The Light Found Me

 

I read a while back that a good practice to stay calm and focused is to notice where there is light, especially small bits of light that might be overlooked. It’s a reminder of faith and trust and knowing we are never alone.

I haven’t been practicing this. But yesterday it found me.

On the way home from lunch at a friend’s house, I was on Daniel’s Parkway waiting to turn left onto Six Mile Cypress, an inordinately long process. My attention turned to my left and the woods of the Slough. In the midafternoon light, the trees had gentle light filtering around them. A few leaves were brightly lit diamonds in the indirect sun. I couldn’t take my eyes off the scene. I just kept looking and enjoying and feeling centered and blessed.

That evening I had yet to close my blinds when suddenly a brilliantly peach-colored full moon jumped into my vision before some clouds covered it again. It seemed to be playing hide and go seek, or peek-a-boo. I thought again how the light had come to me, and I said hello and goodbye to the moon for the night, as I closed the blinds. 

I will keep seeking the light, as well as allowing it to reach out to me. It’s such an easy practice and has huge payoffs to the heart and soul. Perhaps the easiest way to remember that all will be well.

What She Knows

Spontaneous poem written by starting with last line in a poem called “The Weaver” by Pat Schneider.

What she knows she knows

There is life after a death

There can be good days

Happiness

It has to come from within

No one can do it for her

There is no hole or gap

Just light shining consistently

Her name means light

And she lets it show the way

On how to weave a new life

The one she always knew she’d live.

That one wild and precious life.

“There we were, where we are..”

 Journal Entry today

The only thing I wanted to listen to today was James Taylor's Hourglass album from 1997. As I listened, I journaled about what was arising in me.

By the second song the tears were flowing. The chorus of "Enough to Be On Your Way" hits me every time:

It's enough to be on your way

It's enough just to cover ground

It's enough to be moving on

Home--build it behind your eyes

Carry it in your heart

Safe among your own.

What I love about this song is that it seems to be about anything you need it to be. Something about it reaches deep inside me, even now, 27 years later. It was the summer I was waiting to have surgery for what they told me was ovarian cancer, and the whole world felt lit up and healing was within reach. Albums like this one and Sarah MacLachlan's Surfacing helped me through those July days. In fact, I even had Jim bring a CD player to the hospital so I could listen in my room. The power in the music was what I needed at that time, and has been with me ever since. I want to highlight a few of the songs here.

 

"Enough to Be On Your Way" has one of the best lyrics I have ever heard. The song is a narrative about a friend who went missing out west with some Buddhists. The story is both abstract and concrete. My favorite lines from the song come at the end:

He woke me up on a Sunday

An hour before the sun

It had me watchin' the headlights

Out on Highway Five, Nine, One

'Till I stepped into my trousers

'Till I pulled my big boots on

I walked out on the mesa

And I stumbled on this song

 

I just love the imagery of James walking out on the mesa at dawn and finding this song. It is beyond beautiful. Listen here:

I always feel that summer led me to the revelation in November that I wanted to become a teacher. It was like preparing the ground for me.

Likewise, I feel the same this summer -- the health situation with Jim and myself -- is leading me somewhere I cannot see. I sense the end of my career as a public school teacher even though in many ways I'd love to have one final year. It may or may not happen.

Another song that was a favorite is called "Another Day," with lyrics:

Another day

Another chance that we may finally find our way

The sun has begun to melt all our fears away

Another day

Overcoming fear is definitely a theme in this album, as I am just recognizing now. I can see why it was so relevant to me with the cancer scare hanging over me back then.

The song "Up from Your Life" acknowledges that we may often find it hard to get out of our own way. I distinctly remember a moment of my life with this song. It was in the fall when I was falling into depression, and had spent the early hours sunk in my own gloom. I finally pulled myself out of the house to go for a walk in the woods. I started the car and the cassette began to play:

So much for your moment of prayer,

God's not at home 

there is no there, there...

Though I hate to see you surrender,

you need to surrender,

we must find you a way to

Look up from your life

Up from your life

Look up from your life

I remember sitting in the garage laughing at myself for holding on to my own sadness instead of realizing what was available in the moment. I was way too caught up in myself! It was like James was poking fun at me. I heard the message loud and clear. 

