Soul Sunday

Happy Super Bowl Sunday. There’s excitement in the air for a lot more than just football. There are the commercials (my personal favorite – I was a marketing major, what can I say?), camaraderie, food, and the halftime show. My husband played football throughout high school and even into college. There’s a thought that most men don’t feel comfortable showing any emotion other than anger. I think that a lot of men hold so much of their emotion inside, that what is finally expressed isn’t so much anger as it is more of a brewing pot of stored emotional energy that urgently explodes. Perhaps football is a game of collective explosive emotional energy? Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Today’s poem is offered up by Etsy’s PersonalWordsmith.

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 passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Sundays are for poetry on the blog. Poetry comes from your deepest wells of feelings. Explore your own depths. Explore every nook and cranny. This is what was appeared from my own depths today:

The light of the soul

Shines particularly bright

Through the windows of the eyes

When it is closer to seeing

The beautiful Source

from Where it Came.

The windows of the soul,

Reflect everlasting life.

The light never goes out.

Soul Sunday

Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Poems are mysteriously personal. As the poet Zaynab writes: “Everyone goes to the same poem, at the same time, same point, same verb, the difference is the feeling”. I choose not to share the backstory of this poem that I have just written. Bring your own story to it. That’s what makes poetry so intimate and flexible. And write yourself a poem. It’s a beautiful thing to be vulnerable with yourself.

I thought by your absence,

That you were long gone.

No longer tethered to the past.

Fully free and ensconced in a life

Foreign to any of us.

But now I see that by you following her,

So quickly into the unknown, that

You were more attached to her,

than any of us.

The cords were never cut.

Such a brave front you both liked to carry,

to shelter your bruised and vulnerable and wounded hearts.

When you soon meet again,

the bravados will have fallen,

and the healed hearts will be as One,

with all of the other healed hearts,

that beat soundly and steadily,

for the whole of us,

beyond the veil.

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

Soul Sunday

Good morning. Welcome to Sunday on the blog, a day devoted to poetry. Poetry is everywhere. It’s in our songs, in our descriptions of things, and in the cadence of our movements. And the biggest misnomer that people have about poetry is that it is SO SERIOUS. Haven’t we all read several of Dr. Seuss’ books?! Below is one of my favorite actresses reciting a poem. Enjoy! And write yourself a silly poem today or speak out loud one of your favorite songs in a serious, poetical tone. Make yourself and your loved ones laugh. What could be better for your soul?

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. Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Poetry is creative wordplay. Poetry is a way to try to explain the unexplainable with words, without limiting whatever it is, with words. In that sense, poetry is a paradox. Use a little bit of today to write a poem. Have a poetry workshop moment. It will be an excellent use of your time, I promise. Below is a poem I really like, written by Gregory Orr and also a poem I really like, written by me.

Yours

It’s taken me a lifetime to dust you off,

And to bring you home, and to nurture you,

And share in your joy at all of many of life’s little delights.

It’s taken me a lifetime to give you the acceptance,

And understanding, and compassion and care,

You’ve craved, and yearned for, and fully deserved.

Beating steadily, strongly, solidly forward into time,

I give to you my heart, my precious inner child,

For now I realize, it was also yours, all along.

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

Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Poems have no rules, other than to feel the words as you write them. Write yourself a poem today. It may be a beautiful present to give to yourself, during this season of giving. Here is my poem that I wrote just now:

The song of the house has been quiet lately.

Soft, rhythmic, even, lulling and serene.

Everyone just came home for the holidays.

The song of the house has been changed.

Loud, disruptive, uneven, jarring and exciting.

These songs are the soundtrack of my life.

I love how it all comes together to be,

the most beautiful music I have ever heard,

the most beautiful music that I dance to,

the loveliest background rhythms of life being lived.

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

Soul Sunday

Good morning. Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Poetry is a mixture of what is said and what is unsaid. Poetry can be riddle-like. Like an interesting piece of artwork, poetry requires you to bring a lot of “you” to the interpretation of what you are reading and experiencing. I witnessed a poetic moment on television this week, that has been playing on rewind in the back of my mind a lot. The dictionary says that for an experience to be poetic it has to have this quality:

“having an imaginative or sensitively emotional style of expression.”

The poetic moment I noticed was on the latest episode of Yellowstone. It was an exchange between an environmental activist, Summer, and a young cowboy, Carter. This is the scene. I consider this to be “the poem” of the day on the blog.

She (Summer) asks about the fire in the distance.

“Is anybody going to put it out?”

“They can try. Only thing that can put it out is God,” Carter replies.

“God puts out the fire?”

“God brings rain. God puts out the fire.”

Nature puts out the fire, kid,” Summer laughs.

“That’s what I said,” Carter offers sincerely.

*** (synopsis by Outsider.com)

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.

Last night we attended my husband’s annual company Christmas/Holidays party. Although it hasn’t been so annual lately. Due to Covid and whatnot, this was the first Christmas party the company has had in three years. We had a marvelous time. However, since this three year break, I am starting to realize that my husband and I are now fully in the “elders camp” at company parties. All of those older people at business functions that I used to look up to, defer to, feel a little nervous around, and also admittedly, sometimes crank about with my other younger associates, are now “us”. We are the elder people. It doesn’t help that our neighbor’s grandson, and a handsome young man who used to carpool to soccer with my son, in their stinky, sweaty cleats, smelling up my SUV, are now young, energetic executives at this company. The thing is, I still feel like that young woman whom I once was, trying to impress my elders at the company parties. And now that I am “an elder”, I realize how silly and unnecessary that is to do. I just delight in seeing young people making their paths in this world. I’m excited for them and their futures and I realize that I have just as much to learn from them as they do from me.

Okay, that paragraph was a digression from what Sundays on the blog are truly about. (I feel a little distractible today.) Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. When I opened up the computer today, I read this quote from Alan Cohen: “If you feel overwhelmed by responsibility, you have assumed more than what truly belongs to you.” This prompted me to look up some poems written about “lightening the load.” We were up late last night, so I don’t have the bandwidth to write a poem of my own yet this morning. The cobwebs have not been cleared. However these two poems popped up on my search and both of them spoke to me. I hope they connect with you, as well. Have a beautiful, peaceful, meaningful day. See you tomorrow.

Credit: Celestial Sciolla
by Arundhati Chowdhury

Soul Sunday

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

Sundays are devoted to poetry on the blog. Robert Frost says it best:

My emotion has found my thought, and my thought has found my words in the poem which I wrote this morning (see below). What are the thoughts and the words of your own emotions today? Write a poem in order to find out. You will most likely be surprised.

WHO ARE YOU?

Who are you?

Are you what your friends say? Which friend?

And does it really matter what they say, in the end?

Who are you? Are you young, or are you old?

That answer is more about the judger’s age, I’m told.

Who are you?

Do you know? Do you rely on others’ to tell you who you may be?

Or do you sit with yourself, and learn about yourself organically?

Who are you?

The answer to this question is only for you to know.

The rest is all conjecture, projection, and changes as the wind does blow.

Who are you?

Who are you?

You are who . . . .