Night Vision
October 6, 2011
There are times, when darkness is all there is. When I hold my weary hand up in front of my face, there is nothing there…no light, no hope, no relief. I panic. I want there to be light. I want an answer, a reprieve, a savior. I hate the feeling of being immobilized and stopped. I have stuff to do, things to get accomplished, people to serve and lives to save. I cannot afford to waste my time in the dark, accomplishing nothing. And yet…there it is. It wraps around me like thick fog on a San Francisco morning. No matter how hard I strain to see through it, nothing changes….
So I have no choice but to give in, surrender to the stillness of it all. Waiting for light, knowing I cannot hurry it. Do I feel helpless? Yes! Then I start to feel acceptance; really what else is there when you cannot change what is. I cannot force the sun to come up it does what it does of it’s own accord. I must wait. While I am waiting, can I rest? Can I rest enough to gather energy for what is ahead? Certain animals hypernate…maybe that’s what this is. Maybe allowing for this time of inactivity I am insuring my strength for what surely is to come. My willingness to sit in the dark is my offering to the light that is inevitable.
Tempest
September 6, 2011
Your breath flows through me
breaking every bone,
ending every sentence…
I’m falling up now, as through water.
Head, then shoulders
collar bones filled with sand;
Tiny stones splitting my skin.
and I’m sinking
sinking, sinking upward.
What a perfect manner in which to stow away an epic;
deep into a dusty corner on your lowest shelf,
along with all your classics.
The sea echoes in my chest
slow, undulating waves wash away the land.
Somewhere in the lazy, hazy days of summer
my ‘self’ slipped from me.
It was replaced with the callouses on your hands
with your humming in the shower,
your furrowed brow reading the morning news;
your favorite ice cream, your fears, your sleep talking
you, you, you.
and gone, myself, whom I’ve traded to have you
http://katevanraden.wordpress.com/
The Essence of Understanding
April 14, 2010
“When we are mindful, we notice that another person suffers. The other person may be a husband, a wife, or a child. If one person suffers, that person needs to talk to someone in order to get relief. We have to offer our presence, and we have to listen deeply to the other person who is suffering. That is the practice of love–deep listening. But if we are full of anger, irritation, and prejudices, we don’t have the capacity to listen deeply to the people we love. If people we love cannot communicate with us, then they will suffer more. Learning how to listen deeply is our responsibility. We are motivated by the desire to relieve suffering. That is why we listen. We need to listen with all our heart, without intention to judge, condemn, or criticize. And if we listen in that way for one hour, we are practicing true love. We don’t have to say anything; we just need to listen. “The essence of love and compassion is understanding, the ability to recognize the physical, material, and psychological suffering of others, to put ourselves “inside the skin” of the other. When we are in contact with another’s suffering, a feeling of compassion is born in us. Compassion means literally “to suffer with.” –Thich Nhat Hanh
T
hank you Quma Learning & Dennis Deaton
Morning Offering
April 14, 2010
And waste my heart on fear no more.”
poem by John O’Donohue
BEE, JUST BE…It’s spring again
March 29, 2010
THE BEE.
Like trains of cars on tracks of plush
I hear the level bee:
A jar across the flowers goes,
Their velvet masonry
Withstands until the sweet assault
Their chivalry consumes,
While he, victorious, tilts away
To vanquish other blooms.
His feet are shod with gauze,
His helmet is of gold;
His breast, a single onyx
With chrysoprase, inlaid.
His labor is a chant,
His idleness a tune;
Oh, for a bee’s experience
Of clovers and of noon!
by Emily Dickenson
OPEN YOUR EYES
March 16, 2010
SMOKE
February 21, 2010
What do they wait for,
For life? or for death?
The Un-Loving of you
February 7, 2010
The Un-Loving of You
by Kate Van Raden
I’m letting you go,
I’m giving you back,
Each bit of your self that I’ve kept…
I returned those eye brows,
and a few of your teeth,
I packed them and hummed as I wept…
I shipped off your thighs in a box with some fingers,
the larger ones only, for now…
When you asked for your shoulders
I blinked back a frown,
But I let you take them,
And some lashes I’d found.
Now, the chuckle was harder,
I was still using that
And without your soft hair,
I just can’t hang my hat
But I do understand that you need these things back
So I try to be gracious, although it’s an act.
The hard part is coming
And I know I’ll feel lost
with no way to smell,
Or to taste, or to talk…
See, I cherish your lips
still so familiar,
and your eyes that melt chocolate for me…
There’s a crook in your nose
that it’s not yours without,
and I’m starting to feel a bit empty…
At last to my treasures
high on a shelf…
to your voice and your skin and your hands,
I hoped I could keep these forever,
but your starting to list your demands…
I can’t bear to imagine the woman who gets these,
I break down each time at the thought.
They’ve been mine for so long,
I just couldn’t tell you
how I’ll go on when they’re not…
Almost nothing is left here
You’ve taken it all
so we’ve parted, I get it, I’ll go…
but I wonder if I could compel you
the compassion to leave me a toe…?
By: Kate Van Raden
http://katevanraden.wordpress.com/
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