The coronavirus puts a profound watermark on our time, a backdrop in which everything is either measured or consumed. This time will mark the ending and beginning of much in our lives. It also offers a chance to bring some projects to completion or to begin ones that have been pushed aside by the normal traffic of life. What is your relationship to endings and beginnings? What is ending and what is beginning for you at this time?
Read MoreThe poem reminds me of how easily we fall into the slumber of our day-to-day life and get caught up in our take-for-granted world. Perhaps that is why we make and need drama. The dramatic has a better chance of getting through than the everyday and commonplace. Yet, it is in the commonplace and everyday in which our lives are lived. Poetry has the power to penetrates the veil and re-imagine our daily lives from a soulful perspective. Poetry can bridge the two, offering a way of seeing the everyday imbued with life and meaning.
Read MoreLonging is a deep and abiding desire for some thing or someone in life. Although many people find this feeling frustrating, it is actually one of the most beautiful and most universal feelings. It is what drives us on through thick and thin, what gives us purpose in and feeds our passion. It is what binds us our hearts together in a deep sense of “belonging” to each other. What or whom do you long for in life? To what or to whom do you belong?
Read MoreIn this era of suspect surfaces and social distance, now that we are sheltering in place, we have a chance to “face the barren truth of our lives” and to seek “new ways of loving the untouchable in each other.” The pandemic is forcing us out of our usual routines and challenging us to create new patterns. What old ways in your life would you like to let die during this period of transformation? What new ways would you like to invite? What old ways in the world would you like to be transformed and what new ways would you like to invite into life?
Read MoreAs the virus wreaks havoc on our lives and our routines, it is easy to fall prey to worry and fear and the chattering voices they use to command our attention, especially when alone in our homes. Now, we connect with each other through zoom and webcams and, in a strange way, due to our home shelter, we get to invite people into the privacy of our homes as we peek into the private spaces of others. Perhaps that sea of airwaves between us provides a space where a great healing can occur: where my sorrow can dance with your courage and your fear can dance with my love.
Read MoreGiven these strange times of isolation and social distancing from a worldwide pandemic, it is important to remember that the heart can reach beyond walls and borders and that we can hold those we love in our hearts and minds even when we are apart.
Read MoreOne of the most touching things, to me, is to see how we struggle with life trying to “divine” our way. The word divine is an adjective to describe something as angelic or holy and a term for the intuition or guidance that we might get from life or the world. No Defense is included in my upcoming book: The Undiscovered Country: How to Live in Your Own Heartland, which is both a book of poetry and a workbook to explore how you can find and follow a path with heart.
Read MoreNo matter how hard we try to be good or to live well, we will inevitably make a mess of things. It is part of being human and we have to learn to live with the mess and do our best to clean it up or to make the most of it or, simply, to come to terms with the fact of it. . How willing are you to face the messes of your life?
Read MoreI love the idea of tracing your hearts belonging as a way of finding roots: it could be roots in people (family, friends, and loved ones, or in group or community), in a place (the beach, the Redwoods); or in nature itself or in the Earth as a whole; it could be in your work or in an intellectual or philosophical tradition, or in some cause or form of activism, etc.
To what or to whom does your heart belong?
Read MoreHappy Valentine’s Day! May a river of laughter flow between you and those you love and may your hearts go and go and go to each other!
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