Today's Question: "In What Ways is Life Trying to Get My Attention"

Life is trying to get my attention in so many ways, I'm not sure where to look. It's speaking to me in migraines, back pain, and sleepless nights. Pondering all that I need to do to get my house in order, vacillating between planning, action, and analysis paralysis.

It's also speaking to me in simple moments of hopefulness - the birdsongs as I put together my spring bulb planter garden, validating my efforts to cultivate beauty in the future. The small, random kindnesses of strangers, assuring me that there are lots of good people in the world. An unexpected, cosmic hug, reminds me that I am seen and appreciated. Moments like these come, like a tap on the shoulder saying "Hey you. Slow down. Take a breath. Do what you can. Keep going." 

And so, I continue.

Today's Haiku

Tomorrow's flowers

Starting off in the darkness

Grow toward the sun

Today's Question: How is My Heart Rich?

How is my heart rich? My heart is rich in gratitude and resilience. Gratitude keeps me centered, and resilience keeps me hopeful. 

What does it mean to be "rich" anyway? When I consider this, I guess to me it means operating from a space of plenty, abundance, a cup overflowing. It means having and being "enough", with more to share. For me, my heart feels rich when I can connect with myself and others deeply, where joy that's shared is amplified. 

 "True wealth is of the heart, not of the purse."

- Og Mandino

Haiku for a Wealthy Heart:

Vessel overflows

Love shines like an inner sun

This is what "rich" means

#Grateful #Haiku #AWriterWrites #Love #TrueWealth

Today's Question: What simple pleasures am I grateful for?

I am grateful for my window out into the world - seeing the chipmunks scamper by, the wind in the tall grasses, hearing the chimes ring out from my tree. I am grateful to see the slowly expanding moss carpet on the ground, as it is nurtured by the welcome shade and rain. I am grateful for the first few leaves that fall from the trees, heralding the coming changing of the seasons.

I am grateful for today, this moment, and the opportunity to sit with a grateful heart. 

View from My Window

Chipmunk has business

And I continue my own

As he scampers on

#Grateful #Haiku #AWriterWrites #Window #Garden #ChipmunksInTheGarden

Today's Question: Where Can I Find Space for Stillness & Quiet?

 Where Can I Find Space for Stillness & Quiet?

The quiet has certainly been calling to me lately. Life has been loud. So loud. Tinnitus-inducing loud. 

I found out recently that someone I love betrayed me. One month has passed, and I'm still wrestling with the trauma of it all. It rang my heart like a gong, and my head is still reeling. Moment-to-moment, I tumble through the vertigo of a life upended. 

I'm thankful that I have a trip to the mountains planned. I need the sound of rushing waters to help carry away this pain. I am comforted by birds and look forward to their healing song. I've been going on more walks lately, because my body is calling me to come home. After living in my head for so long, I wrap my own self in hugs, sing songs that soothe, hold my own heart. I ask to remain open to let this move through me, that the lessons be revealed, and the grace of healing change my path. 

How did I get here? Where do I go from here? The answers wait for me, in the quiet of that still small voice. I'm awake now. I'm listening. 

What do you do to create quiet when all feels like chaos?

Rewilding: Day One - Free Yourself

I signed up for a 30-day program called "Rewild Your Life". Today is Day One, and the first thing they ask us to do is:

"Set an intention. What would you like to receive from this experience? 

What would you like to give to this experience?"

Since intention is the key to the Universe, let's do this! I would like to receive a greater sense of stillness and calm in my heart. In return, I would like to generate ripples of peace and wonder to bless the world.


Next, they say this:

"Give yourself permission! We give you permission to connect with your wild side. To rewild your heart and mind. We give you permission to act differently; to find a new part of yourself that was hiding away. We give you permission to go out into the natural world and do nothing, say nothing and think nothing. We give you permission to look weird to others. We give you permission to run, crawl, roll, jump and howl.

Do you give yourself permission?"

Sure! I give myself permission to look like a weirdo (that's pretty much par for the course). I give myself permission to wonder "Am I doing this right?" and to immediately forgive myself (for truly, there is hardly ever only one "right" way of doing something). I give myself permission to be silly and daring. I give myself permission to open to the wildness around me and the wildness that lives within me (although it's gone dormant for a while).

