Take hold of your own life. See that the whole existence is celebrating. These trees are not serious, these birds are not serious. The rivers and the oceans are wild, and everywhere there is fun, everywhere there is joy and delight. Watch existence, listen to the existence and become part of it.
— Osho
This photo was taken at River's Wish Animal Sanctuary on the outskirts of Spokane. The best part? After I shot this photo, I got to hold a bottle. One of the sweetest and most fun things I've ever done!
I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along. I am aging and eaten and have done my share of eating too. I am not washed and beautiful, in control of a shining world in which everything fits, but instead am wandering awed about on a splintered wreck I've come to care for, whose gnawed trees breathe a delicate air, whose bloodied and scarred creatures are my dearest companions, and whose beauty bats and shines not in its imperfections but overwhelmingly in spite of them...
The other day I was ricocheting slowly off the blue walls of this room, moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano, from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor, when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.
No cookie nibbled by a French novelist could send one into the past more suddenly— a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp by a deep Adirondack lake learning how to braid long thin plastic strips into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.
I had never seen anyone use a lanyard or wear one, if that’s what you did with them, but that did not keep me from crossing strand over strand again and again until I had made a boxy red and white lanyard for my mother.
She gave me life and milk from her breasts, and I gave her a lanyard. She nursed me in many a sick room, lifted spoons of medicine to my lips, laid cold face-cloths on my forehead, and then led me out into the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim, and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard. Here are thousands of meals, she said, and here is clothing and a good education. And here is your lanyard, I replied, which I made with a little help from a counselor.
Here is a breathing body and a beating heart, strong legs, bones and teeth, and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered, and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp. And here, I wish to say to her now, is a smaller gift—not the worn truth
that you can never repay your mother, but the rueful admission that when she took the two-tone lanyard from my hand, I was as sure as a boy could be that this useless, worthless thing I wove out of boredom would be enough to make us even.
If we were not so single-minded about keeping our lives moving and for once could do nothing, perhaps a huge silence might interrupt this sadness of never understanding ourselves and of threatening ourselves with death. Perhaps the world can teach us as when everything seems dead but later proves to be alive.
Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled — to cast aside the weight of facts
and maybe even to float a little above this difficult world. I want to believe I am looking
into the white fire of a great mystery. I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing — that the light is everything — that it is more than the sum of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.
These shriveled seeds we plant, corn kernel, dried bean, poke into loosened soil, cover over with measured fingertips
These T-shirts we fold into perfect white squares
These tortillas we slice and fry to crisp strips This rich egg scrambled in a gray clay bowl
This bed whose covers I straighten smoothing edges till blue quilt fits brown blanket and nothing hangs out
This envelope I address so the name balances like a cloud in the center of sky
This page I type and retype This table I dust till the scarred wood shines This bundle of clothes I wash and hang and wash again like flags we share, a country so close no one needs to name it
The days are nouns: touch them The hands are churches that worship the world
This place where you are right now God circled on a map for you. Wherever your eyes and arms and heart can move Against the earth and sky, The Beloved has bowed there— Our Beloved has bowed there knowing You were coming.
A poet sleeps in my guest room. She is an easy, delightful guest. Taller than I expected. Warm, freckled, smart, comfortable in her body, deep bright eyes that see more than most. You know the old question, who would you most like to have over for dinner? Last night was dream-come-truey in that regard. Two of my favorite writers, and one of my favorite minds (and a burlesque dancer to boot!), and me. My table sparkled with candlelight and conversation, as Maya wrote, real and relaxed and warm and joyous even, all of us engaged and eating together, like we'd been doing that for ages.
Tonight Maya Stein is giving a free writing workshop at my house. If you're in Spokane, whether you're a writer or not, you'd be nuts to miss this opportunity! The event info is on Facebook (please RSVP if you're coming) or email me.
On a not-necessarily-related note, this morning I read something that struck a chord:
"The barrage of demands and the voracious appetite of a culture that seeks to devour, rather than savor its sustenance undermine a quiet patient trust in God’s seasons of growth and harvest." –The Sanctuary Foundation for Prayer
In some ways I'm naturally a savorer, and in other ways I always want — those greedy, insatiable wants — more. Today I'm loosening my grip on the wants. Loosening my grip. Loosening.
"When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy, care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life."
—Jean Shinoda Bolen
Recent Comments