Soul wakening

This song has inspired me lately as my soul tumults and my heart trembles for people I love.

In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die
And where you invest your love, you invest your life

Thoreau

 "Every child begins the world again." 

- Henry David Thoreau

My religion...

Although I've been feeling more and more distaste toward religion as a concept overall, the one exception came to me in the words of the Dalai Lama:

"My religion is kindness."

And that is all it should be.  If everyone everywhere simply made kindness to self, others, and the world their "religion" so many things would be simpler.  And really, does it have to be complex?

Picture source.

On religion

I've been having a lot of thoughts about my spiritual views, beliefs and questions.  I want to start jotting things down as they come because I don't have them all sorted out or organized in my mind (not sure if I ever will?)  I know I need to do a lot more reading and soul-searching about all this, but I need a place to start.

These thoughts have largely been prompted by my near-visceral reaction to the Catholic church's reaction to the work of American nuns.  It simply outraged me.  It is such an obvious play for control over women and in the 21st century, I'm just so tired of it.  I ache for these nuns who are trying to do good work in a church they believe in, and yet are condemned for it by a leadership that I think knows deep down it is treading on such thin ground keeping women out of its administration.  I'm angry at the church, but also angry at women (myself included) who stayed a part of such an organization.  The pope and his cronies may be archaic and abusive in their views of women, but we women aren't doing any better by not breaking away.  If we aren't part of the solution, we're part of the problem.

Religion:  a tool for the powerful to control the weak and ignorant.

I just finished Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book, Infidel, and it really stirred me to start thinking more critically about these things.  Her book ultimately attacks Islam and its treatment of women, which clearly is on a much baser level than that which the Catholic church is doing; however, both religions are trying to stifle women -- be it literally with the cloaking and ostracizing of women in Muslim countries, or more figuratively with the church's stance against women in leadership roles.

There is so much more to say on all this.  I'm glad to have started, and I plan to be back.

Onwards

At the end of the day, when I stop and ask myself, "Self, what's it all about?" Mostly I just fall into bed and avoid the question. Then there are days (like today) when it plagues me. So many decisiions to be made, so many decisions to live with. There are issues facing others in the world that are so monumentally bigger than those that haunt my mind that I feel guilty even dwelling on them... but then, these are the ones that are mine. These are the ones that I have a say in, that affect my emotions, my finances, my family... No, we're not being slaughtered by a brutal regime; yes, we have enough food in the house; no, we're not suffering from major illnesses; yes, we have a roof over our heads and jobs to pay (most of) the bills. Still, there are worries, there are concerns, there are stresses, there are frustrations. Are we not justified in feeling the associated feelings, or should we constantly be comparing ourselves to those so much less fortunate and focusing on gratitude?

Can we be grateful and confused at the same time? I have wonderful things around me -- but are they the things I would choose if I could choose again? These questions swirl without answers, and without purpose. It is far better to just be grateful than to focus on questioning the things we cannot change. I know this, but it's hard to live it.

Yet live with it I must, and so I just keep moving -- onwards.  Hoping for this haze to clear and my path to be laid before me.

Morning Walk

This morning the weather
Bared my heart: sodden gray.
The moisture, not quite rain,
The shifting clouds – a ballet.

A breath of this morning
Opened memories of you:
Stealing mushrooms from woods
To make dinner for two.

A tourniquet of un-
Felt feelings no one knows
Surrounds my sorrowed heart
Beneath smiles and hellos.

I could almost fall back
In the arms of dense air
And escape to the place
Where your arms were my lair.

We’d watch our planet’s path
Unaware of our own…
And move to the rhythm
Of the hippo’s low moan.

A breath of this morning
Opened memories of you.
Can nostalgia take form
In foggy mist and dew?

-- circa 2001

The Dream I had of You

I distorted my stories in night’s spell of sleep
His face showed a history I had not seen before,
Yet I kissed him regardless:  my heart longed to leap
To when we followed footprints on Africa’s shore.
I distorted my stories in night’s spell of sleep.


