Tag: spiritual

Book Launch and Pre-Order

WordPress friends and family,

I am excited to announce that it is time to pre-order your copy of: One World: A Journey of Becoming, a book of original poetry and art that follows the events of the worldwide pandemic to current events of the day.

“…Janis’ deeply inspiring poetry, prose, and art are worth savoring. Janis creates from the heart, and this will touch your very soul.”

Mari Ann Graham, Director MSW Program, The University of St. Catherine

LEARN MORE about the book: https://janisdehler.com/river-spirit-books

Find an event to attend: https://janisdehler.com/events

Pre-order a book now to recieve by January 7, 2007: https://janisdehler.com/shop US customerts receive bonus gifts: a One World art and poetry bookmark and greeting card. My apologies to international orders through The Great British Bookshop. I won’t be able to accommodate the shipping of pre-order gifts.

It was rocky at times as I attempted to bring this inspiration into reality. Deaths, a stroke, a closing of my husbands place of business started by others 70 years ago, war, and tumultuous world events have been the back drop as I worked to stay the course and get it done.

It is a joy to hold the book in my hands. To flip the pages. To witness the beauty that was offered by those hired to help and guide me along the way.

My hope is for the reader to find a place to rest within the words and the visual art spaces; to drift into the heart space to ponder, finding a sense of renewal and gratitude, while experiencing the common ground we walk together in our one world.

Peace, Janis

Having the Time of Our Life


Time ticks away,

like a stopwatch,

tick, tick, tick— 

until the end is made clear.

Precious like the gold watch,

marking the end of a career,

or possibly a sturdy Timex 

that does the job well,

without a thought or a care.

The beat of time is steady,

as it ticks on in our awe,

or with our fear, marking grief 

for our loss before it is near.

It is said, “Time marches on.”

The body knows this to be true,

while spirit dances free,

released from the beat, 

the measured cadence,

of tick, tock, tick.

“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.”

Albert Einstein

“Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia.”

Charles Schultz

“What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.”

St. Augustine

For Ongoing Resource List: Reading for Heart and Mind

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A Hard Freeze to Thaw

I watch Spirit River, day after day,

while ice forms; now found at the edges, 

then to expand towards center. 

As days and nights reach single digits, 

the river will appear as one solid mass,

creating the illusion of strength; 

we feel fear as we move closer.



Like the heart after hurt, loss, anger,

or long held resentment, the frozen 

solid shield protects the truth found hidden

deep, where life continues to flow, 

waiting for the crack that forms 

when the pressure insists, or when spring

thaw allows the life beneath into the light of day.



“Everyone we meet has wounds upon their heart.
Everyone is waiting for someone to scatter the seeds of love amongst their tears and to be patient enough to wait for their beautiful fragrance of dreams to awaken once more.”

Mimi Novic, Guidebook To Your Heart

“Time heals all wounds, I’m sure it’s true, but not until after the wounds have been felt.”

Lisa Grunwald, New Year’s Eve

“Heart breaking is heart in making,
Wounds bleeding are wonders in making.”

Abhijit Naskar, Aşk Mafia: Armor of The World

A Beating Heart

Each Sunday I write a poem or prose inspired by the sacred found in the ordinary during the week.

Today, the sacred is found in the moments watching my husband’s heart beating, pumping, with blood flowing, as the radiologist studies closely to find any abnormalities hidden in the ordinary beating of his heart—that which is extraordinary.

Valves opening and closing in a pulsing rhythm, on and on in each moment, each day. Through all manner of heartache, heart opening, shock, joy, grief, and peace, his heart is relied upon to simply beat.

Then the doctor shows me what he has found; a tiny hole, there from birth, has allowed a blood clot to flow through. For 75 years this hole sat silent, unobserved, hidden in the steady pump of life, until today.

Now we know. With all symptoms of this small stroke relieved, we go home with hearts pumping in gratitude.

Perfection is within imperfection. Joy found in heartache. Calm found in chaos. A heart beating, even now, with a hole hidden, deep within.  

“I believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine.”

Neil Armstrong

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.”

Joseph Campbell

“Everything can change in a heartbeat.”

Travis Pastrana

For Ongoing Resource List: Reading for Heart and Mind

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Awaken to Morning

Each morning, the news feed stuns me: 
	images, pain, apprehension—
        helplessness in the face of atrocities. 

Each morning calls forth: 
	support, humanitarian aid, food, medical care.

Each morning:
        directs me toward the depths of humanity—
        that which links us all. 

Each morning, I sit in quiet and remember: 
         go within, anchor in, seek the calm still point, 
         believe in the sacred seed—within each living thing. 

Each morning, I awaken to wonder:
        what will be next? 

This morning: 
        I watch the yellow finch, 
        sip my tea, 
        sit in my sacred space. 

This morning, as the unthinkable looms: 
         I remember, remember, and remember—
         the source, the beauty, and the bounty of this, 
         our one amazing world.

(reworked poem from March 2022)

“Each one has to find his peace from within. And peace to be real must be unaffected by outside circumstances.” 

Mahatma Gandhi

“There is peace even in the storm” 

Vincent Van Gogh, The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh

“When I’m in turmoil, when I can’t think, when I’m exhausted and afraid and feeling very, very alone, I go for walks.”

Jim Butcher, Storm Front

For Ongoing Resource List: Reading for Heart and Mind

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To learn more about my upcoming book, visit my book page at: http://janisdehler.com/river-spirit-books/

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

http://janisdehler.com/ongoing-resource-list-reading-for-heart-and-mind/

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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