Consumption

What I put in my mouth and engage with my mind establish well being.

Growing up, Sundays mostly meant extended family meals with relatives in Brooklyn or our Long Island home. Dinners began at two with provolone, roasted peppers and fried artichoke hearts. Then richly sauced al dente rigatoni, meatballs and sausage were passed around the linen clothed table. Cousins and I savored juicy leg of lamb, garlic tossed string beans and lemon baked potatoes until forks clanked on empty plates. To make room for dessert, we’d carry dishes to the sink, spoon leftovers into containers and nap or play Gin Rummy. Eating was a festival of togetherness.

Food was love.

By mid-meal, my belly pressed on my pants waist and I’d unsnap the band. After pastries, my brain swirled in a sugar daze. More than a Sunday event, this blood sugar roller coaster became a daily ride. Mom, however, strictly rationed desserts during the week. So, I’d sneak to the basement to forage on Edelman’s coffee cake stashed in the freezer for guests. As Aunt Mamie said, sweets call, “Come‘a to me.”’ But,

What we consume becomes our make-up.

And our bodies grew imbalanced. Sunday conversations soon centered on my aunts’ blood pressure levels and cholesterol pills. Mid-week meals closed with Mom’s mantra, “Now what can I eat?”

We were well fed but malnourished.

This was true of our soul life, too. Weekday evenings after the table was cleared and homework finished, my brother, sister and I scrambled to spots on the rug or between our folks in bed to watch TV. Night at the Movies features were favorites. Cozying up with my pillow, blanket and dear ones, I devoured Robert Redford eying down a crooked scoundrel and Jane Fonda protesting mismanaged government. Nightly, solitary heroes and heroines struggled and overcame evil. Filled with inspiration, I’d snuggle to sleep dreaming of becoming a courageous soul bringing light to the world.

What we dwell upon becomes our mindset.

As a teen, however, I began feeling empty after watching the movies. I noticed characters’ gestures and words occupying my mind. I sensed subtle promptings to be like them. Longing to be myself, engaged with others near me, I thought evenings better spent playing games, making crafts or reading a book aloud with my family. But no one budged from the television set. Engrossed in absorbing storylines, they let me do as I pleased. And I was left to choose between going off alone and being nourished or staying amidst loved ones, hollow.

Many a night I ventured into the dark house away from the glow of the TV screen to sit and read or sew. I’d pull books from dad’s shelves and ingest philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. I’d practice stitches Aunt Nini taught me and design a pocketbook. My thoughts settled, insights flowed and I’d slip to sleep in solace. But at times, I felt afraid of being on my own in a world apart.

Yet, I continued exploring. Grappling with ups and downs in energy, I was elated to discover the only health food store in town and the satisfaction of eating whole grain bread. Its density and texture fascinated me, accustomed to limp white bread. I felt fed for the first time. I became an alchemist, experimenting with sea salt and cane sugar, steaming fresh peas and carrots rather than eating mom’s canned goods. My food cravings vanished.

I soon parted ways with my family’s diet, adopting an earthier fare. Not a soul touched my dark crusted pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving except Aunt Connie. My dishes were foreign and suspect.

It was at the health food store I first saw Edith. Blue eyes sparkled beneath gray bangs. Braids dangling on her Indian embroidered shirt — she was natural. We became fast friends. I marveled at her simple home, garnishing the original pink tiled 50’s bathroom, not remodeled as most Long Island homes. Her time and energy went into enriching endeavors, like teaching yoga and folk dance classes in her basement.

Edith was a refuge of authenticity with whom my soul feasted. She was my first Long Island friend whose sustenance veered from the culture’s standard fare.

What our mind consumes becomes the lens through which we conceive.

Before long, I rented an apartment 15 minutes from Edith and my folks, in Huntington. There, I walked or biked to town. I gave away my TV, carefully choosing what news I read or listened to and what music and literature I took in. I devoured folk concerts at the Huntington Folk Society and in the park down the street. I delighted in swirling contradances with live fiddle and flute music in a hidden wooden barn.

