“And the seasons, they go ‘round and round…”

 

Today I pulled out an album I haven’t heard in decades: Joni Mitchell’s Miles of Aisles. I was prompted to do so in a couple ways. I knew I wanted to do “art and vinyl” this afternoon; earlier I had seen an interview with Brandi Carlisle about a concert planned for next June with Joni live—first concert in over 20 years. It got me curious about this album sitting in my collection, and it certainly didn’t disappoint. “Circle Game” opened side three, and was one of my favorites today.

Somehow the Halloween season is on my mind, and not in the usual can’t-we-just-get-this-over-with way. This is super weird since I don’t care one lick for Halloween. But somehow, maybe it’s the hurricane or other things swirling around me, this year I feel slightly different. I find myself letting it in little by little.  I ran Halloween-themed coloring sheets for my students, and some had time to color. I began to decorate my room with them.

This is so not me! 

Here is the coloring page I did while enjoying every single minute of Joni live from nearly fifty years ago. 

The seasons do indeed go round and round. We are captive in the carousel of time. My wish is to make it colorful and joyful and uplifting in every way I can. This is what art and vinyl is about—getting in touch with those little pieces inside ourself that we might be overlooking. That and a craft beer equals a perfect afternoon in my mind.

Tomorrow I will tape my Zentangle pumpkin to my classroom wall. I will think of seasons changing, cooler weather, the coming of other holidays, and how my only “job” in life is to make the most of each day and be the best version of me I can be. And mostly, that I’m not too old to change my mind about things I already thought were settled! 

 

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!

Symbols, Sayings, and Dreams (7 Lines/7 Days #75)

 #108Weeks

October 17-23, 2021

Be present. Notice. Celebrate.

There was a dead dragonfly outside my classroom door .

I dreamt of snow, and the interpretation means going through challenges successfully.

There was a rainbow in the clouds as I drove to work.

In the night I woke up laughing -- a spillover from laughing in my dream.

I am willing to be unfinished, unpolished, and in a state of change.

Today I keep hearing a hawk calling.

Back in Balance (7 Lines/ 7 Days #63)

 #108Weeks

 July 25-31, 2021

 

 The trip put me in Zen mode.

This is my final week of the summer and the focus is self-care.

It's nice to be lazy!

I'm feeling a desire to get back to writing, but just can't grab on to anything. Who am I as a writer?

In a poem I read, the word "balance" stood out to me. I contemplated all the ways this applies right now.

It's really about watching my mind and responding to where it leads me.

Living the question brought me an answer. I have a new, solid, meaningful writing project on the horizon, and its making me feel connected and whole again.

Labyrinth of Love (7 Lines/ 7 Days #32)

 #108Weeks

 

December 20-26, 2020

 

Photo by Kara Vereen

 

Take a line from someone else's poem and carry it forward

"It is necessary to come back and work in the world"

Wonderful dinner at Origami. Christmas Star bright. 

The dawning of the Age of Aquarius

Art & lunch & labyrinth & ice cream 

on a perfect weather day

Yesterday was stellar. My writing partners are writing again!

This is the time to be loyal to myself and do the things that nourish me,

including exercise and sitting Zazen

What a lovely Christmas!

Jim and I * Christmas 2020 * Bunche Beach

 

Quote from Instructions to the Cook: A Zen Master's Lessons on Living a Life that Matters

 by Bernie Glassman and Rick Fields

Tuesday Morning

 

 

 I'm finding the adventure of me

as I traverse this week of

freedom from the ordinary.

 

I've entered a space, a sanctuary

of thought and creativity

and how to make best

use of my time but still feel

a freedom to move.

 

I rest my aching body and I write

and read and open myself

up to the messages I need to hear,

ideas and streams of

goodness and appreciation.

 

I talk with friends and watch movies

with my husband and plan

and play and enjoy these days.

Progress (7 Lines/7 Days #27)

 #108Weeks

November 15-21, 2020

 

 COVID is rising again as we knew it would, and extra caution is needed. With that in mind, Jim and I decided to forego having dinner out for Thanksgiving.

Saw a meme yesterday: You're not stuck at home. You're safe at home.

Gratitude boomerangs back -- I got a sweet appreciative email from one of my Assistant Principals.

