Soul Sunday

Good morning. Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Below is the poem which I wrote for today. Write your own poem today. Poems are secret messages from your soul.

When?

When will the world stop its tantrum of anger and fear?

When will the world settle into the stillness that’s here?

When will the world turn to the wisdom of the heart?

When will the world lean into intuition’s level of “smart”?

When will the world stop creating its own pain?

When will the world start behaving like it’s sane?

When I stop my tantrum of anger and fear,

When I settle into the stillness that’s here,

When I turn to the wisdom of my heart,

When I lean into my intuition’s level of “smart”,

When I stop creating my own pain,

I help the world turn “insane” to sane.

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1869. Where is the most magical place on earth, in your opinion?

Soul Sunday

When I was in London, my friend who is an English teacher and a fellow writer, sent me this Instagram video about the Poetry Pharmacy. The Poetry Pharmacy is located on an upper floor of the flagship LUSH store in London. Of course, right after my friend sent me this video, I was on a mission to go there. And I got there within mere hours of her sending the video!

Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. I got three “prescriptions” from the Poetry Pharmacy in London. Let’s see what “medicine” they have to offer all of us today:

From the Be Original pill bottle which has only one hot pink pill in a sea of white pills, the hot pink pill held this:

“Let it hurt. Let it bleed. Let it heal. And let it go.” – Nikita Gill

From the For Mothers pill bottle which is filled with red, pink and white pills, today’s pill had this to offer:

“This is a fifty-year-old love. It’s heavy, so I fold in moonlight, the sound/ of water spattered on leaves. Dim stars, bright moon-/our lives. The cake imperfect, but finished.” – Eva Saulitis

The pill from a pile of brightly colored pile of “pills” from the Happy Pills bottle offers us this:

“Suddenly I realize That if I stepped out of my body I would break into blossom.” – James Wright

Words are like anything else. They can be used for good or they can be made into weapons of evil. Words can certainly make for good medicine. Poetry is the formula for making words, the ethereal agents of our own healing.

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1886. Have you found the purpose of your life?

Soul Sunday

Today, my web host did not want to cooperate with me. It’s usual reliability was thrown out the window. Trying to navigate the Login to get on to my blog, was so aggravating and wonky, I found my irritability meter going towards its threshold. And then Ed of Ed’s (our lawn guy) called with a bunch of excuses of why he hadn’t been able to come out this week to mow our lawn. (we don’t own a lawn mower because we employ Ed of Ed’s) Our lawn currently looks like the beginning spawn of a remake of the Amazon jungle. As my ire was simmering underneath my skin, I was reminded of just how typically reliable both my web host, and Ed of Ed’s, are in my life, and I typically have no feelings other than peace and ease and comfort, about their dependability and stability. It’s only on the rare occasion that things aren’t going as planned that my Inner Hothead pops in for a visit, full of indignant bluster. Rumi’s poem (below) is the perfect choice for poetry day on the blog:

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1039. What brand or product do you buy because you feel it’s trustworthy?

Soul Sunday

Happy Father’s Day!! Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Write your dad or your husband a poem today. They’ll get a charge out of it. You’ll get a charge out of it, too.

“Dads are most ordinary men turned by love into heroes, adventurers, story-tellers, and singers of song.” – Pam Brown

“Superman”

When she called you “Superman”, she saw what I already knew

Not just to the broad shoulders and the handsome face, she was drew,

She saw the big heart beneath it all, the part that really makes you, you!

When it comes to devotion, rock solid reliability, and to your word being true,

Not many can even dare to compare, I imagine that there are very few.

You are my greatest love. My love for you will forever ensue.

For all the gifts you’ve given me, I am most grateful for our “crew.”

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I love you.

