BEAUTIFUL WORDS

The usual poetry books, like people I’ve grown to know, do not do the trick
this morning at 3:20 a.m. So, I open the e-mail, looking for a trigger of some
kind, and by gosh ! that’s where I found a beautiful line or two:

“The dish pan is in the bath tub and the sink draining rack on the side of the tub.
I never emptied the drawers — just stacked them on the beds
so I can find whatever I need.”
……………….Carol Currier, on the unstructured
and ever changing environment
of installing a new kitchen.

That’s a sure way of allowing the winds of change to alter one’s sense of order
and planning. So many steps for the simplest tasks. Can one be tempted to
maintain this adventure long enough to truly let go of outcomes?

For me, this early morning, just the idea of divine chaos as a generator is enchanting.

Thank you, dear friend Carol.
Thank you, dear daughter Lizzie.

And, Carol, that line: ‘Most importantly, wind and champagne glass are still handy.’
… I know you intended the word, ‘wine’, yet I love what showed up anyhow.

always with love,
Mom/ Toni
3:40:19 a.m.

20130618-072548.jpg

LIFE IS WORTH RECORDING

AFTER the density of the rain’s downpour yesterday, the clear air and brilliant morning sun is amazing.

I awoke at 5:59 AM – heated left over coffee, just enough, and pulled out an old book that had seen me through some months of a morning practice in 2011 – “True Solitude” – wherein Barbara Bash illustrates and writes about her 4-season experience of solitary retreats in the mountains.

I noticed that on a page in the intro to the book that had spoken of the heavens, the glory of the skies,
Bash had illustrated that with a small salamander in indian red.
Hmmm.

From the start, this reflected the immediate presence of being here as a focus from which the
reader could bring her/his own incomplete, imperfect self and be welcomed.

On the next page, I found a part of a poem by Rumi…..
“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Do’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.”

Under that, on the same page, I found a note I’d written in pencil, dated 10/15/11: “I can go on because I can DISSOLVE a habit ( that doesn’t work anymore ) rather than BREAK that habit. ”

Then, next page, Bash continues her train of thought:
” do you think I know what I’m doing?
That for one breath or half-breath I belong to myself?
As much as the pen knows what it’s writing,
or the ball can guess where it is going next.
For years, copying other people, I tried to know myself
from within. I couldn’t decide what to do.
Unable to see, I heard my name
being called …..
Then I walked outside.”

Well….that’s how the book began, and she started with June, the summer retreat season.
Now.

Life is worth recording and so I begin again….

20130608-084551.jpg