I engaged with people in real experiences which fed me.

Over the years, I’ve converted from buying organic avocados shipped from Mexico, to locally grown bananas brought to the farmer’s market, to picking guavas in my yard.

I’ve stretched from attending dollar movies to live concerts and community dances to hosting salons and craft nights at home.

I’ve discovered new facets of local fare.

Now more than ever, we can consume stories, words, and images, through digital media, nonstop, coming from who knows where. Random sequences of Bart Simpson, “Just Do It!”, and juicy burgers on buns stream from screens to our minds. I wonder how kids today navigate such cacophony. I’m saddened by their scanty dealings with ants, clovers and creeks. They grow up deprived of watching tadpoles, listening to crickets and climbing oaks to garner life’s ways.

Lack of contact with the real world creates soul hunger.

I’ve found great solace in stepping barefoot on the damp soil each morning to gather collards, strawberries, and spearmint.  Using a biodynamic calendar, I plant seeds and harvest vegetables when cosmic energies are beneficial.  Wholesomeness sings in my belly – vitality is nourishing.

Earth’s life forces become our own.

Tomato plants that I’ve not sown sprouting in my yard convey life’s give and take from unseen sources. Banana and papaya trees feeding on compost show me no accomplishment is made alone. Each nourished by earth and sky adds its part to creation.

There are no lone heroes or heroines saving us all.

We each have access to nature and spirit. Cable and cost aren’t needed to tune in. Abundantly, unprocessed food for our bodies and souls is present.

 

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Changing the Current

News often reports problems: floods in Houston, wildfires in northern California, an earthquake in Mexico City.

 

I, too, tend to chase concerns. Like a mad hatter, I deal with to critters eating my blueberries, water pooling in my yard and my gutter filling with pine needles. Once a problem’s gone, another pops up like a duck at a rifle range and I face it.

 

When I moved into my house in Florida, I was concerned with high energy use during sizzling summers. I decided to buy fans knowing they cool air up to 4 degrees and save fuel and money. After weeks of internet searches, scores of trips to stores and varied phone calls, I bought four tower fans then quickly checked them off my list and started looking for a high efficiency washing machine. The fans soon became part of the furniture, used but off my mind.

 

What’s doing well generally goes unnoticed.

 

Sitting at my desk one quiet evening, I relax my neck muscles and adjust my focus. I feel a soft breeze caressing my back; I admire subtle shades of rust and amber on a vase my friend made me; I appreciate that texting is helping friends and I arrange plans for a visit to the Warm Mineral Springs. I tune to the present, wondering, why is it?

 

Trouble typically captures our attention.

 

I decide to shift. Rather than primarily addressing problems, I’ll nurture dreams. Gandhi taught noncooperation: neither fighting nor fleeing wrong, but planting truth, goodness and beauty, among it.

 

While tending to what needs amending, we can cultivate what longs to exist.

 

As a kid, I loved making whirlpools with friends in my classmate Christina’s above ground swimming pool. All five of us would walk the circumference in one direction forming a great current. Soon, the water pulled us gleefully riding its circle. We couldn’t stand still if we wanted. This took swimming out of the current, holding the pool’s rim and bracing limbs with all our strength. When we chose to change course, with great effort we’d slowly turn the opposite way and take tiny, shaky steps against the pull. In time, our tread grew steady and turned the tide.

 

We are each born with seed dreams to uplift life. The mainstream draws us in its customary course if we’re unaware or unable to do otherwise. Cultivating new currents takes resolve and attentiveness.

 

The established way vociferously presses forth. New streams silently invite our creation.

 

As a young woman, I dove into a whirlpool unaware of muscles needed to hold my own nor change its course.  Fresh out of college in my first teaching job at Susan B. Anthony Middle School, I was disturbed by the bleakness of this NYC ghetto school’s barred windows, metal detector and security guard. I aspired to bring light.