 

And today it was the same. These are the words that tumbled out of me while I listened:

 

There is light

There is a way

Fear has no place

Expect the unexpected

 

Give a listen to this very special song.  Branford Marsalis on the sax is stunning!

So those were the songs from 1997 that had me in their grip. So why did I need to listen today?

To discover this one: "Up Er Mei." This is another one that has a lot of abstraction, and today that spoke fully to me. I will need to spend more time with these lyrics to see what they hold for me, so I am adding it to my Emerge Playlist for 2024. By the way, Mount Er Mei is a mountain in China and is the location of a Buddhist temple build in 1st century CE. (Link below) I never even bothered to look this up until today.

Anyway, back to the lyrics: 

We were walking in paradise, never did tumble.

Blind in the Buddha land, looking for trouble

We had been told of a place far beyond this vale of tears

We could never have guessed, we were already blessed

There we were, where we are,

in the garden

in the garden.

 

Seems like words to hang onto! I'll keep you posted if I discover anything new.

 

Listen to lyric video below: 

Mount Er Mei

 

Tiny Folded Map

 Found poem from “My Daughter Asleep” by David Whyte.

I carry

dreams

like a tiny

folded map,

a path that leads,

and I

walk

making

invisible prayers.

Let the window open

Let the moonlight in

And in the darkness

My heart be a lantern 

to light the way.

Awaken. Awaken. Awaken.

To these 

unspoken shadows,

a quiet

request-

for the great

and hidden

symmetries

of life to

be a reward…

a passage…

a home coming.

Casting

 Carried by a strong current,

you and the others with you 

seem to be making decisions, 

but you’re not.

(Rumi “Thorn Witness”)

The Long Leg (1930) Edward Hopper

Why did this line reach out to me and not let go?

Maybe I am just moving to the currents of the Universe.

And it only seems like I have a modicum of power.

*

I read Mary Oliver’s essay “Blue Pastures” 

which essentially is about the ocean.

And she details all types of fish caught, 

describes them and her experiences.

The casting, the cleaning, the ultimate meal.

The bulbous body of a floating ocean sunfish.

She seemed to be carried by the 

strong current of sharing this information.

*

Yesterday I had to take Jim to Lee Memorial for a procedure.

I consciously saw each person we encountered as a golden light.

I blessed them as they walked the halls

Worked the desks. Pushed the wheelchairs.

No, I didn’t decide to cast my vote for this current situation.

Someone else cast me in this role.

The best I can do is cast a little love and light along the way.

Smooth the path a bit for myself and others.

In Gratitude

 To be fully human

 is to face the darkness, 

which is inevitable, 

with a flashlight 

dispelling it quickly.

And if you don’t have a flashlight, 

strike a match. 

It works the same.

Darkness gives way to light. 

It’s the nature of things.

Why fight it?

Turn your face toward the light.

Being fully human means 

standing where you are 

in gratitude.

Light in the Dark

 From Rumi’s poem “Everyone Outdoors Talking”:

Grief lives between the cat paws.

You can say eek-eek and gehk-gohk 

but there is no escape.

Grief has a grip on this house

Resting on the furniture and walls

It’s a constant struggle to gather

Energy to move and do

Finding light in the dark is the only way through 

I Turned the Page

 The greatest magic you have is the

courage to go digging for,

when your world falls apart,

the light you still hold,

when everything has grown dark

(Nikita Gill, pg. 24, no title)

I read a poem called “Endings” 

which is a fine poem but in no way 

did I want to write about endings 

given what has happened in my life 

these last couple weeks, 

so I turned the page and found six lines that said

it all about the courage to find the light in the dark 

and I’d say most of the time I’m doing that, 

and I know my years of spiritual practice

 has served me well, while at the same time

I know I can get caught in the trap again, but

each time I will find my way out faster.

Smile

 I just read “Tony Bennett Sings ‘Smile’ for You” by David Kirby 

in which he strangely combines commentary on the song and the songwriter

 Charlie Chaplin, as well as a story from the concentration camps and a meeting 

of Holocaust survivors years later. David does that kind of thing and makes it work.

 Reading his poetry always makes me see how the seemingly 

discordant parts of my life and existence actually weave together into a whole. 

