"Seven of Pentacles" by Marge Piercy

Under a sky the color of pea soup
she is looking at her work growing away there
actively, thickly like grapevines or pole beans
as things grow in the real world, slowly enough.
If you tend them properly, if you mulch, if you water,
if you provide birds that eat insects a home and winter food,
if the sun shines and you pick off caterpillars,
if the praying mantis comes and the ladybugs and the bees,
then the plants flourish, but at their own internal clock.

Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.
You cannot tell always by looking what is happening.
More than half the tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.
Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet.
Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.
Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden.
Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar.

Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.
Live a life you can endure: Make love that is loving.
Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in,
a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us
interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.

Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:
reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
for every gardener knows that after the digging, after the planting,
after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.

This poem really resonates with me this morning, especially the last paragraph. Live as if you liked yourself. Today I get to make clear, mostly conscious choices about my life. I get to, as Camille Maurine says on the boundaries candle, treat my personal space as a sanctuary.

Quote of the day: "No is a complete sentence." (For me, easier to say than to hear.)

Spiritual practice of the day: Praying for people I'm upset with to have everything I want for myself: love, community, financial security, purpose, a love affair with God, safety, prosperity, joy, fulfilling work, usefulness, inner peace, positive relationships, good health, ease, enjoyment.

Comments

[Jane]

I love the poem today! Having a love affair with God rocks and, of course, asking for the things that we really want. I do believe that anything is possible if we can feel that inside of ourselves.

Happy Wednesday, Carla!

[claire]

what a wonderful poem, carla! these lines resonated with me:
'Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.
You cannot tell always by looking what is happening.
More than half the tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.'
esp. given my attunement to celtic reiki I a couple of months ago!
wishing you beautiful, fulfilling things today and every day, dear carla xxx

[Kelely]

I love Marge Piercy, her "He, She, and It" is one of my favorite books--this is a great poem and I appreciate your sharing it!

[liz elayne]

beautiful poem...marge is a favorite.
thank you for sharin this...and for sharing where you are.

Great Poem Carla! I'm going to add manure and mulch to my gardens right now as long as the Black Flies don't carry me away!
Sometimes I "hate" praying good thoughts to others I am upset with . . . .rrrggg. . . but, it does work! In the whole we are all one. Blessings, Kel

[SisterCathy]

Carla - you are doing wonderful self care - the underground and inner work is invisible for a while but the blossoms and growth come in their own time - love the poem - sorry we did not connect this month - I think and pray for you often - Sr. Cathy