 

Early on the new principal, Mr. Anise, sent me and 4 other newbies to a workshop on the “Being Healthy” curriculum which taught positive communication, conflict resolution and healthy eating.  Its greatest enthusiast, I was chosen to promote the program to staff. At the podium, singing “Bridge Over Troubled Water” as my opening, I spied slouched teachers dispersed in the shadowy auditorium murmuring, “Oh, brother.” From then on as we passed in the halls pairs of seasoned teachers snickered, “What does she know about teaching these kids?”  After all, Ms. Bougournia from Jamaica warned students the first day of school she knew Voodoo so don’t mess with her. Mr. Jensen escaped with a class each Wednesday on a field trip. Ms. Stein did who knows what behind closed doors, kept impeccable order and taught math. The “Being Healthy” curriculum whimpered and perished, but skills I gleaned thrived. As I pulled contentious students from cafeteria to the hall directing them to make “I” statements, tensions melted and peace emerged with a hand shake.

 

My second year, Mr. Anise rewarded me with further training and a coveted pull out Reading Program. I led small group discussions on Great Books winning me more enemies among peers stuck managing throngs of troubled teenagers. I imbued communication skills in my class exchanges, pressing against the school’s current in small ripples, not altering its course. My light fluttered amid the teacher next door cursing under his breath, students swarming around fights in the halls and the graffiti concrete yard stripped of new basketball nets. One day, as I trudged through dank halls during planning period drowning in desolation, a voice thundered in my head, “Stop trying to change the tide alone. Join others going in your direction.”

 

Before being overcome, I lifted my limp spirit and applied elsewhere. New Principal, Mr. De Metri, swept me to the brighter shores of Marie Curie Middle School hiring then fighting for me as my old principal threatened I’d lose my certification should I pull out of the torrent. He felt it unfair having invested so much in me, but I couldn’t alter its course.

 

A year later, resuscitated, I realized my good fortune at now teaching in the best district in the city. “You died and went to district 26,” Miss Grace assured me in the teacher’s lounge. She was right. Here, I led the Peer Mediation Program, taught conflict resolution and infused art, music and drama into history and language arts lessons. I coalesced with colleagues in a gurgling flow. This showed me,

 

If we press in the direction of our calling, while adverse circumstances may persist, a new course will open.

 

Bringing to life what longs to emerge involves diverting from the mainstream. We must pull from its current to still ourselves and listen deeply. True literacy is learning to read the scripts of our lives. While teaching, I fasted and meditated weekends to calm anxieties, recognize and release misconceptions and realign myself. These personal quests benefit the world.

 

Contemplation is a political act.

 

As free individuals we can find and establish our place in the dance of creation. With like-minded souls, then join forces to redirect culture’s course.

 

Civilization needs our life streams to regenerate its ways.

 

When I think about the destruction of hurricane’s Harvey, Irma and Maria, my heart aches for lost lives, communities, wildlife and human made structures. Much needs tending.

 

If we continue business as usual, all our attention, resources and energy may very well be spent on cleaning up messes.

 

Now more than ever we need to press our dreams into life.

Breathing Room

A Persian Myth tells we’re born as camels with great burdens placed on our backs. The first third of our lives we must carry the bearings of our ancestors: beliefs, customs, aspirations and aberrations. Our souls are thus imprinted with culture.

As a child, I loved Sunday mass: solemn statue saints resonating pure lived lives, hymns on which to soar to high realms, tales of Jesus healing the blind and lame, saying we can do the same. His parables wove wisdom through my soul. My heart ascended with the true, good and beautiful.

