Tag: freedom

BIRTH

WORDS LIKE LIGHT 

Monday, July 25, 2022

         Today will be a day of continuous birth. Each moment will be a fresh emergence, an arrival of something I’ve never truly seen or experienced before. If life sometimes seems tedious today, it will be only because my eyes and heart are closed to the nonstop special deliveries of miracles. The present moment is persistent in making everything brand new – it’s been doing it for timeless eons –  and today will be no different. It will be as if each moment is the dawn of a new age, a fountainhead of unprecedented freedoms. Even the most commonplace tasks – pouring coffee into a cup, carrying clothes to the washer, washing my hands at the sink – will be brand new possibilities never before presented in precisely that way. This will be a day of countless dawns, moment by moment, each of them astonishing beyond words. Perhaps Delycia will occasionally say, “Are you o.k., Ham? You look like you’re always staring at a spectacular sunrise.”  



YOU CAN'T STOP IT

You can’t stop it.
The sun will stand on hilltops today,
despite your efforts.
Morning will wear its finest shirt,
noon will wish you well,
and evening will bring
its beautiful book.
Yes,  storms will speak
their pristine words somewhere,
and stars will shimmer
in their birthplace above you.
There's nothing you can do
about it.
The world will show you
what rejoicing is,
no matter what
you decide to do.
*early sunlight over the Mystic River on our walk today*

* the first morning glories*

* our front-yard poem for today *

Below, the latest from Delycia’s garden …

SPRINKLE

­­WORDS LIKE LIGHT 

Thursday, July 7, 2022 

         Whenever I feel uncomfortably warm on these summer days, I can always sprinkle some cold water across my face, and luckily, life itself does something similar when I get lost on the sweaty trail of worries. All I need, when cares and concerns are closing in upon me, is a sprinkle of presence – the boundless freshness of each present moment. Perhaps I will feel it every so often today – the splash of newness that’s always available, the soft shower of inventiveness that life is always ready to spray me with. In the heat – real or metaphorical – of any day, I hope I can feel the soft drizzle of cleanness in each feeling and thought, the way each new moment is bespeckled with dashes of cleverness and resourcefulness. Like the best friend it is, life is always ready – especially in the heat of doubts and qualms – with its rejuvenating sprinkles of freedom and refreshment.  

THE FOUNTAIN

She found a fountain one morning, 
and made it something 
she could carry 
and care for,
an everlasting spring, 
a spray she could use
to sprinkle stillness and acceptance 
on everything,
especially on herself, 
this restless person
who forgets that she's a fountain herself,
an unfailing flow of  life, 
and now she carries
the quiet fountain she found 
and is starting to see 
that she simply found 
herself.

WORDS LIKE LIGHT 

Monday, December 6, 2021

CRUSADE

            In a way, life is always leading a crusade. Every present moment is a historic movement for freedom. It’s like the here and now is always a drive toward excellence and boundlessness, a campaign that is successful the moment it begins, which is right now. Even though I only occasionally realize it, I am part of a solemn but pleasant struggle toward deliverance and enchantment. The present moment – including me – always does battle with fears about the future and past, and is always victorious. Each and every moment waves two flags simultaneously – that of battle, and that of victory. I feel fortunate to be part of such a serious and satisfying offensive. 

THE SKILLFUL GARBAGE BAG
(about Braelynn J., 52, Blessings, CT)

(written with the help of 
random words taken from
www.randomlists.com) 

She said she was sure
if she wore a silky,
knee-length skirt
the garbage bag would be good 
to her, would give her 
the guarantee of tenderness 
in the tough job 
of cleaning up the yard. 
As the skirt swirled along, 
she felt like she was skiing
around the yard,
easily winning the big battle 
with brush and twigs and limbs. 
The garbage bag 
brought her hope
as it sat there 
getting stuffed and smiling. 
It was like an accomplished, 
enduring 
donkey
doing what its master
with the stunning knees wished. 
The cowardly so-called tough job 
shrunk away
as the dexterous garbage bag
filled itself full
and the skirt cooperated
in its impeccable, 
streamlined
 way.

And here are some scenes from our sunrise walk along the Mystic River yesterday morning …

WORDS LIKE LIGHT 

August 15, 2021

ROUSING 

            It may seem strange to think of high-spirited ideas as forces that can ‘fall’ upon a person, but sometimes it does seem to happen, a sparkling thought suddenly swooping down on me like sunshine that sweeps everything else away. It can create a newness and impressiveness in my life, like a letting go of all that’s old while something fresh flows in. I’m one person one second, and then a thoroughly sunny idea sweeps into my life, and suddenly I’m someone new, someone I’ve never met. It feels like a mental flood has flowed through me, leaving something lighthearted and bright when it’s gone. For instance, occasionally this cheering idea drops down on me: thoughts are more powerful than things. It’s a simple concept, but one that has sometimes actually restarted my life, this idea that a far-reaching, hopeful thought can control and conquer any situation, no matter how menacing it might seem. Each time I understand, once again, that cheerful, confident thoughts inside me can speak with infinitely more force than any troublesome circumstance outside me, I feel startlingly free, totally fresh and remade. I feel reborn as a force, not of blood and bones, but of soul and spirit, all because of a single rousing thought from somewhere beyond and boundless. 

ALWAYS WAKING UP
(about Bernice D., 61, Blessings CT)

At 59,
on a sleepy, sultry day
she saw, for the first time,
that each moment is made new,
and that she, too, is always new -- 
a fresh, stirred up assembly of cells
every single second. 
She saw that, in a sense, 
she was always waking up,
and she realized 
that she can’t help it, 
that rousing and rising 
was just what the universe always does, 
constantly and endlessly 
spurring itself on. 
She realized that even 
the airless languor of the day
was continually awakening 
into new and unspoiled airless languor, 
and that even her fears and sorrows 
were unceasingly bestirring themselves
into unprecedented designs
so she could better see and understand them
 in every respect
in this always newly-alert world.

WORDS LIKE LIGHT 

Thursday, August 12, 2021

EMPTY (v.)

         I have spent most of my life gathering and hoarding, and now, at 79, it’s time to start emptying. I don’t mean this in a negative way, as if I want to start sadly giving things away because I’m getting closer to death. No, I’m thinking of emptying as a creative and liberating process, an opening-out to the boundless realms of the universe. Instead of always grabbing, I want to start giving, the way rivers give themselves to the seas.  I want to unload my longings and cravings, and feel the freedom of flowing instead of the captivity of clasping. I want to be a breeze that joyfully empties all of itself, moment by moment, into the infinite wind. 

GIVING GIFTS
 
One day,
a certain man was ready to give gifts.
First, he gave the fountain of his love
to a lonely-looking person
shopping among melons at a market.
Next, he gave some thoughts
that sounded like a song
to a little part of the sky
that seemed to shine in a thorough and thoughtful way,
the way he liked to live,
though his life often fell off cliffs of mindlessness,
which is mostly why
he decided to do some giving on this day,
just donating what he always has,
which is endless and bountiful,
as gifts to be found by the universe
as it floats and falls and rises, 
with him, forever.