Rising In Perilous Hope - Marge Piercy

What can I hold in my hands this morning
that will not flow through my fingers?

What words can I say that will catch...

If my touch could heal, I would lay my hands
on your bent head and bellow prayers.

If my words could change the weather
or the government or the way the world
twists us....

what could I do but what I know?

I fit words together and say them;
it is a given like the color of my eyes.

I hope it makes a small difference, as
I hope the drought will break and the morning

come rising out of the ocean wearing
a cloak of clean sweet mist and swirling terns.

Marge Piercy
from: Colors Passing Through Us
2003

With thanks to Whiskey River

~

Photo - Mystic Meandering

 

 

Your Outlook Matters - John O'Donohue

Sometimes when we look out, the world seems dark.
War, violence, hunger and misery seem to abound.
This makes us anxious...  What can I do in my private little
corner of life that could have an effect on world events?
Believing ourselves to be helpless, we hand over our
power to forces and systems outside us that then act in
our names; they go on to put their beliefs into action; and
ironically their actions are often sinister and destructive.

We live in times when the call to real presence is urgent.
We need to rediscover the careless courage, yet devastating
simplicity of the little boy who, in the middle of the
numbed multitude, in naive Socratic fashion, blurts out:
"But the emperor has no clothes."
When spoken, the truth can bring down citadels of falsity.

The spirit of a time is incredibly subtle [or not], yet a hugely
powerful force.  And it is comprised of the mentality and spirit
of all individuals.  The way you look at things is not actually
a private matter.  Your outlook actually and concretely affects
what goes on.  When you take back your power and choose
to see the possibilities for healing and transformation, your
creativity awakens and flows to become an active force of
renewal and encouragement in the world.  In this way, even
in your own hidden life, you can become a powerful agent
of transformation in a broken, darkened world.

John O'Donohue
From: To Bless the Space Between Us
(written in 2008!)

~

Intuitive Art - Mystic Meandering

If you look closely you can see little "beads"
scattered in the painting and the larger one in the purple heart.
They are Snowflake Obsidian from a bracelet I once wore,
and just happened to find them in a little plastic cup.  I had placed
them in a particular order on the painting that was lying on
my work table, and then accidentally hit the canvas, scattering
the little beads over the black and white swirls of the painting. 
I left them where they were, and glued them to the painting. :)

The properties of Snowflake Obsidian are:
Brings about balance, removes negativity from
 a space or person, and  promotes a sense of calm and
 inner centering - where our real power lies.

Amazing!

An Unseen Hand...

I took these pictures of the "mittens" over a period of weeks
on my "twilight walks" from January to February 2012.

I first found them on the ground behind a bench.
I picked them up and laid them out on the bench
hoping their owner would see them...

The next time they had been only slightly moved
and covered with a light dusting of snow...

Then ~

neatly laid together
at one end of the bench;
one holding the other
as if content to wait
for their owner to
retrieve them...

I left them as they were...

On the next visit one was on the bench,
delicately laid out
in this dainty hand position,
almost as if an invitation to sit...

and the other on the ground
in the shape of the peace sign,
as if to say everything is okay...

Once again I left them as they were,
wondering what unseen hand
was sculpting them...

After two large snow falls
and a couple of weeks of
60 mile an hour winds
I found one here

sculpted into the ice...

And finally, out of curiosity,
I made a quick trip back to the park
that March to see if I could find them again...

And there they were on another bench,
flattened and weather-worn...

So I did a little sculpting of my own
in a funky finger mudra :)

We are all each other's "unseen hand",
appearing and disappearing when needed,
lifting each other's spirits,
unknowingly shaping,
influencing and rearranging
life perspectives
in slight and subtle ways,
through our presence...
Each offering something
in our own way,
inviting each other to sit a while;
offering signs of encouragement
and inspiration,
lending each other
a hand
to extricate each other
from the frozen constructs of our minds;
melting away the outmoded concepts that
keep us frozen
with the warmth of a
loving "unseen hand"...

Thank you to the "unseen hands"
in my life
who have inspired and opened
this Heart...

_/\_

Courage - Oriah & O'Donohue...

I must find the ways, the people, the places, the practices
 that support me in being all
I truly am.

I must cultivate ways of being that let me feel the warmth
 of encouragement against
my heart when it is weary.
I must be fiercely and compassionately honest
with myself  about those choices and actions
that are inconsistent with my essential nature...
I must find the song lines that run through
my life, the melodies that remind me of what
I really am and call me gently back to
acting on this knowing.
I must learn to dance.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

From: The Dance

I took her words and put then into prose poetry form.

No day or minute offers itself twice.
There is an amazing serenity
when life has been lived to the full.
When the true dream of life has been neglected
or postponed, there is helpless regret.
Life is a huge, urgent invitation.
As Rainer Rilke says:
It is so easy to lose your way -
to end up respectable, trusted and
admirably fulfilling your role.
Yet the whole time you could be suffocating
 inside and no one sees it.
So much depends on how you embrace
the world within you.
There is some limbo in which each
life is caught.
The air is poor in limbo;
grey is the one color there.
Stagnation is the status quo.
All things seem blurred in this half-sleep.
Boredom and indifference conspire to keep
the anxiety buried.
There is endless chatter, but nothing said.
Perhaps it is time to leave limbo.
To awaken: to really come alive…

John O’Donohue

These are his words that I put into
prose poetry form.