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

174. If you could be a bird, which would you be?

Soul Sunday

Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. I was inspired to write the poem below when I briefly skimmed some posts on X that said that a scathing article was written about Dolly Parton by The Federalist. I didn’t read the article, but I know that Dolly Parton has given millions to charities all over the country. She is beloved by her fans, all over the world. She has put so much good and happiness and beauty and creativity and acceptance and LOVE into the world that we all experience today. Roger Ebert, the movie critic said this about her, “In Dallas for the premier of ‘9 to 5’, I had an uncanny experience, and on the plane home to Chicago I confessed it to Siskel: I had been granted a private half hour with Dolly Parton, and as we spoke I was filled with a strange ethereal grace. This was not spiritual, nor was it sexual. It was healing and comforting. Gene listened and said, “Roger, I felt the exact same thing during my interview with her.” We looked at each other. What did this mean? Neither one of us ever felt that feeling again. From time to time we would refer to it in wonder.”

Do people float in your presence or do they sink?

Do you make people feel special? Do you make them think?

Do people feel loved by you or are you only courting love?

When people are with you, do they feel touched from above?

Do you focus on the good stuff or do you nitpick for the flaw?

After a time being with you, do people get a sense of awe?

And when I say “awe”, I don’t mean for you, I mean for themselves,

Like you’ve helped them lift their best selves, off from dusty shelves.

Some people are so well-loved because that’s all that they give away,

Love in every which direction, each and every day.

credit: @alioop326, X

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2530. What is your favorite soup?

Soul Sunday

Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Sometimes I write a poem and sometimes I share a poem that has deeply moved me, written by another writer. Today, write a poem. And if you can’t do that, at least read someone else’s poetry. It will stir something in you. Today is a poem written by the poet Angi Sullins. Isn’t it inspiring?

the next time

by Angi Sullins

the next time
you refuse to sing
because you’ll never
fill a stadium
or decline the joy of dance
for fear of looking
ridiculous
or you resist risking
the new adventure
because you’re
not entirely ready or
you dim your shine
because you’re not
completely healed and whole

the next time
you hold yourself suspect
because you’re not
entirely qualified

just remember

a bird doesn’t sing
because it’s talented
a bird sings because
it has a song

the moon doesn’t only shine
when it’s whole
it can show up with
a single sliver of itself
and still light an entire
night sky

show up. sing. shine.
the world needs you
as you are.

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

920. Have you ever gotten majorly lost trying to get somewhere?

DO NOT Help Me Write

****I’ll start by saying that recently, a “Help Me Write” by Google feature, has popped up when I am writing my blog, whenever I take a moment to think, or if I go back to parts of my post to make changes. I find this incredibly annoying. I will NEVER utilize this feature. (thus the typos, the awkward sentences, and my own, creative-licensed grammar rules) I am saddened by the idea of anyone’s individual “voice” to be taken out of our own unique writing. Our writing should be an extension of us, as individual as our fingerprints and our handwriting. We are all authentic, unrepeatable individuals. Even identical twins are not copies of each other because it is impossible to have the very same identical experiences, every moment of the day. Just as our DNA, our genes, our proclivities and our heritage make up the whole of us, so do our experiences, and our reactions to our experiences, and all of this is uniquely unrepeatable and precious. When I write, it comes from my own uniquely unrepeatable heart’s energy, not from an inhuman algorithm.****

Speaking of incredibly unique and authentic individuals, recently I purchased something on eBay, and I got into a conversation about the item with the seller. The seller turned out to be the daughter of two extremely intriguing, interesting, colorful characters (now deceased) who were a married couple and utterly devoted to each other, and also to their individual, exotic pursuits. The husband, Mentor Huebner was a prolific artist who worked for movie studios in Hollywood and created conceptual designs for 250 movie sets including the movies like Blade Runner, Ben Hur, King Kong, Lord of the Rings, etc. According to his wife, Mentor enjoyed painting so much that she would often have to beg him to stop painting, just to eat. Because Mentor was employed by movie studios, he didn’t have to rely on collectors buying his paintings for his living, and he was known to turn down exorbitant offers if he didn’t like the buyer, and other times he gave away his paintings (worth $1000s of dollars) to people whom he did like. The wife, Louise Huebner, was pronounced “The Official Witch of Los Angeles County” at the Hollywood Bowl in 1968. She considered herself to be a generational witch and she wrote many books and appeared on many radio programs and talk shows such as The Johnny Carson Show, discussing occult matters. When the daughter mentioned her parents in our message exchange, I went down a rabbit hole (as it is so easy to do on the internet) to learn more about these fascinating people.