What Would You Do If You Weren't Afraid?

I'd write... verbal energy work. I'd teach English in a foreign country. Go to culinary school and open a small teashop bookstore where people can have deep conversations over pie. I'd live in a blue state where the sky goes on forever. I'd raise goats and have a few chickens. I'd forgive myself for not being enough.

Mother

Mine.
Tender and tough
Spun from silk and steel
Our paths shared for
But a little while, when
Your steps were mine too,
My heart beneath yours

(Oh, the miles of beats together
before
My first breath)

And then, I was here, and we began
Traveling our own way.
Love, like a lighthouse
Illumines the trek home
(Where ever that may be)
Yesterday, today, tomorrow
Ever where the heart is.
Mother.

-dg

May '17

Brotherhood

Speaking so softly
The wind shares timeless counsel
"Be brave. Try again."

Unmapped

Today yet unmapped 
Questioning the new dawning 
Yes, how may I serve?

Illumined

Illumined morning
The gift of a fresh, clean slate
Hopeful for beauty.

Project 137 - Day One

Project137 - Day One: 

What Do You Want to Leave Behind, After You Die?

Starting this off easy, are we? This question basically paralyzed me. Because? I don't know. For a long time (read: practically my whole life), I thought I knew. The answer seemed simple: leave behind a family that loves me, children, grandchildren, etc. 

Hm. Then, as I came to realize that children weren't going to be part of my equation, the answer that seemed to be "simple" became a lot less so. 

I have a scene in my head, where I'm walking on a path and my children, the ones I thought I'd have, walk beside me. Now, as I see the same path, the children are starting to get grainy and pixelated, projections of dreams that were mine when I was another me, the me that was so certain about "what's next". Now, the steps continue, the path stretches on, and the ghosts of the children of another's dreams grow fainter and fainter. 

Were they ever really my dreams? Or was it the dream of what I'm "supposed" to do, as dictated by the societal mores in which I've been steeped? How much of that dream was an echo of my mother's declarations, "you'll understand someday, when you have your own."

Some day, some day, and days marched by, and I marched along whistling the tune of progeny in certainty. The line will continue, some day.

These days, more often than I'm comfortable, I find myself thinking of a great tree, stretching its branches, offering shade and rest, but no fruit. No fruit.

What fruit can I offer the days to come, sweet sticky liquid to delight and nurture, to embrace and embolden on their journey without me? There are no baby birds in this nest. No tender wings stretching forth to embrace the sky and shadow the sun. That dream is revealing itself to be an eclipse of me, predicted and approached and now passing by in it's time. Too late for fruit now, too late and the shadow is gone. How will I shine now, I wonder?  

What do I want to leave behind? I'd love for someone to know I existed. Seems vanity to wish that my love might live on after me. Maybe not in the cherubic faces of future generations, but perhaps in the pages of a comforting tome, sitting in perfect patience, waiting to be the master that appears when the student is ready.

What Am I Waiting For? 

“For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time to still be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.”

-Alfred d'Souza

This quote really spoke to me, as it's much of what I, too, have been waiting for. Moving through the expectations of high school and then college. Trying to get out of debt, while incurring more. Entering corporate America. Finding my mate, getting married.

All the while, wrestled with this at times paralyzing anxiety that I'm screwing up, not getting it right, just not good enough dammit. Easing through some relationships in joy and fun. Pacing through others in challenge, being bled by 1000 cuts until they left me or I them.

Throughout, exploring and embracing the ebb and flow of my spiritual life, getting ordained in the process. Then taking that ordination and trying to figure out how to be in the world.

In more recent years, I've been waiting for the right moment, that space of readiness for the next expected step of being human - procreating. Waiting and waiting, until I realized that maybe I don't want that. And working now to be at peace with that, envisioning how my life might look, since it will look completely different. A path of creation (not "pro") all my own.

