January 2022 – Janis Dehler

What Dreams are made of..

Dream Clouds

I found an old notebook from 1987 which holds several pages of my writing practice, all unformed stories. Like a painting, I see a wash of words seeking to form something tangible that can grow and be understood, with a fair amount of meaning. Not all in this notebook will achieve that goal, but I was able to lift some words from one page and create a poem which gave me a measure of delight. I felt like I was reaching back in time, finishing a thought, signing it, and then, letting it go.

She Didn't Get The Winnebago

She knew a man who won the Readers Digest Sweepstakes, understood
it to be true, it could happen, but still, I thought it a hoax
and threw all those letters in the wastebasket when they arrived.

She said, hey, it only takes a minute.

Aw, I don’t care. I don’t live on dreams like that. I don’t know
the ideal amount of money to be made, or have a thought of 
the ideal home or car. So, I guess I would never make it
selling Amway.

But we tried once, in North Carolina. The man came over
all excited with his great sales pitch, saying if we sold enough
we could work up to a Winnebago. 

He had invited more people, so the room was full.
We went around and were to tell 
what our dream was—tangible only—
something you could buy.

I was sitting in the last chair, near the kitchen.
The list had turned to dream homes. I said sheepishly,
I don’t have a dream home.

There was silence. 
I felt people’s sadness and embarrassment
as they looked down at their laps.

I thought then that there was possibly something
wrong with me but as hard as I could try,
I could not build that dream home in my mind.

I guess that’s why I never worked up to that Winnebago.

©Janis Dehler

“Let Your Life Speak.”
An old Quaker Saying

“Life is a process; we are shaping it with every thought. Isn’t there a saying, ‘You can’t take it with you – money, prestige, possessions, power? The only thing you can take with you is your thoughts – in fact , you can not leave them behind. Therefore, the Buddha says, work on your thoughts.”
Eknath Easwaran, The Essance of the Upanishads

It is -10 with wind. My thought today is of warm sun and kayaking on a calm lake. Enjoy your gentle thoughts wherever you are!

On Going Resource List

The Gene Keys: Emracing Your Higher Purpose by Riuchard Rudd
Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Inform Us by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross
A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
Energy Speaks: Messages from Spirit on Living, Loving, and Awakening by Lee Harris
Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create an New One by Dr. Joe Dispenza
The Women by Kristin Hannah
Cosmogenesis: An Unveiling of the Expanding Universe by Brian Thomas Swimme
The Mastery of Love, Don Miguel Ruiz
Change Your Thoughts—Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao, by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
God of Love: A Guide to the Heart of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, by Mirabai Starr
The Four Agreements: A Toltec Book of Wisdom by Don Miguel Ruiz
Mindfulness and Grief by Heather Stang
How We Live Is How We Die by Pema Chödron
The Bhagavad Gita, Translated by Eknath Easwaran
St Francis of Assisi: Brother of Creation by Mirabai Starr
Wild Wisdom Edited by Neil Douglas-Klotz
Earth Prayers From Around The World, Ed by Elizabeth Roberts & Elias Amidon
The Tao of Relationships by Ray Grigg
Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom by John O’Donohue
Unconditional Love and Forgiveness by Edith R. Stauffer, Ph.D.
Keep Going: The Art of Perseverance by Joseph M. Marshall III
Art & Fear by David Bayless & Ted Orland
Quantum-Touch by Richard Gordon
The Van Gogh Blues: The Creative Persons Path Through Depression by Eric Maisel, PhD
The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit
Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith by Kathleen Norris
Forever Ours: Real Stories of Immortality and Living by Janis Amatuzio
Personal Power Through Awareness by Sanaya Roman
Violence & Compassion by His Holiness the Dahlai Lama
Teachings on Love by Thich Nhat Hanh
Devotions by Mary Oliver
To Bless the Space Between Us by John O’Donohue
Meditations From the Mat by Rolf Gates and Katrina Kenison
The House of Belonging: poems by David Whyte
Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness, by Jon Kabat-Zinn
The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit
Soul an Archaeology Edited by Phil Cousineau
A Path With Heart by Jack Kornfield
Listening Point by Sigurd Olson
I Sit Listening to the Wind by Judith Duerk
Dancing Moons by Nancy Wood
The Soul of Rumi, Translations by Coleman Barks
Keep Going by Joseph M. Marshall III
Arriving at your own Door by Jon Kabat-Zinn
The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer
The Hidden Secrets of Water by Paolo Consigli
Conquest of Mind by Eknath Easwaran
Color: A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay
Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh
I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t) by Brene Brown
Practicing Peace in Times of War by Pema Chodron
When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron
On Death and Dying by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
Unattended Sorrow by Stephen Levine
Joy in Loving, Mother Theresa
The Joy of Living by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
Let Your LIfe Speak by Parker Palmer
Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet by Thich Nhat Hanh
The Essence of the Upanishads by Eknath Easwaran
Welcoming the Unwelcome by Pema Chodron
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Medicine Cards: The Discovery of Power Through The Ways Of Animals by Jamie Sams and David Carson

