Poem: A Therapy Hour

As a therapist, this reads true. It's not a script. For me, the poem evokes the essence of being a therapist, meeting whatever the client brings, staying present and authentic. Of course therapy also involves deeper responses, examinations of beliefs and thought patterns, skill practice.

Click to enlarge for better reading.

Poem: Little Hymn

Click the poem to enlarge it for reading. 

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

Recognition

Recognition

Playing truth or dare an hour before daylight
among the bean trees, I encounter a stranger at the gate.
When I ask what she is doing, she replies,
"Composing a life." She seeks to answer the question,
"Is there no place on earth for me?"

I ask how she will know the answer, and she says
she will track her progress in the stone diaries.
She has an amazing grace, this girl with a pearl earring
wearing borrowed finery, and I want to know more.
I ask with an open heart, open mind, what it is she seeks.

She wants to understand the savage inequalities,
to have a reckoning with the fact that she lives
in a world where the poisonwood bible increasingly
becomes the rule of law. She wants to help people
to stop running with scissors and enjoy the perfection
of the morning.

We are surrounded by landscapes of wonder, if we
would only make the effort to see differently.

She in turn asks what I seek. I reply that I want
the courage to be, to cast a slender thread
of hope into the sea, the sea of humanity.
I want to plant new seeds of contemplation,
embrace the grace in dying. I want to
know the mystery of tying rocks to clouds.

From her angle of repose under oleander,
jacaranda, the magnificent spinster listens.
I tell her she has a beautiful mind, that
I can see the molecules of emotion swirling in her.
She tells me that I am a succulent wild woman,
that I have zen under a wing. She reminds me
that art is a way of knowing and solitude
a return to the self.

Then we part, blessing each other with traveling
mercies, with a promise to meet again
at the healing circle in Gilead.

                                               -Kathryn Harper

She Said Hello

                                    She Said Hello

                                    She said 'Hello, I’m digging

                                    sand nests' and handed

                                    out shovels.

                                    Seagulls lurked nearby

                                    shouting manic laughter

                                    keeping an eye open

                                    for unattended food.

                                    Farther along the beach,

                                    six shrieking dervishes

                                    flirt with the water’s edge.

                                    And the kelp garlands

                                    strewn across rocks

                                    host a caucus of starlings.

                                                        -Kathryn Harper

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. 

Comes And Goes (In Waves)

This one's for the lonely, the one's that seek and find
Only to be let down, time after time
This one's for the torn down, the experts at the fall
Come on friends, get up now, you're not alone at all
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
And this part was for her and this part was for her
This part was for her, does she remember?
It comes and goes in waves, I
This one's for the faithless, the ones that are surprised
They're only where they are now, regardless of their fight
This one's for believing, if only for its sake
Come on friends, get up now, love is to be made
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
And this part was for her and this part was for her
This part was for her, does she remember?
It comes and goes in waves, I
Am only led to wonder why
It comes and goes in waves, I
Am only led to wonder why
Why I try
This is for the ones who stand
For the ones who try again
For the ones who need a hand
For the ones who think they can
It comes and goes in waves, I
Am only led to wonder why
It comes and goes in waves, I
Am only led to wonder why
Why I fly

Emotional Education

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

Moving to Hope from Hopelessness (3 ways)

Desert People

 "I think there are desert people and then there is everyone else. It takes something specific to flourish in the desert, to find its beauty obvious, to take root and weather the dry heat, the epic and swift flash floods. Only certain people figure out how to blossom in a landscape that wears its bones on the outside, where scorpions wander in the front door and tarantulas have migrating seasons." - E.A. Hanks

AMORIRI (Official Video)

Shamanic, animistic, primal, intense, and gorgeous. Discovered while at Ecstatic Dance. A shorter version is in rotation on my music service.

 

A Lil Facebook Memory

I decided, at the beginning of January, that I wanted to remove some of my presence on Facebook, and all my photos. FB has a feature where it serves up memories on particular days. I occasionally take screenshots before I delete from the platform. This one is from 13 years ago. I drink alcohol infrequently. This was one of those times. 

To All Those Seniors Soon to Graduate

 

Music Meditation

These are links to songs that, listened to in sequence, are a form of meditation. I'm providing Youtube links because I don't know if you use Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, etc. Youtube inserts ads in the middle of songs (unless you pay), so I recommend using your favorite service that won't impede listening. 

They have been on rotation on my song list this year.

Inspiration Drive: https://youtu.be/qq_V4NY9K24 

Gajumaru: https://youtu.be/qTse2hkPxYU 

Stillness is Waiting: https://youtu.be/KsiQmZWq2j0 

Total time: 12 minutes 24 seconds

True Joy

 “This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. Being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.” — George Bernard Shaw

In Sunlight

Go Outside and Play