When the priest pronounced, “Go now in peace,” bowed heads lifted. Purses and keys grasped, the masses pressed through the aisles towards their cars. Sharply, like a pierced balloon, my soul deflated. In a daze, my eyes fastened to my dad’s head bobbing through a sea of bonnets and hairdos to navigate my way to our Cadillac. As I gazed out the backseat window at parishioners vying for exit from the black asphalt parking lot, I pined for engagement with living truths like a plant pursuing light. Soon condominiums blocked the steeple’s ascent and I closed my eyes to gather the lingering glow within.

Once home, I slid off my patent leather shoes and fancy laced dress. Sitting with my family to ham and cheese sandwiches and store bought macaroni and potato salad, I was eager to have put dishes in the washer and wiped down the table. Finally, I could slip between pink azaleas and the cool concrete wall of my house to sit cloistered in a circle of Japanese yew. Beneath a canopy of dogwood, streams of insight like soaring organ arpeggios sculpted my soul as Heaven serenaded me. Legs moist with dirt and browning leaves, I sat in communion.

Every Saturday morning, catechism was a dark, stifling edifice in which I was brought to dwell. Strict definitions tacked down contours of the Divine, prescribing proper intercession, enumerating forbidden transgressions. My friend, John, memorized 60 such depictions in preparation for confirmation. The bishop, clothed in crimson regalia, strode past him and fellow eighth graders, frozen in line, to ask the questions. “What is a sacrament?” the bishop prodded Jennifer, shaking in her white Mary Janes. “An outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace,” she spurted, proud to have remembered word for word. The bishop nodded and walked away. John, stunned, holding back signs of disbelief muttered “Was that it? I memorized all those definitions for that?” It was then he told me he started to turn from the church.

Served up lifeless imperatives, our souls run on empty.

School, too, retained me in barren barracks. I took refuge in the occasional sculpting of clay renderings of the Acropolis. Filling in bubbles after finding the main idea dulled my mind. Searching for details of assigned passages in SRA kits was a closet from which I sought escape for air. Lining up on pungent waxed floors in dingy green hallways, my sinews clenched. Until at last, heavy metal doors were unbolted and my limbs could extend on the sundrenched clover fields of the school yard.

A trip to Garvies Point in fifth grade still lives in my soul. Groomed amongst sharply pruned shrubs and glossy polished surfaces, I stared wide-eyed and dreamy at simple scenes of natural living. Wooden dioramas displaying sun baked women weaving grass and bare footed children gathering acorns filled me with delight. I studied each gesture and object in my mind’s eye as I stared out the bus window at Shop Rite and Burger King on the ride back to our classroom. A window had cracked to a world long vanquished.

According to Persian myth, the second third of our lives, we become conscious of our load. We are now the lion who must eat the camel – taking what we choose, casting off what we reject.

As an Environmental Economics student at NYU, I ventured with my Botany class to New Jersey wetlands. This was a much awaited break from steamy subway grids and grimy black sidewalks. As I stepped off the metal bus to grassy fields of trees piercing blue, my sinuses unblocked and lungs expanded. The soles of my sneakers sinking into supple earth, I trailed with classmates as Professor Stein pointed and named, “Morella Pennsylvania”, “Quercus Stellata”. I glanced past her narrative to watch a butterfly flitting through cornflowers. Gathered under an oak, notebooks and pencils in hand, we sketched and jotted terms for parts of a leaf she upheld: “petiole”, “sinus”, “lobe”. My heart sinking, I leaned into the flanking, grey bark of a nearby oak, inhaling its musky scent. Drawing my attention to its firm hold of earth and soaring to sky, I took refuge, vowing not to take another science class.

Once conquerors of the natural world, we now live severed from creation.

My friend Darian grew up in Iran. He and his family fled the Iranian Revolution when he was a boy. Years later, considering his religion of birth, he awoke with a dream. In it, he stepped into a mosque and approached elders soft eyed, warm breathed, bowing in devotion. Touched, wanting to join, he reverently tread up the aisle to find his place. Row by row, aspirants’ eyes grew more hardened, breath, sharper until at last he was commanded to perform lifeless, rigid movements. His dream showed him the progression of spiritual tradition through generations. He shuddered at what was once hallowed turned hollow and looked elsewhere for guidance.