The Journey to BE

El Camino: Entering the Calm
by Janis Dehler

The wonderful irony about this spiritual journey is that we find that it only leads us to become just as we are. The exalted state of enlightenment is nothing more than fully knowing ourselves and our world, just as we are.
Pema Chodron, Welcoming the Unwelcome

…the whole modern world has been laboring under this one colossal superstition – that we are not what we are, and are what we really are not… It is no exaggeration to say that if civilization is to survive, this false idea of personality has to be abandoned…we have to disidentify ourselves with this shadow image and learn to identify ourselves completely with the Self.
Eknath Easwaran, The Essence of the Upanishads

My first response to Pema Chodron’s quote was laughter. Yes, the irony of it all and how hard I worked for more than half my life trying to figure out the big mystery of “how”. How to be all that is good. How to be all that is perfect. How to be all that is someone, wife, mother, friend, daughter. As everyone born into this world, I learned about living from family and society, how to get along, how to cover up my faults, how to fill the many roles we take on, and in the end, believing that this me just needed to be better. I learned to see others through this distorted window as well, seeing them in my version of them while they were seeing me in their version of me.

A memory is triggered in the quote of Pema Chodron from the year 2001 while visiting my daughter in Boulder, Colorado. This was a period in my life with a good amount of change, empty nest, career moves, trying to know the me outside the roles I had taken on— all the versions of me. I made an appointment with a gifted astrologer, a teacher of my daughter, a young man from Israel who continues to be a friend and a wisdom figure. As we talked through what I was struggling with in feeling not enough, disconnected, the heartaches formed over the years, he simply said to me in his kind and caring manner, “Simply be you. Let the light and beauty within you shine.” My response to this man who in those two sentences seemed to be speaking in a foreign language was, “But how do I do that? I don’t know how!”

I see that younger me now and in my best Scottish accent (I have been watching way too many British shows) I say to that me, “Are ye daft, child?” At that time, in his kindness, after a pause of reflection, he offered, “There is no ‘how’, there is only, ‘be’.” I went away befuddled.

When it no longer works to live in roles and expectations, the beliefs that have not been fully questioned or opened to explore all come pouring out leaving us feeling empty, stripped of all the containers that we operate out of in our navigation of this world. There is no clear road map on how to unwind from all this learning and be, be me, whoever this me is beneath the one who knows the role and how to fill it. Just tell me what to do, A, B, or C. What is BE? To be or not to be, that is the question. To be or to how—that was my question! What I have come to know is that there is no blueprint, no how; I am the only me there is, and you are the only you.

I wonder now what it would be like to be raised believing that it is not perfection we seek but rather our wholeness as spirits embodied in human flesh that we wish to unite with and open to. Our birthright. Our reason for being. Oneness with the Divine which is ultimately one with all life. So much energy is wasted with the feelings of blaming, judging, and lack, in self and other. For years, I created suffering around feeling not seen. In truth, I was not seeing me either, merely me in the roles I played.

While there is no blueprint or rules to follow and there is no right way or wrong or good or bad in this journey of BE, there are, surely enough, guideposts. Information in our spiritual traditions that help train us to enter quiet, to open our hearts, to center in our bodies, to be of service, to forgive, to feel compassion, and to build the metaphorical muscles needed to focus and to truly see and open full hearted to ourselves, our neighbor, the trees, the moon, the stars, those we disagree with, those who hurt or wound, and all that is within us that we have held in shame, hate, or dislike.

