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?

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?

Soul Sunday

Good morning. I hope this Sunday finds you well. Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Write a poem today. It will help you to get to know yourself. Sylvia Plath said this: “Poetry, I feel, is a tyrannical discipline. You’ve got to go so far so fast in such a small space; you’ve got to burn away all the peripherals.” Here is my “burning away of the peripherals” for today:

Sometimes the surface of the water is still as glass.

Nothing breaking in, disturbs its placidness for long.

Sometimes the surface of the water is flowing.

It has direction and purpose and aim.

Sometimes the surface of the water is choppy and topsy turvy.

It doesn’t know which way to turn.

Interestingly, everything underneath the surface is the same stuff.

It’s the conditions outside of the lake that tend to ruffle the surface.

Underneath the surface, the fishes swim, the rocks lie still, and the algae grows,

Always just being the flourishing interior life of the lake,

totally and blissfully unaware of any disturbance outside itself.

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:

858. What do you find monotonous?

Soul Sunday

Jet lag is a real thing. It’s a really real thing. Despite sleeping soundly all night, I feel the need to creep back into bed. Welcome to poetry day on the blog. Any poem which I would try to write, right now, would be even more garbley goop than my original poems usually end up being. Below, this poem speaks to the joys and experiencing of traveling, better than any poem I could ever hope to write. “A journey can become a sacred thing”

For the Traveler

by John O’Donohue

Every time you leave home,
Another road takes you
Into a world you were never in.

New strangers on other paths await.
New places that have never seen you
Will startle a little at your entry.
Old places that know you well
Will pretend nothing
Changed since your last visit.

When you travel, you find yourself
Alone in a different way,
More attentive now
To the self you bring along,
Your more subtle eye watching
You abroad; and how what meets you
Touches that part of the heart
That lies low at home:

How you unexpectedly attune
To the timbre in some voice,
Opening in conversation
You want to take in
To where your longing
Has pressed hard enough
Inward, on some unsaid dark,
To create a crystal of insight
You could not have known
You needed
To illuminate
Your way.

When you travel,
A new silence
Goes with you,
And if you listen,
You will hear
What your heart would
Love to say.

A journey can become a sacred thing:
Make sure, before you go,
To take the time
To bless your going forth,
To free your heart of ballast
So that the compass of your soul
Might direct you toward
The territories of spirit
Where you will discover
More of your hidden life,
And the urgencies
That deserve to claim you.

May you travel in an awakened way,
Gathered wisely into your inner ground;
That you may not waste the invitations
Which wait along the way to transform you.

May you travel safely, arrive refreshed,
And live your time away to its fullest;
Return home more enriched, and free
To balance the gift of days which call 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:

1744. How do you feel about the statement, “Home is where the heart is”?

Soul Sunday

Good morning. Welcome to poetry day on the blog. My friend, who is an English teacher, texted this poem (shown below) to a group of us who have been friends since we were eighteen years old. It is one of the most lovely poems I have read in a long time. Enjoy.

BENEATH THE SWEATER AND THE SKIN

by Jeannette Encinias

How many years of beauty do I have left?

she asks me.

How many more do you want?

Here. Here is 34. Here is 50.

When you are 80 years old

and your beauty rises in ways

your cells cannot even imagine now

and your wild bones grow luminous and

ripe, having carried the weight

of a passionate life.

When your hair is aflame

with winter

and you have decades of

learning and leaving and loving

sewn into

the corners of your eyes

and your children come home

to find their own history

in your face.

When you know what it feels like to fail

ferociously

and have gained the

capacity

to rise and rise and rise again.

When you can make your tea

on a quiet and ridiculously lonely afternoon

and still have a song in your heart

Queen owl wings beating

beneath the cotton of your sweater.

Because your beauty began there

beneath the sweater and the skin,

remember?

This is when I will take you

into my arms and coo

YOU BRAVE AND GLORIOUS THING

you’ve come so far.

I see you.

Your beauty is breathtaking.

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:

2899. Have you ever wished upon a star?

Soul Sunday

Welcome to poetry day on the blog. This poem by Rumi explains love better than any technical explanation ever could. This is the beauty of poetry. It speaks of the “beyond”. Poetry uses words to go beyond words.

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:

1953. What is your favorite type of casserole?

Soul Sunday

Welcome to poetry day on the blog. Sundays are devoted to poetry here. Emily Dickinson’s poems were not widely published until after she died. She was known as a recluse and as a rebel. One of her most famous poems is below. I like it. I’ve never quite understood the desire for fame (admiration, sure, but fame – No thank you.) I believe that fame would limit your individual freedom so much, and also make you feel quite misunderstood and not quite “seen” despite being ever so seen. But honestly, I wouldn’t know. I’m nobody! Who are 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:

666. What is one thing you do that you consider practical?