We preserve living truth past its shelf life.

In my twenties, I pondered moving to a society where people sustain enlivened connections with the spiritual world, earth, and each other. But disengaging from enculturated ways of my upbringing seemed difficult, if not impossible. So I decided, “I was born into this society. I have a responsibility to it.”

At first, I tried to infuse my vision of a simpler life into the mainstream. I gave away my t.v. and radio, cut up credit cards, walked and biked when possible. With few byways off the beaten path, life was hard. Navigating safe bike paths to buy food was dicey. Getting together with friends became a project. I felt unsourced, like a bird in Manhattan piecing together a nest with twist ties and six pack rings.

Over time, I accepted complexities I’d rather live without, like a bank account and insurance. I discovered undercurrents of folk music, macrobiotic pot lucks, and thrift shops. I partook in community gardening, contra dancing and an anthroposophical study group. I pieced together a life of necessity and community, reaping the fruits of seeds sown by like-minded folks.

Having eaten the camel, the last third of our lives, according to the myth, we can become the wise child. Recovering our innocence and remembering our knowingness, we can share our gifts.

“In India, performers of classical music do not make their public debut until they are in their 40’s. A lifetime of study and spiritual practice is … prerequisite … to be ‘in tune’ with the entire cosmos before rendering music that recapitulates (the) cosmic order.”** 

I’ve been tending my inner garden to cultivate fruits for the world. How about you?

While studying at NYU, I was introduced to the Speak Easy, a folk coop on MacDougal Street. I’d been writing songs for a while and soon started performing. Knowing I couldn’t bear a desk job after graduation and wanting to devote time to writing, I prayed nightly for guidance. I dreamt three times of being a teacher.

Teaching is a good fit for my capabilities and creativity. After further studies at Hofstra, I learned of a clinic where I was taught to tutor students with Dyslexia. Loving one-on-one instruction, I withdrew applications to teach in schools. Since then, I’ve tutored, taught in public and private schools and further trained to help students overcome math and writing difficulties and prepare for college entrance exams. Integrating Waldorf, Montessori and other methods, I’ve pieced together traditional and alternative modes. And have written songs and played out as I could.

I’ve come to see Grammar as a way to enliven our understanding of ourselves and our world. I try to show students that nouns name physical and spiritual forms in space, and verbs, creation into being through time. Geometry and numbers are archetypes of patterns and realities behind all processes. I point to these truths to inspire students to delve their realms. I engage learners with exploration and conversation hoping they’ll glean their own understanding, rather than feeding them dry formulas and definitions. I pray for my students nightly to be guided to help them fulfill what they are here to become and bestow.

I have two callings. One to the children I teach and one to the world at large.

Over Christmas vacation, my friend Pete* and I overturned the lawn in my backyard. We cut up branches of trimmed trees and laid them in circular mounds. We layered soil and mulch and planted native and Florida friendly fruit trees and flowers.

Pete says curves, not lines, are natural, allowing energy to flow. Mounds draw in cosmic forces. Buried branches attract worms, replicating forest floor. Our work welcomes nature to settle in.

Growing up, I felt pressed to step from life to the confines of dead doctrine. Like a weed in a cracked sidewalk, I sought sustenance from earth and sky, seeking to break ground. In my garden, students, friends and I can breathe with enlivened creation, watch natural rhythms, and allow ourselves to join its dance.