At one time we were taught that what we think of as me, the personality, is constant. As with everything in life, rather than being constant we are in process as we learn, open, become consciously aware, and attain more freedom to choose. While we may tend to be abrupt, we learn to breathe first before responding. While we may appear intense, we learn to be calm as well. While we may be quiet by nature, we learn to speak up. While living a busy life we learn to sit in prayer or meditation. We can learn to see, face our fears, live with peace of mind, and be in compassion. Baby step by baby step we make our way beyond the learned behavior, roles, and attitudes to that place of goodness within each of us, learning to be and operate out of that, the core of our existence, one with all life, exactly as we are.

On a given day in our sitting practice, there are moments when we breathe in the vast vista before us and then there are moments when all we can see are thoughts running like a train load of boxcars, speeding across our view, laden with all the stuff of life, of the day, of then, when, and how, and we practice letting them all go. We then move into the duties of our day bringing freshness and life to the tasks at hand, not living a role, but creatively living each moment, in our lack of perfection, with purpose, and ease.

It is, it all is. This life. This love. This patience. It is this.

Learning to ‘be’ can seem like an insurmountable task that we take on until the end of this life. It is dedicated hard work in its seemingly absurd simplicity, but we enter, keep going, seeing, learning, opening, and loving, just as we are.

In Memory of Thich Nhat Hanh, a wisdom figure who moved on from this world during this past week, who has brought healing awareness to me and so many, and will continue to live on through his teachings, books, and legacy, and the energy through which he so beautifully graced our world. I bow to you, Thay.

Ongoing Resource List

The Gene Keys: Emracing Your Higher Purpose by Riuchard Rudd
Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Inform Us by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross
A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
Energy Speaks: Messages from Spirit on Living, Loving, and Awakening by Lee Harris
Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create an New One by Dr. Joe Dispenza
The Women by Kristin Hannah
Cosmogenesis: An Unveiling of the Expanding Universe by Brian Thomas Swimme
The Mastery of Love, Don Miguel Ruiz
Change Your Thoughts—Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao, by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
God of Love: A Guide to the Heart of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, by Mirabai Starr
The Four Agreements: A Toltec Book of Wisdom by Don Miguel Ruiz
Mindfulness and Grief by Heather Stang
How We Live Is How We Die by Pema Chödron
The Bhagavad Gita, Translated by Eknath Easwaran
St Francis of Assisi: Brother of Creation by Mirabai Starr
Wild Wisdom Edited by Neil Douglas-Klotz
Earth Prayers From Around The World, Ed by Elizabeth Roberts & Elias Amidon
The Tao of Relationships by Ray Grigg
Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom by John O’Donohue
Unconditional Love and Forgiveness by Edith R. Stauffer, Ph.D.
Keep Going: The Art of Perseverance by Joseph M. Marshall III
Art & Fear by David Bayless & Ted Orland
Quantum-Touch by Richard Gordon
The Van Gogh Blues: The Creative Persons Path Through Depression by Eric Maisel, PhD
The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit
Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith by Kathleen Norris
Forever Ours: Real Stories of Immortality and Living by Janis Amatuzio
Personal Power Through Awareness by Sanaya Roman
Violence & Compassion by His Holiness the Dahlai Lama
Teachings on Love by Thich Nhat Hanh
Devotions by Mary Oliver
To Bless the Space Between Us by John O’Donohue
Meditations From the Mat by Rolf Gates and Katrina Kenison
The House of Belonging: poems by David Whyte
Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness, by Jon Kabat-Zinn
The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit
Soul an Archaeology Edited by Phil Cousineau
A Path With Heart by Jack Kornfield
Listening Point by Sigurd Olson
I Sit Listening to the Wind by Judith Duerk
Dancing Moons by Nancy Wood
The Soul of Rumi, Translations by Coleman Barks
Keep Going by Joseph M. Marshall III
Arriving at your own Door by Jon Kabat-Zinn
The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer
The Hidden Secrets of Water by Paolo Consigli
Conquest of Mind by Eknath Easwaran
Color: A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay
Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh
I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t) by Brene Brown
Practicing Peace in Times of War by Pema Chodron
When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron
On Death and Dying by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
Unattended Sorrow by Stephen Levine
Joy in Loving, Mother Theresa
The Joy of Living by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
Let Your LIfe Speak by Parker Palmer
Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet by Thich Nhat Hanh
The Essence of the Upanishads by Eknath Easwaran
Welcoming the Unwelcome by Pema Chodron
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Medicine Cards: The Discovery of Power Through The Ways Of Animals by Jamie Sams and David Carson