I'm feeling pretty easygoing at work.

It's a Thanksgiving miracle -- we got to where we usually are by this time of year, 

and it makes my heart happy.

I need to believe our democracy will hold even as corruption seeps through.

I came home Friday and collapsed. Thank God for a break!

Walking in a Different Direction Part Two: Lakes Park

Today I finally did it. I pulled myself out of the house, into the absolutely perfect Florida May weather, and took a walk at Lakes Park. I know I have not been there in a long time, and I went with the purpose to do my usual loop through the woods.

Lone Palm Morning

I expected the usual Sunday crowd, but the people were few and far between. The pavilions and play areas are roped off, the exercise equipment fenced off, and the picnic tables overturned.


When I got there I changed my idea of where I wanted to walk. I decided to walk around the lake, rather than go into the wooded area. Very quickly I realized something -- when I have walked around the lake, I tend to start in the same place and walk in the opposite direction than I was walking this morning. And as I wrote about a few weeks ago, I was seeing a lot of things I haven't noticed before, getting glimpses of photo opportunities I rarely see.

Ibis Island

Walking Toward the Rising Sun

I had made up my mind just to walk and listen and watch. What I witnessed was a wildlife that is getting used to fewer humans. I could feel the lack of human dominance I usually associate with the park. (And that is with good reason: it's a wonderful park!)

One instance of this was a Little Green Heron that looked like it was going to walk across the path I was walking. I never see Herons doing that there, let alone the elusive Little Green. I trained my camera on him, but he stopped and eventually flew off.

Anhinga Rock

I took a few more pictures, then headed home with my sun roof open. The radio played a song that made me cry: Jerry Salley's "I Want to Thank You." It made me think about all the people in my life who encourage my faith and belief in myself and the goodness of the world.  It was a perfect way to begin my day.

Great Blue Heron Detail

Great Blue Heron Wide View

Remember This Day

Inspired by a writing prompt using a photograph. This is a series of haiku.

Remember this day

Magical November vibe

Miami Book Fair

Hard Rock Cafe lunch

Dana and Jim Morrison

Long conversation

Sigma Tau Delta

These are the ones who fed me

Book nerds united

Remember this day

When we were all together

Two thousand and four.

Walking in a Different Direction

It is the first full day of spring break.

Ordinarily, I would be totally exhausted, crashed out, not willing to move.

But this year is different. I am full of energy. I'm committed to keeping my body moving, to get out in the sun and beautiful air, enjoy the last of this winter and the early days of Florida spring.

This past quarter was one of the easiest I've ever had. The curriculum I'm teaching, as well as the four creative writing classes, are keeping me from getting dragged down.

Then today, by happenstance, I took a slightly different pathway through my neighborhood. I didn't realize that I usually walk in the same direction in this particular section of our development. It struck me the minute I saw the yellow house with the purple door.  Hmmm...I've never seen that before.

Then it was the frog menagerie:

The tall monkey pine, towering over every other tree and house.  Noticed there were actually two of them in this area.

And my favorite, a lone yellow flowering tree. This is a tree I love here in Florida that only blooms in March. Unfortunately, most of them got destroyed in Irma.

What have I learned?  It pays off to do things differently.  My classes at school. My wardrobe. My walking patterns.

Mix it up. Find joy. Pay attention!

Abundance

Inspired by a line in "To the Bone," a short story by Desiree Cooper.

 

Abundance

There are ways to keep from dwindling down to nothing.

I have filled my soul and spirit

this summer with hope and vision

the direction I have gone has been

a lovely surprise -- I embrace it

I see enhanced value in what I do

and the way I do it. Forethought

Practice. Reflection. The decision

of purposeful action, slow and steady

I have not been to the beach

yet the ocean is inside me, waves

of knowing, the swell of virtue found

in union, not division. Grace and goodness

combating a culture that can lead us astray

causing a hunger and thirst for something real

Billy Preston said "Nothing

from nothing leaves nothing."

Yet in this abundant movement

I am not starving.

I am filled with everything.

Rock Throwers, Wisdom's Daughters

This summer is starting to shape up differently than I anticipated.  Well, I'm not sure what I anticipated, but there is definitely a feeling of a shift happening with me in many ways.

