(No Wind, No Rain)

 (No Wind, No Rain)

No wind, no rain,

the tree

just fell, as a piece of fruit does.

But no, not fruit. Not ripe.

Not fell.

It broke. It shattered.

One cone's 

addition of resinous cell-sap,

one small-bodied bird

arriving to tap for a beetle.

It shattered.

What word, what act,

was it we thought did not matter?

-Jane Hirshfield

Snow

 Snow

 

Little soul,

for you, too, 

death is coming.

 

Was there something

you thought

you needed to do?

 

Snow

does not walk into a room

 

and wonder

 

why.

-Jane Hirshfield

Things Seem Strong

 Things Seem Strong

Things seem strong.

Houses, trees, trucks -- a chair, even.

A table. A country.

You don't expect one to break.

No, it takes a hammer to break one,

a war, a saw, an earthquake.

Troy after Troy after Troy seemed strong

to those living around and in them.

Nine Troys were strong,

each trembling under the other.

When the ground floods

and the fire ants leave their strong city,

they link legs and form a raft, and float, and live,

and begin again elsewhere.

Strong, your life's wish

to continue linking arms with life's eye blink, life's tear well,

life's hammering of copper sheets and planing of Port Orford cedar,

life's joke of the knock-knock.

Knock, knock. Who's there?

I am.  

I am who?

That first and last question.

Who once dressed in footed pajamas,

who once was smothered in kisses.

Who seemed so strong

I could not imagine your mouth would ever come to stop asking.

-Jane Hirshfield

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

Like Sands Through the Hourglass

Today is my 59th birthday. It's not a milestone number, but in reality I'm entering my 60th year of life. So I have a birthday wish, and since I didn't wish it while blowing out birthday candles I can say it here. 

Dear Life,

For my birthday, I would like to ask for 30 more years of healthy living. There is so much to see and do: people to serve, books to read, a child to raise, a husband to retire with, art to make. And by healthy living, I mean in a condition where I can do activities of daily living, can read and hear (with aids if needed), some hiking and travel, without moderate to severe pain, and with any chronic medical issues managed and controlled. I know this is very specific, but I figure if I am asking you for this, it would help to be as clear as possible. 

With deep gratitude,

Aenigma

The Alphabet of Right Now

I want to write, but my thoughts wander off like toddlers. So I'm borrowing a technique from a friend.

A - Air conditioning: so very grateful for it, despite that it's not strong enough to cool the upstairs.

B - Birthday: mine is coming up, and for the first time in my life I feel disinterest in acknowledging or celebrating in any way.

C - Covid: no longer has my child in its grip, and Hub and I managed to evade it.

D - Dinner: will I cook tonight? Yesterday it was 102, just too hot.

E - Elusive: my motivation to create.

F - Fruit: enjoying this season's cherries, strawberries, blackberries.

G - Gender: an ever-present topic in the household, discussions driven by my child.

H- Household: it needs attention, particularly the cobwebs.

I - Ice Cream: what I had for dinner yesterday.

J - Joints: a little creaky today.

K - Klondike bar: mint chocolate chip, "making squares cool since 1922."

L - Lonely & Letters: feeling it around the edges of my life, writing snail mail to friends.

M - Monterey: new OS upgrade on my Mac, which has nifty features (or so it claims).

N - Nighttime: so enjoying how late it descends this time of year.

O - Observing: a practice I enjoy; right now out my window I observe a crow preening its wings as it sits at the top of a tree.

P - Purging: wanting to clear out bookshelves and closets.

Q - Quilt: trying to decide to let go of one used by my mother in childhood, to which I have no attachment and am tired of storing it in the closet.

R - Reading: voraciously, read 11 books in the last two weeks.

S - Sound: noticing the cries of crows, the tap of the keys, my husband talking in a meeting, my tinnitus ever-present.

T - Temperature: intensely hot weather, bleaching life of energy.

U - Ukraine: still at war, struggling.

V - Voluminous: how I'm feeling lately.

W - Water: lovely, cold, lifegiving; being sure to water trees and potted plants in the heat.

X - Xenolith: I had to look this up; a rock fragment within a rock; X is a difficult letter.

Y - Yes: what to I want to say "yes" to?

Z - Zazen: doing it regularly, and it's hard as ever.

The Meaning of the Tag Lines

Here's an explanation about the taglines -- they are instructions to myself.

In July 2019 I made a commitment to myself to actually do my meditation practice daily. Up to that point, I waffled and paid lip service. I lowered the bar on daily meditation and decided that deliberately pausing for at least one minute counted. But I had to do it every day, and not fool myself. To give myself a visual reminder of this commitment, I had three small silver rings made with one of those statements on each. 

On the inside of each ring is a Buddhist word related to it -- a "secret message" to myself.

• Do your practice - shikantaza, which is the Japanese translation for the Chinese term zazen, which means "just sitting."

• Attention is love - samadhi, a Sanskrit word that means non-distracted awareness. My teacher often says, "What you pay attention to grows."

• Listen to silence - bodhi svaha, the last words of the Heart Sutra, meaning awakening call (I read it's like amen. Of note is that bodhi is a feminine noun.) Meditation is silent awareness. That itself is enlightenment!

I used Insight Timer to meditate, which I find motivating because I can see the dailiness of it, and it reinforces my discipline. And for two years, I did keep my commitment to daily sitting. Then I decided Insight Timer was a crutch and I "should" just be able to sit without it. That experiment failed, and after a few months I decided that whatever supported my practice was acceptable! I am back to daily sitting. A colleague calls it "the holy pause."