Living Like Sweetgrass

sweet is the grass that clears my mind

The forces of creation and destruction are so tightly linked that sometimes we can’t tell where one begins and the other leaves off.
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

Sweetgrass is a perennial grass with hollow stems and underground rhizomes. It has a purple, red, and white hairless base and can grow to about 30 inches tall. … This aromatic grass is found in wetlands, wet meadows, and marshes—all environments that are in decline due to human impact and the climate crisis.
Museum of Natural History, University of Colorado Boulder

My daughter and family gave me the book Braiding Sweetgrass for Christmas and at the rate I am going through the book, it will take a year—a readers delight of pause and reflect. The above quote by Kimmerer captured my imagination and has been lurking in the shadows of my mind for the past couple of weeks.

I think we all know deep within our bones the truth of creation and destruction as in the ocean and a wave. The ocean is a force of creation. One that is life giving and one that also takes life when the ocean forms a wave that wipes out a village. When this happens is not a defined moment but a continual ongoing process, one within the other. It is the wind within the air that takes down life, trees, and animals and is still the air we breathe to survive. It is the fire that cooks our food and warms us that burns our homes, people, animals, and forests.

What then is creation and destruction within each of us? This one is harder to see and acknowledge. I see it in our journey as humans to wholeness. I see it in the body that is moving to death and housing a spirit that is alive and creating. We know it in unwanted change that comes our way demanding that we think differently, view the world through a different lens, open our hearts to those whom we had disregarded. We all have these points in our lives when we recognize not only the growth and regeneration but the coming apart, the breaking of heart, that happens in the process. Not a moment but a process that awakens us to our own life experience. At times this can be painfully difficult, and it feels like we are being torn asunder. It can feel like a part of us is dying when in truth we are also opening to creation within ourselves.

When I hiked El Camino in 2017 with my sister, Di, the path to Rabanal, increasing in elevation, requiring our focus, our dexterity, and our will, became a visceral experience of destruction within construction. In my journal, I write, we walk more miles of forest and farmland and then on up a steep grade with a path filled with shale. We climb 255 meters and the last 2.5 kilometers of distance through what Di, terms “Golgotha”, the hill in Jerusalem which was the site of Jesus’ crucifixion. We climb through paths of shale with each step tiring and challenging as the shale slides beneath our feet. Further along we encounter a fence that runs along the trail for a few miles and is lined with crosses that people have made from sticks, branches, and bits of cloth, left over the years, and attached to the fence in various ways. There is no way to really prepare for this day. It is one of images, reflections, and exhaustion.

The Shale Path

This unfolding of effort, exhaustion, and recognition was not a point but an awareness—our destruction within our construction. The entire journey was an unfolding of self, an enlarging of self, a recognition of self within Self, the Sacred, the Holy.

“Golgatha”

While we were just building our strength after barely a week of hiking, this point of the journey felt like we were beginning to be taken apart. It did not start here, nor did it end at the destination of the trip. It is life, the ongoing process of humanity. Later that night trying to sleep in exhaustion and cold, I felt like I had regressed to my six-year-old self, wanting warmth, comfort, and feeling lost in a sea of emotion and thoughts of suffering that the images and experiences of the day highlighted for me with many religious depictions and training from childhood floating through my mind. In this dark moment, I felt like I was merely surviving but, in truth, I was thriving.

There was a seed of truth that I awakened to during this night that allowed for change in me and an opening to joy in the subsequent days. Suffering is not the goal, nor is it of value in and of itself. Suffering is not the same as pain; my suffering was being created by my desire for all that was not available to me on this night, with old emotions, memories, and attitudes running through me, and my concern for tomorrow and how we were going to make it if we went on in the way we were currently managing things.

There is an adage that states “pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.” Pain can be experienced at an emotional, physical, psychological, or spiritual level but it is how we create our stories around our pain or painful experience, our fears that form, our willful desires that get triggered, that creates our suffering. Our suffering happens when we ignore or try to stifle that which is painful rather than fully feeling, allowing, and bringing awareness to our experience. I felt relief over the next couple of days as I gradually opened to my feelings and could choose to change my thinking and thereby my full experience as it unfolded—creation within destruction— realizing that we could accommodate this pilgrimage to our needs, that there is not one way to walk the Camino nor life itself. As Di was being injured physically, we could create options that best suited us, allowing our hearts to open to the challenges and the joys before us in each day, supporting ourselves and each other.

