For the Unknown Self

 

So much of what delights and troubles you
Happens on a surface
You take for ground.
Your mind thinks your life alone,
Your eyes consider air your nearest neighbor,
Yet it seems that a little below your heart
There houses in you an unknown self
Who prefers the patterns of the dark
And is not persuaded by the eye's affection
Or caught by the flash of thought.

 

It is a self that enjoys contemplative patience
With all your unfolding expression,
Is never drawn to break into light
Though you entangle yourself in unworthiness
And misjudge what you do and who you are.

 

It presides within like an evening freedom
That will often see you enchanted by twilight
Without ever recognizing the falling night,
It resembles the under-earth of your visible life:
All you do and say and think is fostered
Deep in its opaque and prevenient clay.

 

It dwells in a strange, yet rhythmic ease
That is not ruffled by disappointment;
It presides in a deeper current of time
Free from the force of cause and sequence
That otherwise shapes your life.

 

Were it to break forth into day,
Its dark light might quench your mind,
For it knows how your primeval heart
Sisters every cell of your life
To all your known mind would avoid,

 

Thus it knows to dwell in you gently,
Offering you only discrete glimpses
Of how you construct your life.

 

At times, it will lead you strangely,
Magnetized by some resonance
That ambushes your vigilance.

 

It works most resolutely at night
As the poet who draws your dreams,
Creating for you many secret doors,
Decorated with pictures of your hunger;

 

It has the dignity of the angelic
That knows you to your roots,
Always awaiting your deeper befriending
To take you beyond the threshold of want,
Where all your diverse strainings
Can come to wholesome ease.

 

~ John O'Donohue ~

 

(To Bless the Space Between Us)

 

 

 

 

 

Fear Lynne Chandler

Fear 

An unruly voice

Fear: sometimes an

Unruly voice,

If invited to speak

It destroys.

With no respect for a higher vision

It can darken the brightest of days.

Its bitter taste can undermine

The risk of

Hopes and dreams.

Its scent can smother

And choke out courage,

Slamming an open door shut.

But if only acknowledged

And not asked to stay,

This wanderer

Must move on.

When the tangible touch

Of fear starts to fade

The gift of trust can emerge

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

By Robert Frost 1874–1963 Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.#

 

 

This poem captures a moment that is full of so much meaning

From 99 words for Ellen

You have breath for no more than 99 words .
What would they be ?
Here is a response from Scilla Elworthy peace and human rights trust founder Oxford Research Group and Peace Direct

If I look back I see

that fear lies to me.

"You'll fail," it said to me when I started out on the path.

"Here's how ," painting detailed pictures of pain.

When I was on the way fear scared me again and again .

"Too weak ,too old , turn back."

I did walk on ,encumbered by this load.

It wasn't easy,

but it wasn't what I'd been told.

I didn't fail.

Without the load I might have stumbled less.

The trick is to hear

when it is fear speaking

and hear it fast enough to let it drop. 

News from Paradise---it is soon over

Report To Wordsworth’ by Boey Kim Cheng


You should be here, Nature has need of you.

She has been laid waste. Smothered by the smog,

the flowers are mute, and the birds are few

in a sky slowing like a dying clock.

All hopes of Proteus rising from the sea

have sunk; he is entombed in the waste

we dump. Triton’s notes struggle to be free,

his famous horns are choked, his eyes are dazed,

and Neptune lies helpless as beached as a whale,

while insatiate man moves in for the kill.

Poetry and piety have begun to fail,

As Nature’s mighty heart is lying still.

O see the widening in the sky,

God is labouring to utter his last cry.

from a poem by Ben Okri

Tomorrow's music sleeps
In our fingers,
In our awakening souls,
The blossom of our spirit,
The suggestive buds of our hearts.
Tell everyone the idea
Is to function together,
As good musicians would
In undefined future orchestras.
Let the energy of commerce flow.
Let the vision of art heal.
Technology, provide the tools.
Workers of the world
Re-make the world
Under the guidance of inspiration
And wise laws.
Create the beautiful music
Our innermost happiness suggests.
Delight the future.
Create happy outcomes.
And while Autumn dallies
With the West wind
And the weeping nightingales
And while Winter clears its sonorous throat
At the Antipodean banquets
Preparing for a speech of hoarfrost
And icicles conjured from living breath,
I want you to tell everyone
Through trumpets played with
The fragrance of roses
That a mysterious reason
Has brought us all together,
Here, now, under the all-seeing eye of the sun.

