Follow your Bliss

I first heard this in Joseph Campbell's book, the Power of Myth, but I also have a Zena Moon candle that has this lovely phrase and the following quote:

Don't ask what the world needs.
Ask what makes you come alive and go do it.
Because what the world needs is people
who have come alive.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Lovely reader, what makes you come alive?

musemother

Burying the dead twice

unlocks emotions tucked away
stuns the feet into stumbling along
with no understanding.
Normal gets lost when the other half is gone,
one side of your body goes numb,
the harness empty where a pair was.
How to relearn walking working waking
alone in bed at 2:00 am,
no sound of breath or snore to wake you
to comfort or discomfit you,
relearning snow tires, car rentals, traveling
without a navigator, groceries, hammer and nail.

To keep company with the dead, listen to their prayers
whining at the door, like a dog wanting in.
I’m afraid we’re all in the same boat.
No leaving before it hits shore.
No staying past your time,
very little say in the matter.

The coming and going of each breath
is a blessing, he said.
Count your blessings.


Jennifer Boire

A Thousand Kisses Deep

Don't you love Leonard Cohen's voice? so deep and passionate, so wise and admitting of vulnerability. Hearing a poem read is So much better....

This one,just found on Facebook youtube link, is also a song. The words alone are very poignant and moving.



Love the day!
Jenn/musemother

Song for the Heart: Mount Royal Park

Tonight I call to my heart to return,

to give flesh to the dry beanlike

thing in its place. I dance looking out

over the mountain at dusk, small lights

bright on the hillside – a whole city turning

dark – close my eyes and sing to it,

feel a flutter of wing beats,

like spring returning. One star sighted

just above the horizon. Feet planted on

wooden floor  feel   small   yet part

of   sky  stars  mountain    breathing

rocking on soles of my feet.

Outside the window, streetlamps

line Park Avenue like pilgrims on their way

to the cross, light.

In Mount Royal park, an angel

spreads her wings over the dark.

Jennifer Boire

Inspiring quote for today

The boat I travel in is called Surrender. My two oars are instant
forgiveness and gratitude — complete gratitude for the gift of life. I
am thankful for the experience of this life, for the opportunity to
dance. I get angry, I get mad, but as soon as I remind myself to put my
oars in the water, I forgive.
 
I serve. I do the dance I must. I plant trees, but I am not the doer of
this work. I am the facilitator, the instrument. I am one part of the
symphony. I know there is an overall scheme to this symphony that I
cannot understand. In some way, we are each playing our own part. It is
not for me to judge or criticize the life or work of another. All I know
is that this is my dance. I would plant trees today even if I knew for a
certainty that the world would end tomorrow.  
Balbir Mathur

The Real Work

It may be that when we no longer know what to do

we have come to our real work,

And that when we no longer know which way to go

we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

-Wendell Berry

Here by Grace Paley

Here I am in the garden laughing
an old woman with heavy breasts
and a nicely mapped face

how did this happen
well that's who I wanted to be

at last   a woman
in the old style   sitting
stout thighs apart under
a big skirt   grandchild sliding
on   off my lap   a pleasant
summer perspiration

that's my old man across the yard
he's talking to the meter reader
he's telling him the world's sad story
how electricity is oil or uranium
and so forth  I tell my grandson
run over to your grandpa   ask him
to sit beside me for a minute   I
am suddenly exhausted by my desire
to kiss his sweet explaining lips