It thrives along disturbed edges.
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

We all long for peace, love, and comfort, and it is hard to understand anything thriving in “disturbed edges” as sweetgrass does. When I attempt to relate this statement to my life, I remember arriving at an understanding developed over the years that my body needs warmth, warm moist food, stability, and routine that I can count on. You can keep your disturbed edges, thank you very much! For years I disregarded what my body needed as I disengaged from my body and put my interests elsewhere. I now understand; it is not in the comfort and ease I seek through which I grow, as that keeps me stable and in a resting point, nor is it through the suffering that comes from ignoring or resenting, as that keeps me blind and my heart closed, it is through opening to the disturbed edges of my mind, my life, the losses, the discomfort, as well as the beauty and the joys that bring me to awakening, to freedom of choice, and to mindful compassionate living, for myself and others.

Do we merely survive, or do we thrive? Surviving allows us to move from one thing to another making sure we have what we need to make it through, trying to avoid pain while trying to feel love and some measure of happiness. To thrive, we don’t run from the pain but enter it with our whole being, letting it create within us. Like sweetgrass that grows in areas of decline and sends out its rhizomes deep within the earth stabilizing the land and creating new life that will mature to fullness all down the line, we accept the fullness of our lives in pain, comfort, joy, and sorrow, and send out the sweetness of self to bring new life into the world in joy and forgiveness, and kindness.

I want to be like sweetgrass, thriving along disturbed edges. But hey, give me a calm routine day, any day, and I will joyfully rest for a bit in its stable support.

On Going Resource List

The Gene Keys: Emracing Your Higher Purpose by Riuchard Rudd
Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Inform Us by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross
A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
Energy Speaks: Messages from Spirit on Living, Loving, and Awakening by Lee Harris
Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create an New One by Dr. Joe Dispenza
The Women by Kristin Hannah
Cosmogenesis: An Unveiling of the Expanding Universe by Brian Thomas Swimme
The Mastery of Love, Don Miguel Ruiz
Change Your Thoughts—Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao, by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
God of Love: A Guide to the Heart of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, by Mirabai Starr
The Four Agreements: A Toltec Book of Wisdom by Don Miguel Ruiz
Mindfulness and Grief by Heather Stang
How We Live Is How We Die by Pema Chödron
The Bhagavad Gita, Translated by Eknath Easwaran
St Francis of Assisi: Brother of Creation by Mirabai Starr
Wild Wisdom Edited by Neil Douglas-Klotz
Earth Prayers From Around The World, Ed by Elizabeth Roberts & Elias Amidon
The Tao of Relationships by Ray Grigg
Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom by John O’Donohue
Unconditional Love and Forgiveness by Edith R. Stauffer, Ph.D.
Keep Going: The Art of Perseverance by Joseph M. Marshall III
Art & Fear by David Bayless & Ted Orland
Quantum-Touch by Richard Gordon
The Van Gogh Blues: The Creative Persons Path Through Depression by Eric Maisel, PhD
The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit
Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith by Kathleen Norris
Forever Ours: Real Stories of Immortality and Living by Janis Amatuzio
Personal Power Through Awareness by Sanaya Roman
Violence & Compassion by His Holiness the Dahlai Lama
Teachings on Love by Thich Nhat Hanh
Devotions by Mary Oliver
To Bless the Space Between Us by John O’Donohue
Meditations From the Mat by Rolf Gates and Katrina Kenison
The House of Belonging: poems by David Whyte
Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness, by Jon Kabat-Zinn
The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit
Soul an Archaeology Edited by Phil Cousineau
A Path With Heart by Jack Kornfield
Listening Point by Sigurd Olson
I Sit Listening to the Wind by Judith Duerk
Dancing Moons by Nancy Wood
The Soul of Rumi, Translations by Coleman Barks
Keep Going by Joseph M. Marshall III
Arriving at your own Door by Jon Kabat-Zinn
The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer
The Hidden Secrets of Water by Paolo Consigli
Conquest of Mind by Eknath Easwaran
Color: A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay
Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh
I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t) by Brene Brown
Practicing Peace in Times of War by Pema Chodron
When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron
On Death and Dying by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
Unattended Sorrow by Stephen Levine
Joy in Loving, Mother Theresa
The Joy of Living by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
Let Your LIfe Speak by Parker Palmer
Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet by Thich Nhat Hanh
The Essence of the Upanishads by Eknath Easwaran
Welcoming the Unwelcome by Pema Chodron
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Medicine Cards: The Discovery of Power Through The Ways Of Animals by Jamie Sams and David Carson