What am I waiting for? I'm waiting for a new dream to emerge. Waiting to see the future me that isn't the one others tell me I'm supposed to be. I'm supposed to mother something, birth something, but it isn't a tiny person of my own. The labor will perhaps be a legacy of love in script or something yet unimagined. The beginnings of a new me, it's grainy and pixelated, forming more clearly yet still undefined. I'm excited to see what I dream for myself, instead of flowing toward a dream of me given by another. It was an ill-fitted suit, a skin not my own that I'm glad to leave behind.

Project 137

I am beginning Project137 today, and in true procrastinator style, I'm about seven days behind. What can I say? Charlottesville happened. The eclipse happened. My tendency to be avoidant happened.

I started off strong, but then the first writing prompt happened.

"What do you want to leave behind when you die?"

Lord. HELP ME.

Perched

Perched upon its branch
The blue bird sings of my friend
Gladdening my heart.

Valentine

Gentle unfurling
The tender shoots, reaching out
Wrapping you in love.

Hello

A shared smile hello
For every hug we traded
I am so grateful.

Today's Blackout

C'mon, wake up, my friend!
My words go out into the world
To touch, a random smile,
A life of its own.

And more, potential
Is a window in the right direction,
As beautiful as possible.

Today's Youku:"Ultimate"

Turns my frown upside
When I feel unlovable
He's the ultimate.

Blackout

Have you ever heard of "blackout poetry"? I hadn't until recently. My dear hubs sent me a link and told me that he thought I'd be good at it. Time passed, and the link remained unviewed. So, he asked me again when I was feeling sad this week and urged me to give it a try.

He really does know me so well. He knows that I need a creative outlet. He knows, even when I am too modest to claim it, that I'm good with words. I have a poetic heart. (After lots of therapy, I'm getting closer to the place where I can say that without sarcastic laughter.) 

Words and I get along. :-)

So, blackout poetry is where you take something already written, such as a page from a book, newspaper, or in the case, a magazine. You select the message you'd like to express (or perhaps it chooses you?), and you black out the rest. 

Here's my first attempt. Hubs said it's long compared to what's usually done, but... it's my first attempt. It is what it was meant to be, I suppose. 

"I align with the life of the God in all.

I love to be present in the moment.

I'm witnessing the dawn of me.
I live in faith that just BEING is Grace.

My prayers right now, receive
and touch a mystery, a wilderness
of human experience.

They are all real."

Today's Youku: "Beautiful"

Yes, I've got extra

curves, words, heart, smarts, sass and ass

And, I'm beautiful.

Today's Youku: "Mesh"

"Mesh", he said sweetly
One of many inside jokes
That mean, "I love you."

Insomnia

Surrounded by snores
Echoing in tandem now
While my mind races.

Today's Youku: "Itemized"

Let us examine
The song of my poetry
Virtues, itemized.

Seeds

How are we cultivating the grounds of our hearts? God dreams bigger for us than we do for ourselves. "I dreamed myself a journalist once, when I'm meant to inscribe the truth of who I AM on the walls of my own soul."  heart emoticon

Seeds

Before, I dreamed of tomorrows

That have not yet become todays
I wonder which seeds, joys or sorrows
Were past planted, took root, and might stay.

Did I sow those seeds in better times
In dreams, and trust, and bliss
Or buried my essence with darker thoughts
And with faithless heart, insist.

One day, each seed in the heart blooms
Called forth and nurtured by breath
Revealed in their truth, they demand
A life before their own death.

Today, I choose a new dream
Scatter fresh seeds to sacred ground
In a fertile heart of hopefulness
And await a great joy to abound.

So bring on the rains of my gladness
To wash from me stains of all doubt
For my dreams today call forth Beauty
Letting this Love in my heart ring out.

Cake

If life is like cake
May yours be sweetened with joy
And frosted with love.

Plans

So easy to plan
Yes, I shall do this or that
We plan, and God laughs.

One of the Good Ones

Superb. Only word 
That captures the day I've had.
I only have thanks.

Making His Bed

One of my favorite sounds? A dog working so hard to "make his bed".

Dog, go make your bed,
Now tussle, wrestle blankets.
One snort says he's done.

Good Night

Tired, my peepers
My bed is there, whispering 
Goodnight, my good day.

