Tag: mother

To Living, To Life

I express deep gratitude to the mother who said yes to birthing me into this world—a world of beauty, challenges, pain, love expressed, with opportunities to give, develop this soul, give of self.

Beauty not found in perfection in her or me, but beauty in the raw truth of living. The opportunity to walk this earth, breathe this air, touch another human, feel the depth of pain expressed in tears, learn to keep going when all seems lost.

I look at mother robin who created her fragile nest atop our trellis against the east facing wall and see determination, duty, purpose, and faith as she watches the rise of sun in each day, protects her eggs, and waits for life to unfold.

In beauty it is so. Joyous good wishes to all mothers in this day and always.

“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.”

-Pablo Picasso

“Birth is not only about making babies. Birth is about making mothers…strong, competent, capable mothers who trust themselves and know their inner strength.”

-Barbara Katz Rothman

“Birth is an experience that demonstrates that life is not merely function and utility, but form and beauty.”

-Christopher Largen

Click for Ongoing Reading List

A Shift Through Time

(My apologies for a double send on this one. A goof up on my end caused me to lose the poem from my collection.) 

I face the camera and
witness the care taken 
to set the scene:
a chair moved, a plant 
placed here, now there,
lighting adjusted, inched forward, 
then further to the side. 
He checks and rechecks, 
through the camera lens—
the eye of the artist
designing the scene, with
shadow, dimension, and interest.

I read poems to the camera, 
and to my son, as his vision
moves from the lens to me, 
with careful observation. 
I arrive at the last word, 
hold my gaze to his smile 
and to his eyes, intent on mine, 
as his speak of love and care, 
to let me know we are done—
it is a good take. 

I observe my son’s talent,  
feel held in the palm of safe keeping, 
son to mother. I experience the shift of time, 
to when I offered an observant eye to him, 
as he toddled, and I moved objects 
that could harm or topple his way. 
I now let go into his craft, as we each 
offer our artistry to the other, 
woven through time, they now unite, 
dance together, create.

“To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it.”

Osho

“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.”

Albert Einstein

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost.”

Martha Graham

For Ongoing Resource List: Reading for Heart and Mind http://janisdehler.com/ongoing-resource-list-reading-for-heart-and-mind/

The Veil Between Worlds

After my mother’s death,

days after the veil between
worlds once again closed,
leaving me to the details
of a life stopped in motion,
I enter her home, 

	see the desk with her pen
	lying on the green blotter,
	next to a stack of unpaid bills 
        ready for her signature.
	I look toward the kitchen

as she left it, a jumble of paper recipes,
notes she made for groceries, reminders,
all waiting for her return—her hand, in the 
making of caramel rolls or an apple pie. 
I walk down the hall

	past the family photos, the ancestors
	long buried in clay soil
	back on the 40 acre “Heartbreak Farm”
	as it was later called.
	I enter her bedroom, 

see the rose colored walls, 
move into her private bathroom,
open a drawer, and that is when
a tear drops, and with an
intake of breath 

	and release, the tears flow.
	I hold her toothbrush, then touch
	the earrings resting on the stone counter—
	the intimate details of a life.
	I smell her in this space, not 

a flowery presence, more of powder—
a scent of living, cleansing, of hope, and
one I want to cling to like the scent on the 
yellow blanket that became a shroud, when
I held my week-old daughter,

	and carried her back to the hospital
	as she died in my arms.
	A scent I then wanted to embrace, 
	until the day I
	set it down and believed in

my one next step of living.


(Image from artist collection)

“Love is in the sensual details.” 

Lebo Grand

“In a relationship the details are everything because they remind you – just when you need to be reminded the most – why you fell in love with someone in the first place.” 

Mike Gayle, His ‘N’ Hers

“Life is not a plot; it’s in the details.” 

Jodi Picoult, Vanishing Acts

Ongoing Resource List: Reading for Heart and Mind

  • 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

Remembering Mothers


There is one woman who bore me into this world.
There are many who helped me open to what this world holds.

There is one woman who held my hand for my first steps.
There are many who walked with me when I had to learn anew.

There is one woman who picked me up when I fell.
There are many who encouraged me to keep going when I thought I could not.

There is one woman who became a model for woman for me.
There are many who helped me reinvision what it is to be me.

There is one mother who fed me as a child.
There is one mother earth who feeds me daily in my living.

There is one woman I love for all she gave me in life to her death.
There are many I embrace with love for all they are within this one life I live.

Happy Mother's Day 

to all the women in my life and beyond; for all the nurturing, compassion, teaching, visioning, and honest speech. I bow to you, today and always.