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

The Spirit of a Loving Heart

The Legacy of a Baker's Heart

At 14 and full of me, I could be 
walking home from school on
a snowy cold winter day, 
not dressed for the weather 
in only a skirt and knee highs, with
a warm coat but no boots or a hat.

On opening the door to our home
I know it is Thursday with
apple pie 
cooling on the counter, 
meatloaf in the oven,
and a house that is toasty warm.

I don’t need a calendar 
to tell me the day because 
I know where I am 
by the smells from the oven
and the baking created the same
each day, in every week.

On Monday we will eat 
warm bread from the oven
leaving leftover dough
for the plump caramel rolls that
on Tuesday morning,
greet us like a warm hug.

Wednesday, we arrive
home for lunch
to eat a quick sandwich 
or a bowl of soup
and then dive into
a warm fried donut.

We know what Thursday brings,
and that takes us to
Friday when we eat
whatever cookie 
her baker’s heart desires,
or maybe the kitchen is closed. 

Oh, the weekend is special
as we wake Saturday morning, 
to watch cartoons, then line up
at the stove with plate in hand
to receive our grandma
pancake, the kiss of heaven.

Sunday may be a day of rest
but after church there is
a beef roast or fried chicken
with a mouthwatering desert
that could be my favorite,
German chocolate.

Mom, the baker
and so much more
but while she had to cook,
baking was in her soul, and
it is how she showered us
with love and her affection.

Cinnamon, flour, sugar,
and of course, oil, with fruit
and berries, chocolate, and 
vanilla creating so many smells that
I now appreciate and understand, filled
With love, in her own language, of the heart.

I was motivated to write this poem through d’verse, a site for poetry with a different challenge every week. This week was to write a poem about a food memory in verse style. Writing it not only warmed my heart but made me hungry! I carried on the pie making as did my sister who also marvels with her cakes and cookies. And always a holiday memory for me is mom walking in the door bearing all the baked goods.

What are your food memories?

Resilience in Frigid Days

As we create our worst images of life up ahead, we bring into form that which we dread.

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Scared Little Rabbit… Please drop your fright!
Running doesn’t stop the pain, or turn the dark to light.
Jamie Sams and David Carson, Medicine Cards

New Year’s Eve morn, -14 below,
the world is awake, in gentle first glow.
I look out the window, facing due west,
the one at the sink where my eyes seek to rest.
Now a view of the scruffy old pine and red oak
and the ground under cover, a downy white cloak.

In sight is a mound of rounded grey rock,
one that certainly is not part of our stock.
It is large but not large and odd in shape.
I stand steady and still and try not to gape,
in wait, with focus, and vision unclouded,
a small movement twitch as two ears are sprouted.

The rock unfolds into rabbit, huddled in cold.
He thinks unseen, like my once two-year-old,
with eyes shut tight, he thought himself hidden.
Now this pine, low in needles, must be forgiven.
It offers little for shelter from mighty eagle;
a fragile net for his fears, so sadly feeble.

Hour after hour, day after day,
I check as rabbit sits in endless display.
Why are you here little one? Where is your home?
The spirit message dawns as I gaze at his form.
Fear turns us cold, rigid with fright, the
what if’s create fear for all, not yet in sight.

As we create our worst images of life up ahead,
we bring into form that which we dread.
We hide ourselves away from all that we love,
as we fear that the worst will pounce from above.
While fear of true danger is a friend in our day,
creating fear for our life keeps delight at bay.

On this day we acknowledge a list of our fears;
we write them, speak them, and bless with tears.
We come into our breath and blow them away.
Sacred Source, take them, we cry, without delay!
Our truth is our guide and has always been so.
Our heart is relieved as now it can flow.

