Kindness

Years ago,  when I was first thinking of getting a tattoo,  I decided that I would get the Jewel quote,  In the end,  only kindness matters.  Because,  actually,  when you get into the depths of it all,  that's what I believe.  It's a choice we make,  as a person,  as a culture.  And we don't hold it to high enough value.  In the end, only kindness matters.  

So much is luck,  and you never know which end of the stick you will be - and as long as the world is kind,  then it really doesn't matter,  you'll survive anyways.  But of course,  the world is not kind.  So we have to remind each other about kindness and it's essential importance.

Then I was clicking around youtube and some woman was reading poetry,  not well.  And I thought,  surely there are better readers out there!  So I randomly typed in Emma Thompson reading poetry,  because I just love her voice.  And I came across this:

And here is more to fundamentally agree with.  Didn't know the poet Naomi Shihab Nye,  but isn't this beautiful.  Let's sit with it for a while,  and breathe better... 

Where the spirit meets the bone

I'm not a real swiftie.  I barely know who she dated (yes,  I know she just got married!) and I like her songs,  my car is almost permanently on Taylor Swift Radio,  but I don't know all her lyrics by heart or all her songs.

Then I started listening to the Swiftie and the Scholar,  on youtube.  It's a deep dive (about an hour an episode and each episode covers only one song) on random songs. 

I'm not listening to them in any order,  but I've been watching about one a week.  

Last one was about Ivy,  I song I realized I barely knew.  I had listened to it once or twice on Evermore,  but it hadn't gotten it's hooks on me, though some of the phrases I really liked. 

I had noticed the phrase,  where the spirit meets the bone,  it's so evocative.  And then the poetry professor tells us it's not unique to Taylor,  it comes from this poem:

From The Ways We Touch: Poems. 

Isn't that a beautiful phrase in a beautiful poem? And I love the song so much more now!  I didn't realize the Emily Dickinson connection and was fascinated to learn about it. 

So if you want to do a deep dive,  this is a fun away to while away an hour... 

Current favorite poem

I revisit this poem from time to time.  The first time I read it,  I was still menstruating and I kind of smiled at it.  But having reached menopause some years ago,  this poem grows stronger for me each passing year.   I think this is why we need poets to write about our own experiences.  Otherwise we just miss their amazing perspective and reframing of our lives... 

To my Last Period

by Lucille Clifton

well girl, goodbye,

after thirty-eight years

thirty-eight years and you

never arrived

splendid in your red dress

without trouble for me

somewhere, somehow

now it is done

and i feel just like

the grandmothers who, after the hussy has gone,

sit holding her photograph and sighing,

wasn't she beautiful?

wasn't she beautiful?

Current favorite poem

 

Isn't that just perfect?  Poetry,  like a great song,  can just lift me to a different place.   By the wonderful Wendy Cope

In Blackwater Woods, by Mary Oliver

I didn't feel I could jump into something chatty after the horror of the Bondi Shooting lingers in my heart.  So I did what I often do,  when feeling sad and vulnerable,  I looked for a poem.  I really do find solace in the right poems. Here's one I found that I am happy to share with you:

Look, the trees

are turning

their own bodies

into pillars

of light,

are giving off the rich

fragrance of cinnamon

and fulfillment,

the long tapers

of cattails

are bursting and floating away over

the blue shoulders

of the ponds,

and every pond,

no matter what its

name is, is

nameless now.

Every year

everything

I have ever learned

in my lifetime

leads back to this: the fires

and the black river of loss

whose other side

is salvation,

whose meaning

none of us will ever know.

To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it

against your bones knowing

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it

go,

to let it go.

   Mary Oliver
In Blackwater Woods

I struggle with the letting go, 
it's good to be reminded from time to time,  
how essential it is... 

Current favorite poem

I'm so upset with the New York Times,  a paper I read daily,  which put up an article asking if Women had Ruined the Workplace.  And when they faced backlash over that,  changed the title to Did Liberal Feminism ruin the workplace?  And then,  when that didn't seem to fix the problem,  changed it to  What is toxic Femininity?   Just such an awful question,  which gave rise to lots of thoughtful articles debunking it! 

And in a perfect antidote to that,  I found this poem,  by a poet I have written about before,  Danielle Coffyn

If Adam Picked the Apple

There would be a parade,

a celebration,

a holiday to commemorate

the day he sought enlightenment.

We would not speak of

temptation by the devil, rather,

we would laud Adam’s curiosity,

his desire for adventure

and knowing.

We would feast

on apple-inspired fare:

tortes, chutneys, pancakes, pies.

There would be plays and songs

reenacting his courage.

But it was Eve who grew bored,

weary of her captivity in Eden.

And a woman’s desire

for freedom is rarely a cause

for celebration.

Current favorite poem

I love poetry,  dense like truffle chocolate,  an amuse bouche that lingers for hours afterwards.  I read a lot of it.  Lots of it not great,  some of it very good and some just strike that perfect chord.  

The ones that strike, I put up here.  For you, but also for me,  so I can find them again,  so I can remember them

This latest one is by Jess Janz 

Enjoy! 

Sonder, a poem by Danielle Coffyn

I follow Danielle Coffyn on Threads,  and so far I've loved everything she's written. 