© Ben Okri, December

Happy Anniversary My Love

Meeting
Boris Pasternak

The snow will dust the roadway,
And load the roofs still more.
I'll stretch my legs a little:
You're there outside the door.

Autumn, not winter coat,
Hat-none, galoshes-none.
You struggle with excitement
Out there all on your own.

Far, far into the darkness
Fences and trees withdraw.
You stand there on the corner,
Under the falling snow.

The water trickles down from
The kerchief that you wear
Into your sleeves, while dewdrops
Shine sparkling in your hair.

And now illumined by
A single strand of light
Are features, kerchief, figure
And coat of autumn cut.

There's wet snow on your lashes
And in your eyes, distress,
And your external image
Is all, all of apiece.

As if an iron point
With truly consummate art,
Dipped into antimony,
Had scribed you on my heart.

Those modest, humble features
Are in it now to stay,
And if the world's cruel-hearted,
That's merely by the way.

And therefore it is doubled,
All this night in snow;
To draw frontiers between us
Is more than I can do.

But who are we and whence,
If, of those years gone by,
Scandal alone remains
And we have ceased to be.

1949

An excerpt from "A Brave And Startling Truth " by Maya Angelou



A Brave And Startling Truth

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth
And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms

***

 We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.

~ Maya Angelou ~

 

 

 

Thanksgiving prayer

Prayer for Nature
by Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918)

O God, we thank you for this universe, our home; and for its vastness and richness, the exuberance of life which fills it and of which we are part. We praise you for the vault of heaven and for the winds, pregnant with blessings, for the clouds which navigate and for the constellations, there so high. We praise you for the oceans and for the fresh streams, for the endless mountains, the trees, the grass under our feet. We praise you for our senses, to be able to see the moving splendour, to hear the songs of lovers, to smell the beautiful fragrance of the spring flowers.

Give us, we pray you, a heart that is open to all this joy and all this beauty, and free our souls of the blindness that comes from preoccupation with the things of life, and of the shadows of passions, to the point that we no longer see nor hear, not even when the bush at the roadside is afire with the glory of God. Give us a broader sense of communion with all living things, our sisters, to whom you gave this world as a home along with us.

We remember with shame that in the past we took advantage of our greater power and used it with unlimited cruelty, so much so that the voice of the earth, which should have arisen to you as a song was turned into a moan of suffering.

May we learn that living things do not live just for us, that they live for themselves and for you, and that they love the sweetness of life as much as we do, and serve you, in their place, better than we do in ours. When our end arrives and we can no longer make use of this world, and when we have to give way to others, may we leave nothing destroyed by our ambition or deformed by our ignorance, but may we pass along our common heritage more beautiful and more sweet, without having removed from it any of its fertility and joy, and so may our bodies return in peace to the womb of the great mother who nourished us and our spirits enjoy perfect life in you.

WORKING TOGETHER
David Whyte

We shape our self
to fit this world

and by the world
are shaped again.

The visible
and the invisible

working together
in common cause,

to produce
the miraculous.

I am thinking of the way
the intangible air

passed at speed
round a shaped wing

easily
holds our weight.

So may we, in this life
trust

to those elements
we have yet to see

or imagine,
and look for the true

shape of our own self
by forming it well

to the great
intangibles about us.

Dover Beach Matthew Arnold

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

---

The impact of a dollar upon the heart

by Stephen Crane

The impact of a dollar upon the heart
Smiles warm red light
Sweeping from the hearth rosily upon the white table,
With the hanging cool velvet shadows
Moving softly upon the door.

The impact of a million dollars
Is a crash of flunkeys
And yawning emblems of Persia
Cheeked against oak, France and a sabre,
The outcry of old beauty
Whored by pimping merchants
To submission before wine and chatter.
Silly rich peasants stamp the carpets of men,
Dead men who dreamed fragrance and light
Into their woof, their lives;
The rug of an honest bear
Under the feet of a cryptic slave
Who speaks always of baubles,
Forgetting state, multitude, work, and state,
Champing and mouthing of hats,
Making ratful squeak of hats,
Hats.