And that is worthwhile to remember and makes me smile.

I can keep going

When I find a way to smile

And look to the Light

River of Tears

 I read these words from Nikita Gill today:

Ghosts of the person you used to be

are so proud of who you are

they live on inside you applauding you

for living on despite your scars

And then I cried a river of tears.

It’s my process.

All the years and all the challenges have brought me to the greatest one yet. It has happened before…I find myself on an entirely different road than I planned on walking and, unlike Robert Frost, there is no choice of direction. It has been chosen for me, and all I can do is draw on every inner resource I’ve ever discovered before, the ways I have found to rise above present circumstances and hold on to what matters: Love. Gentleness . Leaning on others. A light from inside and the one shining above.

And I know when I come out on the other side of this, I will not be the person I used to be.

This song by Jimmy Buffett was already my chosen song for the year. Music can heal and remind us of  what we need to know. There probably hasn’t been a better one than “Bubbles Up.”

Bubbles up
They will point you towards home
No matter how deep or how far you roam
They will show you the surface, the plot and the purpose
So, when the journey gets long
Just know that you are loved
There is light up above
And the joy is always enough
Bubbles up

The Sun and the Moon

 Inspired by Nikita Gill’s poem by the same name.

I am the sun in my classroom.

It is my role to shine a light on my learners.

They are in various phases, sometimes might even appear broken.

Yet, they are whole within themselves

and my job is to find ways to make them glow.

I say this in the wake of hearing and reading

so much rigidity from teachers.

The sun is not rigid.

It delights.

It warms.

It makes things grow.

Where the heck did this idea come from that our students 

are employees and we pay them with grades?

This thinking is anti-sun.

It brings darkness.

It’s arrogant and ignorant and downright mean.

I still recall Michael Meade’s words:

The teacher must stand in the waterfall with her students.

Likewise, I see that I must be the sun.

What better purpose could there possibly be 

than to help others 

glow and grow?

"Just look to your soul, open your mind"

I was up early this morning, making a trip to Costco to stock up. I got in and out pretty quickly, with just a couple delays. It was a relief, since now I can dedicate the rest of the day to doing things I want to do.

After leaving the store, I was heading west on Cypress Lake Drive when my lucky song came on the radio (60s Gold): "Daydream Believer."  I immediately got tears of joy in my eyes, realizing I had not heard this song on the radio in a very long time. It felt like a small miracle in the midst of everything that has happened. 

I thought about how yesterday was the one month anniversary of the devastating hurricane, and three months since the death of my stepson. I thought about how Jim spent a great deal of the night in the bathroom, the radiation causing him to struggle. I couldn't help but feel like Davy and the boys were sending me a signal: happiness is right now. And I was feeling it!

I turned onto Summerlin and noticed street signs lying on the corner, downed trees, and other hurricane remnants. I was still listening to "Daydream Believer" but my thoughts were not as carefree and happy. It seemed hard to hold on to that happy feeling --here and gone.

When I reached Gladiolus Drive, a police car was in the intersection with blinking lights A long caravan of police vehicles from the east coast, including a boat, went through the intersection. I started to feel again the depth of our community in crisis. We are far from done with any of this, and trying to hold on to any good feeling is short-lived.

Then, another small miracle occurred. "Crystal Blue Persuasion" by Tommy James and the Shondells came on. I was taken back to the summer I was entering high school, and how the song felt rather mystical and odd, especially in light of previous songs by the band. It has always been my favorite.

I thought of how "Daydream Believer" came out in 1967 when I was a 7th grader, and that by the time "Crystal Blue" came out, I was fourteen. Just in those two years, so much change can happen within a person, within the music, within our culture.

Today I believe these songs were brought to me for a clear reason. "Daydream" was to remind me that good times are always with us, no matter what. We need to be in the moment, as I was when the song came on. "Crystal" to remind me that sometimes we have to do the work to keep the belief. It isn't automatic. It will take faith and surrender and determination of spirit. 