Here is a poem of hers about I concept I think about often - Sonder.  Danielle Coffyn describes Sonder as the profound feeling of realizing that everyone, including strangers passing in the street, has a life as complex as one's own, which they are constantly living despite one's personal lack of awareness of it.

Sonder

the woman who took your parking spot just lost 

her job & the boy howling because there are no 

more croissants is overwhelmed by the noise

& your colleague is bursting with excitement

because she is expecting but its too soon to tell

& your sister decided now is not a good time to be

a mom & the neighbor who hasn't mowed the lawn

in weeks is struggling to find a reason to get out 

of bed & your mother is celebrating ten years

of quiet sobriety & the man buying whiskey just

put down his dog & your best friends is planning

to propose to the love of her life & you are lost

in your own to-do list but all these lives

are important & brutal & beautiful & true.

Let's just sit with that for a moment.  

Isn't it exquisite...

Leonard Cohen

To celebrate Leonard Cohen's 90th Birthday (had he made it that long) we went to see a supremely talented Kletzmer fusion band, Monsieur Camembert perform his songs.  

It was just wonderful!  It was like being in a sound bath of gorgeous music (amazing interpretations!) and extraordinary singing.  And then there were the lyrics and Cohen's web of words that just spin you into another world. 

If you don't know his work,  he's one of a kind. Try this atlantic article for starters - The Anti Rockstar.  Dark, sad,  gorgeous,  self indulgent,  seeking,  pessimistic,  desiring contact and connection to the point of desperation.  Just amazing! 

I consider him a poet as much as a song writer and often love covers of his songs more than his orginals,  but he's a wonder and I'm glad he was in the world,  to give us his light to shine in the dark... 

David Whyte, poet

 A friend recently introduced me to a new (to me) poet.

I really loved this one:

Sweet darkness

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

From The house of Belonging,  poems by David Whyte

Speaking of Poetry

Here is another poem that spoke to me

Pandemic

“What if you thought of it

as the Jews consider the Sabbath—

the most sacred of times?

Cease from travel.

Cease from buying and selling.

Give up, just for now,

on trying to make the world

different than it is.

Sing. Pray. Touch only those

to whom you commit your life.

Center down.

And when your body has become still,

reach out with your heart.

Know that we are connected

in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.

(You could hardly deny it now.)

Know that our lives

are in one another’s hands.

(Surely, that has come clear.)

Do not reach out your hands.

Reach out your heart.

Reach out your words.

Reach out all the tendrils

of compassion that move, invisibly,

where we cannot touch.

Promise this world your love–

for better or for worse,

in sickness and in health,

so long as we all shall live.”

– Lynn Ungar 3/11/20

Finding moments of Grace

It's been a difficult few days and they are only going to get harder.  April will be a tough month.  May,  I hope,  will be the epoch,  and after that,  things will get a little easier.  In the meantime, I'm hunkering down.  

I'm also counting my blessings.  That I live in such a physically beautiful place - Little Bay - near the sea,  near the city,  near national park.  That I enjoy spending time with my husband.  We share this new isolation quietly,  contentedly.  I'm cooking all sorts of new recipes,  baking,  using that weird collection of bananas I had in my freezer.



And tonight we watched JoJo Rabbit,  which moved me far more than I thought I would.  It's funny and whimsical and then suddenly,  terrible and real. It ended with some lines from a poem which really spoke to me,  so I'll reprint them here for you (poetry is like wine to me,  I can get drunk on it,  it punches though my intellect and puts me in a world of feeling)

Go to the Limits of Your Longing,  
by Rainer Maria Rilke

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

Book of Hours, I 59

Wishing you well in these difficult times.  

Wild Geese

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place

Just love her poetry!

Why the Prophets are Human

In my last tarot reading I quoted a Rumi poem - Rumi is a Sufi poet who rhapsodizes over Spirituality and love, but the poem I was recalling was more prosaic than that - it was about why the Prophets are human -

A Woman came to Ali, "My baby has crawled out
on the roof near the water drain,  where I cannot go.
He won't listen to me.  I talk to him,
but he doesn't understand language.

I make gestures.  I show him my breast,
but he turns away.  What can I do?"

Take another baby his age
up to the roof."

The woman did so,  and her child saw his friend
and crawled away from the edge.

The prophets are human for this reason,
that we may see them and delight
in the friendly presence
and crawl away from the downsprout.

(Mathnawi, IV, 2657-2669)

We were talking in the reading about how much do you have to know,  how self evolved do you have to be,  before you can help others.  And I said,  you can't be too far from the person,  you can't lead from 100 miles away,  it's easier to follow if you are only a foot or so ahead.  So as we are now, today,  we can help others,  because we are close to them,  close to the struggle. 

We don't have to know all the answers,  we only have to be a foot or two ahead;  and we can be over taken,  and helped ourselves.  It's much easier that way,  than chasing a perfection a hundred miles down the road... 

Today's poem

I love poetry,  I think it’s like chocolate truffles – tiny but dense,  rich and carrying far more weight than expected – but unlike truffles,  they are calorie free!

Here’s one I read by Mary Oliver this morning:-

 

 

Today
Today I’m flying low and I’m

not saying a word.

I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep.

The world goes on as it must,

the bees in the garden rumbling a little,

the fish leaping,  the gnats getting eaten.

And so forth.

But I’m taking the day off.

Quiet as a feather,

I hardly move though really I’m travelling
a terrific distance.

Stillness. One of the doors

into the temple.