While the moon meditated memories rearranged.
Diseases took leave and our farewell was unsaid.
No more did my fingers fiddle tiny Zim change
So I wouldn’t forget.  I had him here instead,
While the moon meditated – memories rearranged.

Last night brought him back to me as daunting dreams do.

‘Cross an ocean he traveled to unite with me,
To verify that Fate’s visions for us were true,
To revive what we were, and to seek clarity.
Last night brought him back to me as daunting dreams do.

How I ignored his longing sad questioning eyes…

All he wanted from me was to be close again,
But I was hurried, restless:  Americanized.
I gave him few moments – and I met other men.
How I ignored his longing sad questioning eyes…

In the midst of my flurry, he found his answer.

Without a word, without a “one last” anything
He left.  With hurt as consuming as the cancer
He could wait no longer – he left me the suff’ring.
In the midst of my flurry, he found his answer.

Would that waking antidote my guilty wrought cries;

On second chances, I committed heresy.
His dark absence haunts me like unfulfilled tight sighs,
And I’ve wailed ‘til my voice box pleaded for mercy:
Would that waking antidote my guilty wrought cries.

I wait:  for dream’s strength of memory to someday wane

Into something unrecollectable.  Farewell:
Left unsaid, incomplete, and with rekindled pain;
For we are no more – neither here nor in sleep’s spell.
I wait for dreams’ strength of memory to someday wane.

-- circa 2002

Step in Time

My chair has broken beneath me

There are no other chairs around

Creaks were clues

Reckless rocking, causation.

One crash.

Pain, humiliation, loneliness, regret, memory, forgetting, unreal, delusion, savior, hurt.

Build up was months in coming:

I knew.

Even when I made him laugh,

I knew.

Even when I said good-bye – so lightly,
I knew.

Even when he held my foot beneath the table as we talked of the world’s problems and he suffered his own sickness

I knew.

But there was always maybe.
What if?

Someday…

But I knew.

-- circa 2002

Between Mozambique and Zimbabwe

High on a solemn edge of the earth
He sits with stones displayed on his stands.
From this precipice he can harness
Sun’s red rising with his small dark hands.

Black and strong his child hands reign in
The morning chariot light of sun
‘Til it looms above his lonely lair
And casts the spell of a day begun.

He carves a Prayer and a Step in Time
From soft marbled rock until they shine.
Their surface smooth reflects sun’s glow
Mirroring the morning sky’s design.

-- circa 2002

Image from here.

Eschewing "fairer weather"

Recently, a few "couple friends" of ours have shared that they are having some relationship struggles.  While this isn't unusual to the world at large, hearing it from these friends in particular has been fairly shocking for us.  As I've kept them in my thoughts and prayers, and as I've reflected on the ups and downs in our own relationship, the song Love's Recovery by the Indigo Girls keeps playing in my head, so I thought I'd share the lyrics here:

During the time of which I speak it was hard to turn the other cheek
To the blows of insecurity
Feeding the cancer of my intellect the blood of love soon neglected
Lay dying in the strength of its impurity
Meanwhile our friends we thought were so together
They've all gone and left each other in search of fairer weather
And we sit here in our storm and drink a toast
To the slim chance of love's recovery.
There I am in younger days, star gazing,
Painting picture perfect maps of how my life and love would be
Not counting the unmarked paths of misdirection
My compass, faith in love's perfection
I missed ten million miles of road I should have seen
Meanwhile our friends we thought were so together
Left each other one by one in search of fairer weather
And we sit here in our storm and drink a toast
To the slim chance of love's recovery.
Rain soaked and voice choked like silent screaming in a dream
I search for our absolute distinction
Not content to bow and bent
To the whims of culture that swoop like vultures
Eating us away, eating us away
Eating us away to our extinction
Oh how I wish I were a trinity, so if I lost a part of me
I'd still have two of the same to live
But nobody gets a lifetime rehearsal, as specks of dust we're universal
To let this love survive would be the greatest gift we could give
Tell all the friends who think they're so together
That these are ghosts and mirages, these thoughts of fairer weather
Though it's storming out I feel safe within the arms of love's discovery

The Roads of Mozambique

Dip us and bounce us and move us along
Taunt us and shake us for we don’t belong
On your pebbles, your peat, and your potholes
In our traipsing jeep, shirking your shoals.