Beyond that, there is more. I was highly influenced by events in the late 1960s--the war in Vietnam, the assassinations of MLK and RFK, and the music that seemed to be signaling a new day, a new era was at hand. This seems to be another time, as in the past, when the values and hopes I had as a young person rises in me once again. That is probably the real message of "Crystal Blue Persuasion" for me today:

Better get ready

Come see the light

Love is the answer

And that's alright 

So don't you give up now

It's so easy to find

Just look to your soul

and open your mind

As someone who works with children 12-14 years old, who have had to deal with a worldwide pandemic and this crushing act of nature, I wonder what feelings they will be hearkening back to when they are 25, 38, 44, or 67?  What will they see when they look back at this time of their lives?

I pray, for their sake, that there will be light.

48. School Year Twilight

 #66Challenge

Inspired by this line from the poem "Twilight" by Louise Gluck:

I let it go, then I light a candle.

I let go the things

I felt commanded to do.

I let go the need to

do it "right,"

because "right" isn't always right.

Now

I light a candle

to thinking

    creativity

    nourishment

something real that will last.

I let go the "gotta do,"

and light the way to "moved to do"

         the gifts that only I can give.

 

 

 

Between the Branches

 [Note: Sunday morning I arrived at Six Mile Cypress Slough, read David Whyte’s poem “The Thicket,” walked and meditated and took photos, wrote this, and then added quotes from Whyte’s poem in italics.]

I took my meditation to the slough…

free and observant

Contemplated the nature of all things being evolutionary and revolutionary…

surveying the tiny stages and the curtained dramas

Such as the Spanish moss hanging from tree branches…

 every further stage of vision leading me back to smaller and smaller worlds

The Pilated Woodpecker busy on his branch, finding breakfast, preening himself…

Always two realities…action or non-action.

never leave the branching world...a kind of enclosed womb-like eternity

What changes things?

Ideas. Curiosity. Faith.

The trees are both able to be touched and observed in a watery mirror.

Is the reflection telling the truth? 

searching between the branches... the knowledge of some immanence

When it was time to leave, the sun in the Cypress pond lit the way…

 

brought clarity to silence, set me to grow

Heart lifted. Exhilarated. A quiet mind.

Taking all the necessary actions

To meet the revolution.

Love & Faith & Joy (7 Lines/7 Days #84)

 #108Weeks

December 19-25, 2021

I've been revising my reading goals for 2022, and liking the direction.

I came face-to-face with the fact that I need a major mental adjustment.

Atomic Habits by James Clear is helping me make small changes to get my physical strength back in a manageable way.

On Solstice Day I wrote this: I commit more fully to the life I know I can live. I commit more fully to vulnerability, innovation, creation, and joy.  I commit more fully to cultivating my heart, leading with my heart, shining light from my heart. And I seriously commit to not blaming others or myself for what is. I welcome it all -- every ugly and beautiful moment, encounter, and feeling -- as TEACHER.

I must continue to look at each moment with love and faith and joy. I'm calling it WILD JOY.

Progress, not perfection.

Have faith and be the change!

Thinking Out Loud on an Auspicious Solstice Morning

 Written 12-21-21

I am finding inspiration and motivation from every direction.

A few days ago I realized I was ready to move on from the place I've been, which has been rather stuck. I knew this was coming, but I did not have a vision.

Today the vision began to form.

First, with Atomic Habits by James Clear. I'm thinking What kind of person do I want to be? And What habits will get me there?

This motivated me to get on my exercise bike, and I put on a podcast from Michael Meade called "The Cultivated Heart: In Loving Memory of Robert Bly."  I have met both of these men before, and Robert passed a month ago today.  In the podcast, Michael focused a lot on writings Robert did for a poetry anthology they worked on together called The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart. It has always been one of my favorite collections.

What was helpful to me is that the topic of cultivating our hearts caused Michael to focus on a few specific poems, two of which really spoke to me.

 

I think I will also take a moment to mention why I knew I was stuck, even as I knew it was time to move on. First, I had a meeting with some friends where I found myself blaming a lot of others for things I'm encountering. This left me emotionally reeling for at least 12 hours, and was not a pleasant experience.

Second, I met a friend for lunch and a Broadway show, only to find myself surprised that she brought me Christmas presents. Why I was surprised baffled me. We always exchange gifts. How is it that I have not even given it ONE thought these last few weeks when I knew we had this event coming up?  My only answer is that I have become ridiculously insular and selfishly focused that even things that should be evident go right past me. Not a good feeling. I blamed myself deeply for the neglect of this important exchange.

