Month: October 2023

PEACE

I see you, deer,
outside the window, 
resting on fallen leaves
between the wooden fence rails 
and the blue spruce. You appear peaceful 
and content, while not twenty feet away 
your son or daughter nestles under the apple tree.
How sweet you look in repose, 
like the rambunctious toddler 
who wreaks havoc when awake, 
yet when asleep melts my heart 
and I want to give soft kisses,
and think only loving thoughts.
With the view of you, my shoulders release, 
I breathe softly. I prepare dinner, 
eat, then linger at the table and
relish your presence as you watch over us. 
When you are ready, you rise, 
wait for your young one, 
glance back at the house, 
and walk away toward the river.
I thank you for your gentle visit. 
Peace—in this moment—
so easy and uncomplicated.

“It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace.”

Aristotle

“You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level.”

Eckhart Tolle

“World peace must develop from inner peace. Peace is not just mere absence of violence. Peace is, I think, the manifestation of human compassion.”

Dalai Lama XIV

Ongoing Resource List: Reading for Heart and Mind

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Into a New Day

He came to see me 
after the death 
and the days then months 
attempting to rebuild what was
to be both she and he
for the little one who longed for just one 
as the blocks placed one atop another 
crash down to the floor
then stacked and restacked 
a life that could no longer be 
until he forgot himself 
could not sit nor play 
with the boy he loved 
and lost the sleep longed for 
to ease the pain felt in a heart 
that ached to open to peace 
and being in change 
that can’t be contained or
reversed only built upon 
as he lives into 
being carried and opened 
then transformed 
as he and his son 
walk hand in hand
into a new day.

“The song is ended but the melody lingers on.”

Irving Berlin

“No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear.”

C. S. Lewis

“You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present.”

Jan Gildwell

For Ongoing Resource List: Reading for Heart and Mind

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A Lifetime in a Breath

It is said, “It will last a lifetime!”
“How long is that?” I ask.
Is it the 97 years my mother-in-law 
expressed her gratitude’s?
Is it the 7 days my daughter graced
us with her existence?
Maybe the 2 weeks a mosquito 
became a pest?
Or the 24-hour life of a mayfly?
Existence—not infinity but arbitrary.
A question of quantity or quality?
Between the intake of breath
to our last expiration, we count days, months,
then years; yet truly, they are breaths.
In each moment, we live a lifetime,
not knowing if we gain one more inhalation,
one more moment to love what we see, 
who we are, whom we touch, the
sun kissing our skin, or the colors of a fall tree. 
We take it all in; we breathe it out.
 
One breath, one breath, one holy precious breath. 


In memory of my bonus sister Cynthia and my Aunt Pat, who within these last three weeks, each breathed a final breath, leaving a world and loved ones held close to their hearts.

“the tired sunsets and the tired 
people – 
it takes a lifetime to die and 
no time at 
all.” 

Charles Bukowski

“It’s not that we have little time, but more that we waste a good deal of it.” 

Seneca

…Enjoy this precious single breath,
for the harvest
of our whole lives
is that same one breath.” 

Omar Khayyám, Quatrains-Ballades

For Ongoing Resource List: Reading for Heart and Mind

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Who Am I Now?

Who am I now?
he inquires of the image—
the me that is not me,
without you,
reflecting
lines of loss as identifiable
as a fingerprint.
In unfamiliar land
he explores, tastes, 
tries on identities,
see what fits—
foreign to himself,
a shadow of what was. 
Visions arise of what could be.
Body, mind, and heart
tired and worn,
he sees the we 
now past.
The future is I.
Who am I now?

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. 
…live in the question.” 

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

“If I cease searching, then, woe is me, I am lost. That is how I look at it – keep going, keep going come what may.”

Vincent van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent van Gogh

Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next.
Delicious Ambiguity.” 

Gilda Radner

Ongoing Reading List: Reading for Heart and Mind

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The Euolgy

Stories fill me
Memories shared
Emotions felt
Witnessed
Words assembled
Convey a life
61 years in 15 minutes
A splash of color here
A gray area there
A focal point 
Bring it all together
As complex as 
A 1,000-piece puzzle
As simple as sitting
In the heart of love.

“Life is a song—sing it. Life is a game—play it. Life is a challenge—meet it. Life is a dream—realize it. Life is a sacrifice—offer it. Life is love—enjoy it.”

Sai Baba

“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments but what is woven into the lives of others.”

Thucydides

“There is a sacredness in tears. They are not a mark of weakness but power. They speak more eloquently than 10,000 tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief and unspeakable love.

Washington Irving

Ongoing Resource List: Reading for Heart and Mind

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