I will not fear for you. I will not fear for me.
When ready inside, you will hop from this tree.
On this new day of living, it is surely enough
to be present and strong with a will touched by
love.
We will persist. We will have changed.
With resilience through loss, we now feel
unchained.

Today, you are off, if I am not deceived.
Your message was given, and now received.

Spirit of Rabbit seemed to demand rhyme in telling his story, a first for me. Fun to write and fun to read, it kept me hopping through and through. Dr. Seus most certainly the Muse!

On Going Resource List

Jamie Sams and David Carson. Medicine Cards: The Discovery of Power Through The Ways of The Animals. Bear and Company, 1988.

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On a Winter Day: A Broad View

…eagle power of Spirit reminds us of our connection to the Divine in creating vision for our life…

Life is like a landscape. You live in the midst of it but can describe it only from the vantage point of distance.
Charles Lindbergh

There is something wonderfully bold and liberating about saying yes to our entire imperfect messy life.
Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance

On this cold winter day, we gaze out the windows facing north to the river, watching the chickadees, purple and yellow finches, cardinals, and woodpeckers scuffling for feeder space. We lose ourselves, entranced in the beauty before us.

Suddenly, it is quiet as we watch them all fly off into the bank of spruce that shelter our home.

We look up and see the two eagles fly in from the north following the Rum River to our house. As the river cuts left, so do they, with a tight bank, wings unfurled, bellies facing us. They fly a couple of loops and then continue south. They then return to the north and circle back and give us more north to south loops and exhibitions. An hour later I check, and they are still flying in circles overhead. I am reminded of the Blue Angels flight demonstration we saw years ago with the pilots looping, banking, showing us all their stuff as they proudly flew. Today, this display of flight feels more personal, close to the heart, inspiring, touching my imagination.

I ponder the eagle view of the world, the broad scope with intense focus, the vision that informs, instructs, reminds us of who we are and where we are headed. Our view on terra firma is small and can easily narrow in our day to day living. We get lost in the minutiae of our days, the details of managing our lives. We get lost in our busyness and the highs and lows of our experiences. When we take time to pause, we wonder, where am I headed, what do I need, what do I consider important and of value in my life? Am I living what I value?

We find that it is more often our losses, fears, and anxieties that bring us to our knees, our chair or cushion, our prayer or meditation, our journal. The times when we review the vision for our life born from our intuition, our creativity, and our imagination. We remember then and deeply question who we are and where we are headed. It is then we enter the interior landscape, the sacred seed of our existence, the light that shines within.

Just as turtle reminds us to walk slow on the earth mindful of where we plant our eggs— our creations, and bear reminds us to rest in this season, conserve our heat and energy for the coming spring and summer, so too does eagle power of Spirit remind us of our connection to the Divine in creating vision for our life, to boldly scan the horizon, take stock of where we are, look back to review and accept the life lived in its imperfections, then look forward and carry on.

What does it mean today that eagle came into my view? Maybe this pair was on their journey for food or just enjoyed the air currents in this day. While I can talk myself out of any meaning, I choose to trust what I felt in the first sighting of this pair—joy, delight, awe, and a reminder of a broad vision in my life, our life. Creating clarity for the journey, the values lived, the will to move forward.

At the end of our life, the full landscape will be in our awareness, but today I can also choose to look over the landscape of this day. Did I live what I value in this day? Did I bring full expression of self in this day? Did I bring kindness, compassion, and love in this day? Can I accept with loving kindness the imperfections, in this day?

As we enter 2022, we look back at 2021 with the challenges and the joys of living, the losses and the new life that came into our world, the disappointments and the surprises that added to our existence. None of it perfect, some of it beyond our comprehension, but all of it what we lived.

As we walk forward into 2022, we can choose to look back further and see all that has brought us to this moment, to this doorway. We scan the broader landscape of our life and say, yes, it is my life, all of it. Then, we look forward and walk through to a new year bringing all the wisdom and imagination that we have formed during our time here. We bring all of this to our new year. as we co-create with Spirit, each day, our future.

As always thank you kind reader for your presence here. Wishing us all, a new year of interior connection to the light within, moments of grace, full expression of self, faith in the future, and a vision that is formed in creative, intuitive, and imaginative self.

Happy New Year!

*the eagle photo is a free stock photo as in the joy of the moment we did not get one.