Sorry, Not Sorry

I really love this. Like, really really love this. I saw it a while back, and I keep thinking about it.

I recognize that I've historically walked around in my life doing exactly this, apologizing for so much, when what I'm really trying to do is say "Thank You".

At times, it feels like I'm apologizing for my very existence, for taxing the folks around me with my various and sundry needs, my ups and downs, my presence and absence in your life.

I'm certain this stems from this faulty belief that I am not enough (good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, kind enough, patient enough, wealthy enough, blah blah blah.)

I call BULLSHIT on myself. No more apologizing for not being enough. I am enough; in fact, I'm MORE than enough! (And SO ARE YOU, by the way.)

I say THANK YOU for calling me on it, should I forget. And I say THANK YOU for your patience, understanding, and love.

Consider yourself hugged. heart emoticon

Peas

Snuggled so sweetly
Two peas in their little pod
I love these damn dogs.

Birdie

Chirping, in its nest
Happy, its little greeting
Hello, feathered friend.

Onward

Monday came too soon
Holidays all packed away
Life, full steam ahead.

Random Input Welcome

What's my writing assignment for this evening? Need something consider, decipher, or otherwise ponder.

Guess I'll also think on it and come back to you.

God Speaks

God Speaks
I sow the seed in fertile ground
where angels came to play
I listen to the unique sound
my soul came here to say

I travel miles upon this Earth
with friends, sometimes alone
I often wonder do I birth
a gift that's all my own

God speaks to me in vibrant dreams
and teaches me my song
in stillness as my tears do stream
I had the answers all along.

- DG (2012)


I found this old poem that I had forgotten I'd written, loved it all over again, so had to post here.

Brave Explorer in Pink (Haiku for my Niece)

Go on, chase those ducks
Quacking rivals her laughter
We all have to smile.

Fleeting

A day can seem long
Moments of beauty stay, just
Never long enough.

You Know You Want This Too

♡♡♡ I want more. More of you, more hugs and love and smiles and laughing so hard we snort. I want it all for us, by us, in front of us, welling up from inside of us. LOVE. That's where it lives, there inside, love. And our phones and computers and FB walls just aren't big enough to capture the totality of that there inside you, me, we, us. Come sit by me, I wanna hug my story into you and laugh yours into me and CONNECT. Connection is what matters. It's all there is, was, or should be. Connection is the TRUTH of us, TRUTH OF LOVE. Truth in our oneness, my dear traveling companions. Dont you want that too? ♡♡♡

"I'm Fine!" (Or so she thought.)

Hidden dam just broke
Unleashed the tears and sadness
Didn't know was there.

Just Pondering...

It's amazing how many people will not return a smile, and the special joy when someone DOES. Unexpected energy between strangers, happy to have a momentary connection. Faces alit with the shine of our brotherhood.

Reflecting

Reflecting on my Christmas tree. Twinkling lights and so many ornaments of meaning. God, I am so thankful for this contented heart, in this moment, in the center of much discord in my life. I give thanks for the many blessings of reason and love and friendship that show up in perfect timing. I give thanks for this feeling right now, which allows me to see past the sadness, offers strength when I am so weary, walking on to a new day. All is well, all is well, all manner of things are well. TYG!

Heartstring

Happy carefree friends
Even if but a moment
Sharing joyful song.

Inside

I see me in you
Greater still to seek the place
I see you in me.

Lazy Sunday

Rain is pattering
Lightning crackles arc the sky
Time for books and tea.

Again

Oh, insomnia
Brain bubbling, toiling, wakeful
Go on, hamster, run.

In the Air

It whispered to me
The wind, it told me it's tales
Of cold nights to come.

Distance

I can allow people in my life to distance themselves from me, without automatically assuming that it's about me and something I did wrong. That just makes room for more GOOD to flow into my life! The actions of others do not define my self-worth. I am loved always. ♡♡♡

Focus

So much to get done
Working hard to finish this
OOOH! Something shiny!

Engaged

Cheers to your love, dears
Celebrate your life, full of
Possibilities.

Finally

Frosty in the air
My breath a sigh of relief
YES, Friday is here!