Mentor Huebner died in 2001. In 2003, Louise Huebner created a website devoted to his life and his art. Louise died in 2014, but the Mentor Huebner website remains. Underneath a running clock, are these words:

Revelations of Mentor’s Life and Art

Public and Personal

Will Continue to Appear On This Ever to Be Expanding Site

Forever!

Or at the Very Least as is True of the Universe

Until the End of Time.

I find exotic, unapologetically authentic, audacious, passionate people so interesting and inspiring. They live their lives so bravely and honestly and unapologetically. They live lives as they feel inclined and guided to do, and they are not at all concerned with what other people’s opinions about how they should conduct themselves. They are inimitable. I don’t imagine that they go to their graves with regrets.

Clearly the Huebers shared a passionate love and mutual admiration for one another. Louise wrote loads of poetry and almost all of her poems were devoted to Mentor. A poem that she wrote ten days before Mentor passed, compares herself to a Pharaoh’s wife terrified to be put in the tomb alive with the Pharaoh’s body. In her poem, “Until Death Do Us Part” Louise Huebner writes, “I however enter my grave of grief most willingly.” She compares herself to the Egyptian wife: “But there is a thing she and I seem to have in common ~ we ignore everything we have been taught and so often are inappropriate.” She ends the poem with this verse filled with her passionate devotion to her husband, again comparing herself to the ancient Egyptian Pharoah’s wife: “Yet she spent the rest of her life screaming to get out of her husband’s grave, and it looks as though I will spend the rest of mine, screaming to get in.”

Everyone has a story. You do, too. It’s more interesting than you could possibly realize. Start telling your story. Better yet, start living it. Be true to your innermost longings, inclinations and intuitions. You deserve to experience the truest, fullest version of you. We all do. Imagine a world of inimitable, uninhibited, passionate, talented, unapologetic people, living lives true to themselves. What an amazing, exhilarating world it would be (and not one of us would be utilizing Help Me Write/Live/Think/Love)!

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

467. Do you have a scar? If so, how did you get it?

Soul Sunday

Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Today’s poem is written by Nathaniel Bard:

Quiet Gratitude

Fields of white stones, each a silent tale,
Flags flutter softly in the mourning gale.
Honor their memory, sacrifices cast,
In quiet gratitude, forever vast.


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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

2158. Do you think a person can always depend on the kindness of strangers?

Soul Sunday

Happy Mother’s Day! I know a lot of my readers are mothers, and truly wonderful mothers. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And to my own beautiful four children, you make me so proud. I love you with all of my heart. It is my greatest joy and privilege to be your mother. Last night, my husband and I attended a wedding and as I looked around at everyone and mingled with people I’ve known for several years, it occurred to me that every stage of mother was in that room. There were pregnant women, women with their first babies, and a young woman talking about being at her child’s little league game, late into the night, on her own birthday (and every one of us mothers, whom she was telling the story to, were nodding in knowing recognition and understanding). There were the proud, excited middle-aged mothers of the bride and the groom, and there was a table of older women, presumably grandmothers and maybe even great-grandmothers. Maybe the reason why weddings have such beautiful energy and an aura of hopefulness like no other event, is because they are filled with strong women who deeply understand what it is like to be a willing, unending, unbreakable channel of the Universe’s greatest Love.

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

733. What was your last big achievement?

Soul Sunday

Good morning and what a beautiful morning it is here. I wish the same for you. Sundays on the blog are devoted to the talk of the heart and soul (poetry). Listen to your heart and soul today. Write yourself a poem. Make a beautiful connection with yourself. Here is my poem for today:

This is peace.

Light snore of dogs.

Sunlit pattern on the floors.

Easy breezes in the palms.

Lightly tinkling wind chimes.

Easy breathing, no aches or pains.

Unscheduled time.

Choices in the pantry.

Unconflicted mind.

Worries in faraway closed, dark drawers.

Seeping gratitude for all of the love in my life.

This is peace.

Peace is this.

Peace is noticing the good.

And soaking it in.

Becoming one with it.

Peace is truth.

I am peace.

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

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

785. Do you believe in aliens?