 

 

 

**The Dances of Universal Peace North American Journal, issue 5, Winter 2006/2007 p 26

* Peter Blake, Home Farm: A Division of Permafarm, Harmonizing urban agriculture with today’s living: balancepointbody@gmail.com

 

Call To Action

After hanging damp sheets on the line

Writing a check due the IRS

And baking russet potatoes

 

After calling elder friends to say “hi”

Texting my West Coast niece Ella

Watering broccoli rabe and tomatoes

 

After dodging traffic downtown

To teach Amanda how

To plan and outline an essay

 

Pumping cheap unleaded gas

Buying bulk black beans and jarred molasses

Hearing Chris Hedges on Alternative Radio

 

Through unloading my stuffed car

Unpacking my cloth bags

Washing bowls now grown crusty

 

Skimming high piles of mail

Recycling unwanted ads

Jotting my to dos for tomorrow

 

I stretch by beeswax candlelight

On a warm cotton blanket

By the cool terrazzo floor

 

And sit on the futon’s edge

Reviewing my day passed

I pray for students and family and friends

Then turn on the lamp

To read Steiner’s Philosophy of Freedom

 

When words begin to jumble

Meaninglessly

In circles

My mind drifting

Toward night’s sky

 

I close the cover

Switch off the light

Turn down the sheets

And lie to sleep

 

After myriad in and out breaths

Way past midnight

Beyond din of traffic

And glow of lamp light

 

Deep in stillness

Stars shining

Moon beaming

Planets whirling

My body lying

In slumber

 

I soar through night’s sky

Amongst others

Remembering

Regaining

Restoring

 

With heavenly bodies

I review my purpose

Rekindle aspiration

Realign my intent

 

Then with the sun’s first glimmer

My body revived

Through rest

From my spirit-soul’s absence

 

Now returned to bed

I awake

To hear, Call to action!

Sounding through my dormant mind

 

Turn off the radio

Turn down the lights

Close that book

Silence your smart phone

 

Put down your pen

And pad

And date book

 

Let go the million scattered pieces

Of things to do

Oh you, great organizer

 

Sit

 

Look within

And watch the thoughts

That run your day

 

Before digging one more hole

Planting another seed

Pulling out that weed

Tend to your mind’s garden

 

Take stock of its residents

Pests, parasites and predators

Half-truths, malicious lies and empty facts

You picked up off the streets

Absorbed from the paper

Ingested through the internet

 

Stop giving Despair a seat on your sofa

Feeding Anxiety your attention

Entertaining Contention with your mind

Imposters!

 

They devour your dreams’ buds

Suck your life’s forces

Consume your vision’s clarity

Clear them out!

 

Free ground for

Insight’s Stream

Inspiration’s Light

Intuition’s Soil

To settle

 

Let truth take root

Bringing meaning to matter

Order to your occupation

Purpose to your path

 

Then your soul can

Tend to its task

To bring to life

Your Spirit’s dream

 

And guided from within

Return to the outer world

To do

What needs doing

A Winter’s Reflection

Mountain Climbing

 

I’ve tended to plot straight lines of perpetual ascent

Through sky, toward sun, to pinnacles.

 

But find myself plodding

Through unforeseen terrain,

Of vertical cliffs, sudden turns

Daunting drops,

Hoping I’d find my way.

 

From time to time

I’d reach a height

And stand aglow

Victorious

In bright of day.

 

But my stance would be shaken.

Life’s curves come unexpectedly.

I’d twist and twirl to depths

To dark crevices

To sit in shame.

 

In time

I’d settle my soul

Glance up through floating clouds

And reconsider a climb.

 

But like Sisyphus’s trial

My course had no end

The golden summit is not to be possessed.

 

 

Receiving the Present

 

Each morning, I awake.

 

Ideas flit through the curves of my brain:

“Can I build my body to bike to the beach?

Could folk dancing in my living room cultivate community?

Where would a solar shower sit in my yard?”

 

A train of thought rambles.

Temptation sweetly whistles

Ready to take me on a ride

To a perfect world.

 

But first

I step from the box of my house

And plant my curved feet on arching earth.

 

Oak leaves crackle

Bahia grass bows

Damp soil soothes

As I pace supple, solid ground,

left, right

left, right

to my growing garden.