Given this feeling, I returned to one of my favorite books: A Woman's Book of Life by Joan Borysenko.  In this book published in 1996, Joan explains how women's lives break down into segments of 7 years.  I've been following this for some time, and since I'm now 63, I am entering another era in my life.  This is what I'm feeling, I know. And I find it exciting.

This summer I've also started practicing the found poem as a way to deepen my attention to text. Given all these things together, I decided to write a found poem from Joan's chapter called "Ages 63-70: Wisdom's Daughters."  I am sure I will have much more to say on this topic as time goes on, but here is a starter poem on the topic near and dear to me right now.

Rock Throwers, Wisdom's Daughters

Throw a rock in the water
the ripples are far-reaching
words and actions touch other
                  in positive ways

How different the world could be
         with the
                      compassionate
                      empathetic
                      interdependent
                      intuitive wisdom
                                     of the feminine

This is the time of women

Freedom years, a shift:
      value nature and technology
      honor diversity
      learn from each other
      preserve health
      foster longevity

Usher a new worldview into being

Restore balance in a troubled world.

What I See

Finally got my creative writing class outside yesterday to observe and write about nature and anything else that was in front of us.  We did the 360 degree poem, where we moved like a clock and wrote a list of what we saw. Then we fashioned poems.

Here is mine.

What I See

First, it's my class
White shoes
Striped shirt
Morgan smiling
Ashlyn writing

Then, a few scrawny palm trees
then more skinny palms
Palm tops that look like Easter lilies
A bushy palm
Sunlight shining through the fronds.

Then, the feathery cloud floating in a sea of blue sky
The ibis poking along the fence line.
The wood stork soaring overhead.

Then, my class again.
They write.
The cool breeze ruffles our pages on an inviting March morning.
My spirit smooth and silky.

10:30 am  3/14/19

Single Power

 

And each born of our own crown -- a single power, our distinction.

--Layli Long Soldier --

I'm moving slower these days.
It's my power.

More deliberate. More flexible.
More loving. More listening.

What.  a.  difference.


All the times I thought I did this
in the past -- never enough.

Always felt that underlying push, sometimes panic.

Now...

No panic.  No push. No insanity --
for me, or my learners.

February is quickly approaching
                                                  and I am calm.

Bend the curriculum to the kids
Cornelius Minor tells me.

This -- the greatest benefit of all.

Cloudless

The final day of a lovely seventeen days off, I take myself to the beach.

Cloudless sky. Tide way out for the New Moon.

As I walk, I reflect on past Januarys...

2016 I was feeling a weird tiredness, which later manifested into shingles.
2017 I was on a steroid, puffing me up and causing a false sense of energy. Later, once off the medicine, I would crash hard for an entire month.
2018 I was still puzzled by the lupus diagnosis and waiting to see a rheumatologist, who all but formally dismissed the diagnosis on my first visit.

But this year...is cloudless.

** I have re-established my walking practice, and it is going great. I get out and walk about 10 miles a week. The thing is, I want to go. I don't stop myself.  But I'm also smart enough to take a day or two off each week, so getting back out feels like a treat.

** I am finding my way into areas of creativity which have been lying in the background, waiting to be rediscovered. This applies to my personal and professional life.  I have plans to slowly eliminate screen time for my life and get more "old school" in my plans. It's time.

** I have built a community of writers and reading teachers around me. It makes every day more worthwhile, sharing the journey with others committed to much of the same things I am.

** I wrote my first new mission statement in twenty years -- one that is designed perfectly to keep me focused in the right direction.

**These days off have enabled me to reflect more fully on the responses to the survey I gave my students in December. Their words point to what needs to change. The needs of each class are different, but there are some simple, proven things I can implement that will help across the board.

Losing a former student caused me to go back and find some words of wisdom the students in 6th period Advanced Placement Literature wrote. I take these words into the new semester with me.  I have just a little over 40 days left with each class.  May I push the clouds of misdirection away, and fully realize these words again:

Creative, bright, always outside the box.

Easygoing, yet analytical.

Thank you for caring about me.

This has been the best English class ever.

The way you approached everything made it more understandable.