Another thing I encountered recently that brought me up short was revisiting other blog posts from Decembers of previous years. It is there I found something I wrote on December 9, 2017 called "On Questions and Contradictions." In this post I discovered that much of what I keep complaining about now are the exact same things that were happening then. Have I not even figured out how to do better?

In the blog, I referred to the poem "The Sunflowers" by Mary Oliver, in which she suggests we ask sunflowers questions:

Come with me
to visit the sunflowers,
they are shy
but want to be friends;
they have wonderful stories
of when they were young –
the important weather,
the wandering crows.
Don’t be afraid
to ask them questions!
Their bright faces,
which follow the sun,
will listen, and all
those rows of seeds –
each one a new life!

I then proceeded to ask myself a lot of questions, many I still have today. Things like...How do I get through to my students? Why do I go through this every year? What will make real change? 

And most importantly, Why can't I be you, Sunflower?

Coming upon this blog post was unforgettable in this current quest.  Leave it to Michael Meade to pick up the pieces for me when he read this poem:

This poem connected everything together -- all my tears, my grief, my vulnerability, my blaming of others, and a good comeuppance on how wrong my view can be. This is about seeds being cultivated. It has been too easy to tighten up and not let that seed explode into something wonderful. After all, everything real in life is about breaking open to the moment. Without it, there is no creativity, no innovation.

Michael goes on to explain:

[We must live] with immediacy of the soul, that rare sense that the next moment can break open. And that we must...marry it, step into it, and become ourselves in that moment of opening and awaking. If we fail to do that we have not fully participated in the world.

It is obvious I have to do that which is really difficult for me -- truly open up, live more fully, love more actively. I have been saying this for years, and I think I'm doing it, but recent events have found my fault lines. And recent events have also taught me I have no time to waste. I look ahead and I see an end line. This is a new feeling, and one I must reckon with.

But Michael wasn't done. Then he introduced this poem, which gave me further marching orders!

To Be a Slave of Intensity (Kabir, trans. by Robert Bly)

Friend, hope for the guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
Think...and think...while you are alive.
What you call 'salvation' belongs to the time before death.

If you don't break your ropes while you're alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will join with the ecstatic
Just because the body is rotten -
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death.
If you make love with the divine now, in the next life you will have the face of satisfied desire.

So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,
Believe in the Great Sound!

Kabir says this: When the guest is being searched for, it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that does all the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity. 

JUMP INTO EXPERIENCE WHILE YOU ARE ALIVE.

BREAK THE ROPES.

I simply LOVE that! 

"So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is, Believe in the Great Sound"

Welcome it all--joy and sorrow. Don't ignore any of it. ENGAGE!

So the answer to Why can't I be you, Sunflower?

is

I AM. I just don't activate it.

*

I'm not quite done, even though that seems like quite a lot.

For the first time in a long time I pulled a Rune stone. And the word was perfect, of course: FAITH.

This is already a word I have embraced during the journey over these past few months. I discovered it when I did the 33 Question Cards to find my word. When the Rune divination said the same, well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

And I still needed these words:

Faith encourages us to believe that we can make a difference -- in ourselves and in the world.

And so, on this auspicious solstice day of 12-21-21, I commit more fully to the life I know I need to live. I commit more fully to vulnerability, innovation, creation, and joy. I commit more fully to cultivating my heart, leading with my heart, shining light from my heart. And I seriously commit to not blaming others or myself for what is. I welcome it all--every ugly or beautiful moment, encounter, or feeling-- as TEACHER.

I needed to identify the turning point, and this has been it.

11:05 am  12/21/2021

 

28. My Heart is a Spotlight

#66Challenge

 

Today a new angle on the Sun Bu-er poem emerged when I read this line from Robert Bly:

The evening arrives; we look up and it is there.

 

Cut brambles long enough

I kept looking, trying to see

Sprout after sprout

There is this and this and this

And the lotus will bloom

Of it's own accord:

Ask the right questions

Frame it in a new way

Already waiting in the clearing

Pay attention to the obvious

The single image of light

It becomes self-evident

The day you see this,

That day you will become it

The spotlight shines on the image that matters -- 

Saying "Look Here"