A Challenge

If you enter the New York City Public Library along 41st Street, you will walk past a series of brass engraved plaques.

The Challenge: Look through all the quotes and comment here in the blog on the one that spoke you the most.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42394240@N07/5787415805/in/photostream/

Ashokan Farewell

by Grian MacGregor

TO WATCH: http://youtu.be/HxDP6q6C5mE

The sun is sinking low in the sky above Ashokan.
The pines and the willows know soon we will part.
There's a whisper in the wind of promises unspoken,
And a love that will always remain in my heart.

My thoughts will return to the sound of your laughter,
The magic of moving as one,
And a time we'll remember long ever after
The moonlight and music and dancing are done.

Will we climb the hills once more?
Will we walk the woods together?
Will I feel you holding me close once again?
Will every song we've sung stay with us forever?
Will you dance in my dreams or my arms until then?

Under the moon the mountains lie sleeping
Over the lake the stars shine.
They wonder if you and I will be keeping
The magic and music, or leave them behind.

To Autumn-Keats

 
I

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
      Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
      To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
      For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.


II                                  

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
   Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
   Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
   Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
      Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
   Steady thy laden head across a brook;
   Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
   Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.


III

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
   Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
   And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
   Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
   Among the river sallows, borne aloft
      Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
   Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
      The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
      And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Ode to the West Wind - Percy Bysshe Shelley

Please look here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2018182534522.2100203.1242652615

Remember Me



REMEMBER me when I am gone away,   
Gone far away into the silent land;   
When you can no more hold me by the hand,   
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.   
Remember me when no more day by day 
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:   
Only remember me; you understand   
It will be late to counsel then or pray.   
Yet if you should forget me for a while   
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave   
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,   
Better by far you should forget and smile   
Than that you should remember and be sad.

Christina Rossetti

I am from...

“I am from”

Got this idea from the radio show and blog "ON BEING." Let’s use this incomplete line as an opportunity to share and learn about each other, have a little fun.

Here are the guidelines: answer it any way you like. If you want to build on this phrase in prose — with one word, one sentence, one paragraph, one essay, then do so. If you want to finish this phrase with a photo or a photo essay, then do it. If you want to elaborate on this phrase with a line of poesy or a stanza, then do so.

Share something about yourself, your heritage, your geography, your interior mind, your imaginings or vulnerabilities.

Guess Title and Fill In Blanks, Just One Word.

My mother loves ___ more than I do,

more than anyone. She pulls chunks off

the stick and eats it plain, explaining

cream spun around into ____! Growing up

we ate turkey cutlets sauteed in lemon

and ____, ____ and cheese on green noodles,

___ melting in small pools in the hearts

of Yorkshire puddings, ___ better

than gravy staining white rice yellow,

___ glazing corn in slipping squares,

___ the lava in white volcanoes

of hominy grits, ___ softening

in a white bowl to be creamed with white

sugar, ___ disappearing into

whipped sweet potatoes, with pineapple,

___ melted and curdy to pour

over pancakes, ___ licked off the plate

with warm Alaga syrup. When I picture

the good old days I am grinning greasy

with my brother, having watched the tiger

chase his tail and turn to ___. We are

Mumbo and Jumbo’s children despite

historical revision, despite

our parent’s efforts, glowing from the inside

out, one hundred megawatts of ___.

My turn please?

GUESS THE TITLE?

WHEN the long day’s tramp is over, when the journey’s done,

I shall dip down from some hill-top at the going down o’ the sun,

And turn in at the open door, and lay down staff and load,

And wash me clean of the heat o’ day, and white dust o’ the road.

There shall I hear the restless wind go wandering to and fro.

That sings the old wayfaring song—the tune that the stars know;

Soft shall I lie and well content, and I shall ask no more

Than just to drowse and watch the folk turn in at the open door.

To hail the folk I used to know, that trudged with me in the dust,

That warmed their hands at the same fire, and ate o’ the same crust,

To know them safe from the cold wind and the drenching rain,

Turn a little, and wake a little, and so to sleep again.