 

On the edge

Between plant and sky

Conical okras twirl

Spiraling lima bean tendrils dance

In an ever-changing array.

 

I inhale sun’s rays and sky’s waves

Visitor that I am from the framed world

Of rectangular phones

Flat screens and

Linear text.

 

I stretch stiff straits from my back

And bend to touch musky earth.

 

I try to grasp Nature’s ways

On these brief, enlivening sojourns

But her welcoming smile spreads miles past my gaze

In expanses of mysterious, quiet passages

Of majestic pines, parading palms,

Fanciful ferns and nesting needles

From eons of her embroidered dance.

 

I find, though, I follow patterned paths

Fumbling on familiar steps

As when I started sowing seeds years back

Cherishing each broccoli rabe and tomato seedling sprouted

Running circles in search of spots to plant each life.

 

No matter I was running out of space

No thought of how I’d consume the fruit

No care for what I could tend to.

 

I felt the need to grasp each possibility

And bring it to fruition

In my foolish

Frenzied fight

Against loss

And letting go

Though I carried too much.

 

But Nature tarried on

As warm-hearted parent smiling at a child

Trying to mimic cherished ways.

 

Through seasons, I have watched.

Not all lettuce seeds sprout.

A portion of pumpkin seedlings thrive.

Zucchini arrives from nowhere and extends.

Thoughtful neighbors bring sweet potato starts.

 

Something’s always going.

Something’s always growing

Beyond my doing.

 

No need to grasp.

More’s on its way.

 

 

Consenting to Circles

 

Having inhaled natural day

I stroll back to my house.

 

Inside

Through open windows

Sun lightens walls

Breeze billows curtains

And brushes my cheek

Singing

Life is here

Life is here.

 

Reflecting on the present

I collect strands of thought

Still in my mind

And jot them down

To consider later

 

Then settle into the day’s doing.

 

It’s Monday

So I’ll wash cotton bedding

Sweep terrazzo floors

Shake and lay out woven carpets.

 

I’m trying to mimic life’s cycle

Tomorrow I’ll pay the water bill and record receipts

Wednesday, I’ll can split pea soup and make oat crackers

Everything in its time

By my design.

 

I used to do the fun stuff

Scribble down a song in my head

Call Jess to chat

Crochet cotton towels

Or what called in the moment

Read a text that came through

Or the book by my bed

Or walk in the rain.

 

I’d cram in dusting end tables

Pruning a bush overreaching the walkway

And mending torn spaghetti straps

When the need could no longer be ignored

Then rush back to the real stuff.

 

I’m learning

To tend to each task

In its time

As part of a circle –

Creation and dissolution.

 

I’m leaning into the picking up

And putting away

Reflecting on what’s past

Readying for what’s to come

Partaking in the process

Relaxed in the ordering.

 

Though I struggle still not to take on

More than fits

As waves of endeavors arise

I’m becoming aware of

Distinct strands of motion

And separating out what needs attending

What’s mine to do

And leaving the rest.

 

No longer seeking heights

But following as the path weaves

Its magnificent fabric

In mysterious folds.

 

Not focusing on gaining

Status nor goods

But garnering lessons

Of the Way.

 

Understanding

And good will

Are pinnacles

I walk toward

Through every hill and valley

Of my earthly path.

 

As the wheel of life turns

Compressing me as it churns

Breaking walls

Making my soul part

Of its masterpiece

Of which I choose to be a part

The work done

In my being

Unseen by outer world

Shines through all

I say and do.

 

As we enter quiet of winter

I’ll not turn to electric bulbs

Once dusk falls with fading sun

But settle into darkness

Putting aside fright

And the need to act.

 

I’ll fan the flame of inner light

Take stock with inner sight

Look upon barren landscapes

Ponder what’s beneath

 

Reflect on what’s passed

Consider what’s coming

And pause

Before moving on.

 

Sometimes, the way forward is back and around.