February 2024 – Janis Dehler

The Rescue

We walk the beach while waves crash and deposit Jellyfish on the shore. We stop, look, take photos, and admire the intricate beauty of this stinging swimmer. A fellow walker scoops with a net and flings the water filled beauties back to the ocean. I ponder in admiration for her thoughtfulness, creativity, and dedication, as she walks miles to extend herself to her ocean community: Jellyfish and barefoot children. I marvel at this world that offers itself to us, to see and to respond in the many ways there are of being of service.

“The end of all knowledge should be service to others.”
Cesar Chavez

“Great acts are made of small deeds.”
Lao Tzu

“Memories of our lives, of our works and our deeds will continue in others.”
Rosa Parks

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The Kiss

Sun kisses ocean

as sparkling jewels adorn her

with adoration

“Lovers alone wear sunlight.”
E.E. Cummings

“Adoration is made out of a solitary soul occupying two bodies.”
Aristotle

…the sea…it is my favorite thing, I think, that I have ever seen. Sometimes I catch myself staring at it and forget my duties. It seems big enough to contain everything anyone could ever feel.”
Anthony Doerr, All The Light We Cannot See

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When Prayer Was Magic

Once I thought prayer was magic: 

If I pray hard enough

God will give me what I desire. 

I was young and did not yet know

grief and despair. 



I grew in knowledge of sorrow and joy, 

and found no being who could 

change the course of the many things 

that bring us suffering, as was told, when

once I thought prayer was magic.



Nor did outward prayer give me

what I yearned for, which may 

conflict with another’s longing.

Who does this being listen to?

If I pray hard enough,



I am told, if I am good enough,

follow the rules, listen to authority,

learn to be pure like the saints,

deny myself,

God will give me what I desire.



Then I learned to go within:

to know prayer as silence, 

to focus, allow, listen, sit in peace, 

open to universal wisdom. Not taught to me when

I was young and did not yet know:



the connection is within the seed of the divine inside of me. 

All consciousness, open to love, forgiveness, and grace

changes me; I then join with others as 

we open to joy, and ease that which is our

grief and despair.


(Thanks to WP friend, David, for his teaching of a ‘cascading’ poem.

“It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without heart.”
Mahatma Gandhi

“Prayer is the inner bath of love into which the soul plunges itself.”
St. John Vianney

“God speaks in the silence of the heart. Listening is the beginning of prayer.”
Mother Teresa

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On To the Source

Seeking rest 

and renewal

we weave our way: 

down and around,

like the stream

then the river 

flowing 

to the source— 

the ocean.



We meander, 

then feel the tug: 

the ebb and flow 

vibrating

pulsing, 

soul connecting 

us to her—

origination.

Returning is the motion of the Tao.

Yielding is the way of the Tao.

The 10,000 things are born of being.

Being is born of nonbeing.
The 40th Verse of the Tao Te Ching

“We know all too well that what we are doing is nothing more than a drop in the ocean. But if the drop were not there, the ocean would be missing something.”
Mother Teresa

“I have seafoam in my veins, I understand the language of waves”.
Le Testament d’Orphée

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