My stomach performs gymnastic high feats
As you proudly punt us out of our seats.
Each time I prepare my last surrender
Our tires astound me and on we plunder.

-circa 2002

Photo from http://www.swild.com/scenes/southern_africa_2002.htm

Inspiration from a Tea Bag...

Life is a Chance.

Love is Infinity.

Grace is Reality.

Experience

Fly.

Fall.

Lay.

Sigh.

Look.

See.

Recall.

Cry.

Remember the rise

I found the following quote on Paolo Coelho's blog:

"Chico Xavier and one text: 'When you can overcome serious relationship problems, do not remember the difficult times, but think of the joy of having gone through that phase in life. When you escape a serious accident, do not be thinking about the trauma it may have caused, but of the miracle that helped you get away. When walking away from a health scare, do not think of the suffering that was faced, but the blessing of God that allowed the cure. Make sure you put in your memories of life the good things that emerged in the midst of difficulties. They are a testament to your ability to win races and will give you confidence… which will help in any situation, at any time, before any obstacle.'”

That what the heart has understood...

“That what the heart has understood can verify in the body’s peace”

It was our poem:

“Meeting Point”

The walk at Salthill; the faerie tree; The Kitchen; Bewley’s; the D.I.T.

And so we had some meeting points.

But this time we met met. We met the way we thought we did those other times.

We met the way we had both known we did but never disclosed.

For fear?

I saw fear on the burren when I kissed you beneath the wind – and I met you there against the limestone.

Fear of –

Fear that –

Fear for –

Melodramatics?

This couldn’t be real. We must be playing these roles. Acting these feelings, this passion, our romance.

But this time we confessed: I’m not an actress. And you are no actor. But you knew that. All along. And there was the fear.

-circa 2000

Crossing the sea

Meeting Point

This blog is named after one of my favorite poems of all time, Meeting Point by Louis MacNiece. It was introduced to me by a charming Irish photographer I had the privilege of getting to know years ago after I met him with a book of poetry in his back pocket. We were kindred spirits, and I think always will be.

I thought it only appropriate to include the poem before going any further with this project:


Time was away and somewhere else,
There were two glasses and two chairs
And two people with the one pulse
(Somebody stopped the moving stairs)
Time was away and somewhere else.

And they were neither up nor down;
The stream's music did not stop
Flowing through heather, limpid brown,
Although they sat in a coffee shop
And they were neither up nor down.

The bell was silent in the air
Holding its inverted poise -
Between the clang and clang a flower,
A brazen calyx of no noise:
The bell was silent in the air.

The camels crossed the miles of sand
That stretched around the cups and plates;
The desert was their own, they planned
To portion out the stars and dates:
The camels crossed the miles of sand.

Time was away and somewhere else.
The waiter did not come, the clock
Forgot them and the radio waltz
Came out like water from a rock:
Time was away and somewhere else.

Her fingers flicked away the ash
That bloomed again in tropic trees:
Not caring if the markets crash
When they had forests such as these,
Her fingers flicked away the ash.

God or whatever means the Good
Be praised that time can stop like this,
That what the heart has understood
Can verify in the body's peace
God or whatever means the Good.

Time was away and she was here
And life no longer what it was,
The bell was silent in the air
And all the room one glow because
Time was away and she was here.

On the Burren

Had I been there alone

I would have only seen

Grassy paths and piled stone

Fences quadranting green.

But on those paths with him

We lost one thousand years.

Progress fled as a whim

And held time in arrears.

The limestone stretched below

The paths our feet pursued.

The clouds removed Sun's glow

And wind made noise subdued

With sly snapshots we stole

The fog and myriad greens.

We captured on a roll,

Our moments and our scences.

The rushing of wind

Above a niche in stone

Held ancient song and sin

We replayed as our own.

In the absence of time

And under fog's covers

This corner in the lime-

Stone held us as lovers.

-circa 2001