Truckers Are Angels Too

 A couple of weeks ago we had a "writer's challenge" from the Tuesday night writer's group. Write a short, short story in 55 words or less.  When I first read the message, I thought, "No way!" It was automatic resistance. It can't be done. I'm not really a writer anyway. 

But the idea just kept rolling through my mind like a faint reminder.  It wouldn't go away.  It wasn't nagging at me or trying to force me.  It was playful, like my grandsons when they want to play, "Just one more game, Grandma, Nancy, please!"    

When the idea popped into my head, my reaction was this just might work.  After six or seven revisions, here's what appeared...

While driving on Route 4, I didn’t realize my favorite ring was so loose that it flew out the window along with my apple core.  After much searching, a semi stopped and the trucker stepped out, eyes set upon a specific spot, reaching for a small shining object.  “Is this what you’re looking for?”  

Everyone at Writers' Group had one or two writings and we listened like wide-eyed children to the rich, vibrant stories, each told in 55 words or less.

                  

Birthdays!

Today is my birthday!  It began with an early meditation at 5:15 (the exact time of my birth).  After Payton and I took our walk, I found this Mary Oliver poem that expresses this moment exquisitely.  "What I want in my life is to be dazzled... I want to believe I am looking into the white fire of a great mystery... that the imperfections are nothing and the light is everything... And I do!"

The Ponds

Every year
the lilies
are so perfect
I can hardly believe

their lapped light crowding
the black,
mid-summer ponds.
Nobody could count all of them --

the muskrats swimming
among the pads and the grasses
can reach out
their muscular arms and touch

only so many, they are that
rife and wild.
But what in this world
is perfect?

I bend closer and see
how this one is clearly lopsided --
and that one wears an orange blight --
and this one is a glossy cheek

half nibbled away --
and that one is a slumped purse
full of its own
unstoppable decay.

Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled --
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing --
that the light is everything -- that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading.  And I do.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(House of Light)

Much gratitude to panhala.net for this photo & poem found @ http://www.panhala.net/Archive/The_Ponds.html

A Shout of Joy

David Whyte is one of my favorite poets. He is so honest that you cannot help but open your heart and look closely at who you are. The House of Belonging is a collection of poems published in 1997, but I've just recently discovered it!  There are so many poems I want to share, but I'll start with just a part of "The Winter of Listening."

Inside everyone

is a great shout of joy 

waiting to be born.

All those years

forgetting

how easily

you can belong

to everything

simply by listening.

So let this winter

of listening

be enough

for the new life

I must call my own.

~David Whyte~

When I Am Among the Trees...

There's a Mary Oliver poem that resonates so much, especially during the autumn.  The last stanza is a reminder of why I'm here on this earth. She says like the trees, we are here "to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine!"  

Last week I found myself driving down a tree-lined street and the maple trees dressed in their vibrant red leaves quite simply took my breath away. I returned with my camera and took a few photos. I stood under them, walked around them, felt their rough bark and smooth leaves, inhaled the earthy fragrance, and wrapped my arms around them. The pure joy of aliveness filled my being...

Of course, there is no way to capture the awe-inspiring beauty of that moment. Nevertheless, here is one image and that poem:

When I Am Among the Trees

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness,
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine."

~ Mary Oliver ~

(Thirst)

The Great Mystery

My mother died in July of last year, less than a month from her 88th birthday. I miss her. She was my anchor though I never thought about it much.  Her last several years brought health problems that diminished the quality of life, like a thief stealing just small things, but over and over until so little remained that she was able to do.  She used to say, "Why am I still here, Nan?  What use is there for me to be alive?"

To be honest, at times,  I wondered that, too. But I would repeat each time she asked, "It's a mystery, Mom. No one knows why.  It's the great mystery!"  Then we'd laugh or sigh and talk about what was happening with the family or the latest gossip at the assisted living center where she lived.  She was like a giggling teen when she told me about the man who sang "There she is... Miss America" as she slowly worked her walker through the dining room to her place at the table. She never liked attention, but I think underneath the embarrassment she remembered how beautiful she really was.

Before she died, my sisters and I were able to have a discussion about those final details. She had some papers in her desk with insurance and cemetery information, along with a folded yellow newspaper clipping.  It was a poem she had kept from the local newspaper many years before.  She wanted it read at her funeral. The four of us sat quietly staring at each other. I picked up that tattered piece of paper and began to read.

Do not stand at my grave and weep,

I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am in a thousand winds that blow.

I am the softly falling snow.

I am the gentle showers of rain.

I am the fields of ripening grain.

I am in the morning hush,

I am in the graceful rush 

Of beautiful birds in circling flight,

I am the starshine of the night.

I am in the flowers that bloom,

I am in a quiet room.

I am the birds that sing,

I am in each lovely thing.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,

I am not there, I do not die.

~Mary Frye~

I knew I wanted to read this.  After a lifetime of connection with this woman I called "mother", my heart overflowed with quiet gratitude.   How could I have not known who she really was?  After all of my studying and practicing the non-dual teachings of Yoga...  

It's a mystery!  When do we realize who we really are?  Is it just a glimpse or does it stay? Do we need to do anything to keep it?  What happens when the body dies?  Why are we so afraid?  Who, exactly is afraid?

Now I watch as each moment unfolds, wondering what will this body experience? And welcoming everything just as it is ~ letting go into the great mystery.

Out of the Silence... Everything Comes!

This morning Payton, our Golden Retriever, and I tried to leave the house in time to catch a beautiful sunrise. From the window the sky was vibrant with pink and golden hues shining through a few light fluffy clouds.  I wanted to capture the beauty with my camera, but being even less than a novice, the photo couldn't begin to depict our experience. Still, I wanted to post my first photo!

Payton loves his morning walks. Being in the present moment ~ alert, senses wide open, body vibrating in pure gladness ~ is what he does best! Whoever said dogs aren't enlightened obviously hasn't met Payton. We continued down the block until our attention awakened to a cacophony. We paused to listen to what seemed to be 100's of birds, all in one tree!

Their chirping caught our attention and even though it disturbed the morning quiet, it was not a disturbance.  It was simply unfolding, coming out of the Silence that holds the entire universe.  Wendell Berry says it so eloquently ~

Ask the world to reveal its quietude-

not the silence of machines when they are still,

but the true quiet by which songbirds,

trees, bellworts, snails, clouds, storms

become what they are, and are nothing else.

~ Wendell Berry ~

Why I Wake Early! Don't Go Back to Sleep!

I love the time change!  Not for the extra hour of sleep, but for the light ~ the extra hour of morning sunlight!  I've always been an early riser, even as a teenager when all of my friends & my siblings relished sleeping in until noon.  The colors in the morning sky are so vibrant & the air sparkles with aliveness.  The best part, though, is the quiet.  The morning silence is my time to melt into the Presence that is always here, but often overshadowed by all the other stuff.  Stuff to do, places to go, appointments to keep...

So, even though the days are short and the sky is often that November gray, today the sun is shining brightly, the sky is radiantly blue, and the breeze is so soft on my face.  Two poems come to mind.  The first by Mary Oliver and the second, Rumi.  Am I overdoing this?

Why I Wake Early

Hello, sun in my face.

Hello, you who made the morning

and spread it over the fields

and into the faces of the tulips

and the nodding morning glories,

and into the windows of, even, the

miserable and the crotchety –

best preacher that ever was,

dear star, that just happens

to be where you are in the universe

to keep us from ever-darkness,

to ease us with warm touching,

to hold us in the great hands of light –

good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day

in happiness, in kindness.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(Why I Wake Early, 2004)

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.


~Rumi~