to many more connecting moments with you. Peace.

Keeper of the Words

Sometimes the words spill out of me and I can’t contain them.

Depending on how forceful and projectile the emotion is behind them,

The words scramble desperately to find their way on to the screen,

quicker than I can type them into visual form.

Sometimes the words slide out of me and surprise me,

I had no inner rumination of their simmering pot in my conscience.

The words leave me, before I even knew that they were with me.

Sometimes I have no words. I have nothing to write.

Nothing. My inner cache is empty. And that is okay.

When I have nothing to write, it clears the space,

Until the words accumulate again, to fill the void,

As they always do.

The words don’t require my participation,

They only ask for the keys to release them.

When the pressure mounts and the time is ripe,

I generously allow the words to flow out.

I am not the jailer of the words,

I am only their keeper.

Jailers suffocate and diminish and intimidate,

Keepers nurture and protect and trust in growth,

And further, keepers innately know when it is time,

to let their beloved charges fly free.

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