I have learned more than I expected, plus my passion for writing has gone way up.

You're funny, smart, and real -- and that's what kids need.

Your class is one I find most useful for me outside of school.

You always try new things and make learning fun.

You create a very creative environment for your students.

This classroom is a safe and free place to express ourselves...many good memories.

Thank you forever, Class of 2013

Windows of Determination (2000-2005)

Written in my head on Christmas Day as I walked in my former apartment community. Finally getting it down today as it comes out, as it has been rolling around in my brain for over a week now!

Downstairs,
the window on the right
is where I discovered that the moon I thought might forsake me
would still peek its way into my blinds at night, to let me know she
was still there for me. This is the room we watched The West Wing and
Six Feet Under, where I discovered Jon Stewart, where I saw the second
plane crash into the World Trade Center and in a panic called to my husband,
a room I watched the videos for my Humanities and History of Western Civilization
courses, where our dog Macbeth liked to lie in the doorway making it a challenge
to exit. Determined always to move forward, to focus my energy in the right place.

The window on the left is where the computer resided, where the poem "Tulips"
by Sylvia Plath laid me low for days, where I wrote my $500 scholarship story "Dragonfly,"
a draft of a novel called Fire on the River, where I sorted out index cards with research
notes for a variety of papers for my Florida Literature and Shakespeare courses, where
I wrote to my friends and downloaded music for the first time, where I collected
my writings and photos into a booklet called Turning Point I gave as a Christmas
present to family and friends. Determined to be considered a writer with a good mind,
ability to deeply analyze, to extend myself, to be who I never actually thought I'd be.

The screened in center is the lanai where I raised my first orchids, where I watched sunsets,
talked with visiting friends into the night with a bottle of wine, where I would work
diligently with a stack of sharpened pencils completing mountains of math homework,
determined to pass that test, to become a teacher, always knowing it could be the one thing
to bring me down if I didn't focus my energy in the right place. This is the apartment I
hunkered down in during my first hurricane in August 2004, right after I began my teaching
life, where I would come home with parcels of reflection papers by my students, learning
who they were, determined to be the best teacher, feeling wholly unqualified and uncertain,
step by step; I would look out the windows at the wildlife on the lake, walk the pathway
around looking at the little wildflowers, the nature all around me, knowing I was in
the perfect place to make my dreams come true. Southwest Florida, home of my heart.

This place. These windows. This important turning point of my life.

Having Lived in the Same Place for Over a Decade, We've Learned a Few Things

This is is inspired by Twyla M Hansen's poem "Having Lived in the Same Place for Decades, We have Perhaps Learned a Few Things."  Hers was about the people. Mine is not.

Having lived in the same place

for over a decade, we've learned

a few things.

Like how the suns shifts on the

horizon in the morning, the moon, 

too, and colors that will paint the

sky at different seasons of the year,

reflected on the lake.

We've learned to watch for turtle

heads peaking up out of the water,

and smile when they pull themselves

out to sun together on the shore.

We've learned the mating habits of

ducks and moorhens, the time of

day the osprey fish, and what

lizards and ladderbacks will visit

the sable palm outside our lanai.

We know by the clouds when it's

raining in the Everglades, and when

the sunset is happening in full force

in the western sky, out of view,

the east glowing a brilliant light.

We count the water birds' hatchlings

and watch their parents teach them.

We hear the same parents grieve

with loss when their children

are scooped up by hawk or eagle.

We know Great Blue Heron with

a huge black spot on his back,

and Little Blue who is darker than most.

We listen to the egrets screech

to claim their territory and

we know when the summer water

grasses will turn gray and die.

We see the rise and fall of the water

level from rainy season to winter, when

the skies are clear blue and cloudless,

and the green grass barely holds on.

We know when the moorhens and 

frogs will sing at night, and when 

they will be silent.

Someday we will be gone from this

place. We rest assured knowing

the cycles of nature will live on.

On our lanai, Christmas Eve 2010

Song for the Classroom

Inspired by David Whyte's "Song for a Salmon."

For too many days now
I have not written of
blue space, green space,
or the river flow.

