Category: General

Poetry in Motion – The Book of Awakening


Those of you who know me or follow any of my writing know that Mark Nepo is an author who has changed my world view – opening me to the possibility of healing, of authenticity, of hope.  These past few months have been dark, and some around me have tried to come with me beyond the glass, forcing their views and their help and their worry upon me.  For me, Mark’s entry on this day speaks volumes to what we can and can not do for one another…

The living terrain of relationship actually exists in the overlap of our inmost natures.[…] Every authentic relationship becomes a home where we return from our solitary communions with God.

Never was this clearer to me than when wheeling Anne, my partner of twenty years, to the operating room where she would have surgery for cancer. I went as far as I could and watched her grow smaller through the glass doors. I realized then that […] each of us must go beyond the glass doors of our experience alone.  And the work of compassion is to guide our dear ones as far as we can and to be there when they return. But no one can go beyond the glass doors for us or with us.

~ Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening – (entry for July 31, p. 253)

Poetry in Motion – You and Art


I have a friend who is an avid reader of poetry.  From time to time, he shares prose with me that inspire and move me.  I thought I’d share a couple here from these past few months…  Thanks, Mike for sharing your world…for sifting through the pebbles and rocks and finding the gems for people like me who lack attention, but welcome the inspiration.

The first section speaks most to me…

 

You And Art

Your exact errors make a music  that nobody hears.
Your straying feet find the great dance, walking alone.
And you live on a world where stumbling
always leads home.

Year after year fits over your face—
when there was youth, your talent was youth;
later, you find your way by touch
where moss redeems the stone;

and you discover where music begins
before it makes any sound,
far in the mountains where canyons go
still as the always-falling, ever-new flakes of snow.

—William Stafford

I Wish That I Could Show You…


An Open Letter to Barbara McAfee,

Your tracks “World of Wonders”, “Let It Be” and “I Wish That I Could Show You” enveloped me in love and light today as I grieved. I cried for my grandmother and mom, who both left this earth this year.

The first left us at the age of almost 101, having lived a life of fullness, grace and love. A first generation American of Polish decent, she embodied hospitality, free from judgement or expectations. She gave of herself in service to others simply because that was her light. She suffered in recent years in and out of hospice, witnessing the speechless separation of her only two offspring, void of hope they would be reconciled on earth because…

The second left us suddenly at the age of 71, alone in her home, sprawled on the floor with a small drool of blood and fluids that simply said she went without pain or suffering, even though her last decades were full of empty illusions of untreated alcoholism…deep in denial, and unable and unwilling to accept her own human condition. She also embodied hospitality, though hers came oft times with judgement and “strings of expectations.” Nonetheless, her intentions were to mirror her mother’s grace and love. She gave of herself in service to others, hoping to find joy and freedom for the little girl trapped in the bottle. She battled in sharp wit against her only sibling, leaving him on earth to suffer guilt, shame and similar fate for sure at the end of an empty bottle and broken marriage.

Today I sobbed and grieved, looking for answers and solutions to my pain. I managed to avoid my traditional patterns of numbing sex, drugs and alcohol…and instead stayed in the moment. I turned on your music, and found comfort, deep solace and sadness. And yet in that moment, a vision of hope came…that while I would have no answers to the empty holes in my heart from these two angels, nor would I find answers in the love of another person, or even the soft licks of my Daisy may who lapped up the saltiness of my tears…I am able to accept the situation, and know peace…let it be.

My second tattoo design is now complete, having known I would have 26401 from Les Miserables, and the dual mask of joy and grief, comedy of masks…and now, it will lay on top a characture of your outstretched arms, blanketed in light, in hope, in the promise of peace.

Thank you for your gift of presence. While I found no remedy to the loss, I found hope in the gentle notes coming from your soul.

Your brother

Todd

For others, this cd from Barbara arrived this week. I met her in Cincinnati at a conference earlier this year. She let me have a pre-release version of track 13…”I wish that I could show you.” And it has brought me great comfort up until and now through her released cd. I encourage you to seek out her deep presence and melodies at barbaramcafee.com. May you find your own truth, light and life.

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