Take Action

It's the first day of another year. I don't do resolutions. But I do spend time considering my goals and intentions for the year and write them down. I use this as a map to check in during the year and see how satisfied I am with my life. This post is not specifically about that, however. Rather I uploaded a calendar for the month featuring small ways to nurture happiness. Visuals help me remember. The calendar is from the non-profit Action For Happiness, which I do plan to learn more about and perhaps get involved. 

Marcel The Shell With Shoes On | Official Trailer HD | A24

If you ever get a chance to watch this quirky movie, you won't regret it. That is, if you enjoy movies about love, connection, grief, joy, and wonder.  

Last plucked from the vine,

summer's juicy gift lingers

destined for my tongue.

Bookended by oaks

glowing sunset confection,

sweet sherbet colors.

A gondola skims
across the bay, ushering
the evening's peace.

NPR Tiny Desk Contest 2023 - Andrea Gibson - MAGA HAT IN THE CHEMO ROOM

 

 

Andrea Gibson's brilliant force has departed their body. They were a beacon of courage and compassion communicated through poetry. I mourn our loss. May their brilliance and love manifest forever. 

 

Andrea Gibson's website.

 

Andrea Gibson's Substack.

The Surface of Life

 "Work keeps you on the surface of life. Without work you will sink down into your mind: ‘I don’t like this, I don’t want this, I can’t do this.’ You will drown there. So you must work. Nothing to make you rich, but enough to stay on the surface."

-Humans of New York

62!

 "The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been." 

--Madeleine L'Engle

This birthday I decided to pull three cards from the Sufi Wisdom Oracle deck. I held the deck for a few moments and breathed, while listening to meditative music. I felt into Presence, touching the stillness, and relaxed. Remember Stereograms? This is a spiritual equivalent. Then I pulled three cards. They are lovely, especially because the three of them speak to the same theme: trusting love and life; releasing defenses and yielding; the assumption that the universe is mostly benevolent.

Happy Solstice

I was born a few days after summer solstice, and I have always thrived on light.

Very soon I will visit a place where the sun shines about 23 hours a day this time of year. Alaska!

This summer I ease into trusting potential. I embrace the new and stretch into awareness. I celebrate this experience. 

All Kinds of Things for Love

[A Debt]
in a dream, i saw my mother
before she was made mine. her
life still unburdened by the weight
of raising someone. no one has left her
to be in a grave & she is yet to know
where the nearest cemetery is. 
when she runs across the field, no tiny footprints 
gather next to her steps. her 
hunger simply hers alone. 
we do all kinds of things for love. look at me. 
look at me returning her life to her. 
even in a dream.
--noor unnahar

This Morning

 I slept well and woke refreshed.

My cup of coffee was particularly delicious. As I poured from carafe to mug, I noticed how smooth it was, how the aroma wafted up to me.

My child and I enjoyed some bantering and conversation preparing for and driving to school. 

It was a peaceful, quietly joyful morning.

These observations are worth noting and appreciating, because doing so reinforces them. This post is an antidote to the doomscrolling, the slightly tight and tense way I inhabit my body, the default position of general, low-level foreboding.

"Yes, and the luminous and shocking beauty of the everyday is something I try to remain alert to, if only as an antidote to the chronic cynicism and disenchantment that seems to surround everything, these days. It tells me that, despite how debased or corrupt we are told humanity is and how degraded the world has become, it just keeps on being beautiful. It can't help it."
 - Nick Cave and Seán O'Hagan
Faith, Hope and Carnage
booklover
& still, the waves