Instead I've been caught in the
current of my teaching life,
in that place of finalizing one year
and thinking of the new
beginning in August, a teacher's
pattern every year,  planning
on how to make the next
year better, to reach deeper
into community and dialogue,
to bring forth the power
of words and the stories of
our lives.

It seems every year we try
and fall short;
only to try again.

The never ending quest
for the Holy Grail of the Classroom.

hms

Christmas Spaces

It's Christmas morning, and I've had open spaces to enjoy this day. After a very busy run-up to the weekend, hosting a dinner party, and then suffering the aftermath of too much wine and exhaustion, I finally feel back on my game today. 

It feels great.

Once the sun was up, I read my poem for the day, which is by Sun Bu-er, a famous woman teacher of Chinese Taoism in the 12th century.  I took this poem in my heart with me to Lakes Park:

I arrived at the park to find they have razed all the Australian Pines that covered the islands dotting the huge lake. There were also other trees around the park that were no more than stumps.  I already had a plan to visit the gardens, so I wasn't too effected by the loss of the trees. But still, even though the trees were invasive, I was sorry to see they are gone.

I walked the gardens, visiting some of the flowers and trying to figure out a way to sit in an inviting tree (didn't work.)  I passed the Peace Pole and entered the area with the Japanese pond. There I sat and meditated for a few minutes.  It was mostly quiet.  It was peaceful.  It was perfect.

Before I left my meditation spot, I noticed for the first time the only lily blooming in the pond:

Walking back I checked out the rose garden, and then walked up and took in the view of the new lake, without the caches of trees.  It seemed strange, but I know it is the way of things.  Change.  It's always with us.

Upon my return home, I wrote my own version of Sun Bu-er's poem:

Mild Christmas morning
Walking the garden path
Sun not yet fully out.
On the rocks by the pond
I sit, grounded, being present.
December, and a rose
blooms here and there,
Irises as well.
I look.  They look back.
"Plain heart seeing into plain heart."

Back home, I entered back into a music space. I've listened to tons of Christmas music this season -- probably more than ever.  I've already played through Amy Grant, James Taylor, Jewel, Trisha Yearwood, Gloria Estefan, The Nutcracker, Chris Botti, CeCe Winans, Aaron Neville, The Nylons, Collin Raye, Nat King Cole, several Christmas playlists on amazon Prime, and more.  

Today I reached for B. B. King.

And for some reason, the blues seemed the perfect expression for today.  Not because I'm blue -- not at all.  But B. B.'s guitar and voice reached me in a new way, a way which I haven't experienced other years. It was celebratory. It was real. It had truth.

And it reflected my new motto: Just Play.  Work hard.  Accept change.  Remember to find those blue and green spaces. Remember to play.  It is what birthed the blues to begin with.

It brought to mind when I asked poet David Kirby to sign my copy of his newest poetry collection, one that begins with a poem about the blues.  I told him that I, too, had visited the Mississippi Blues Trail. He signed the book accordingly, thanking me for being a fan of the "Big Two -- poetry and the blues."

And so that is my personal Christmas celebration today -- the Big Two.  And so much more.

So, so much more.

Solstice Poem

Solstice always feels special to me, especially after growing up in a cold climate.  I would always be tired of the cold and gray by late December, and found a glimmer of hope in the fact that the days would begin getting longer again. I needed the light.

Solstice is about the light. It is about warmth in the cold and dark times.  It is about evergreen hopes and silent hearts.  Its about love that knows no bounds.

This prayer/poem I wrote this morning reflects many of the things on my mind this Solstice time.
Inspired today by Joy Harjo's "Eagle Poem"; these lines:

To pray you open your whole self

To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon.

To pray you open your voice to the

magic of language swirling around you.

To pray you seek sisterhood and brotherhood

with all living beings.

To pray you remember to cut away the

brambles, and let the lotus bloom.

To pray you rest your feet on the ground

and heal with the earth's energy.

To pray the New Moon brings

intentions to see beneath the surface.

To pray you make a fine meal for the

holy-days and keep them sacred.

To pray the gifts you give are well-received

and to remember love is the greatest gift.

To pray the music you play and the songs

you sing will lift saddened spirits.

To pray all your practices keep you whole

and fulfilled and connected to Spirit. 

To pray the darkness of Solstice lights

a fire in your heart.