Meeting my Own Grief

Meeting my grief, even if only halfway, sucks

the breath right out of my lungs.

Suddenly my bra is too tight.

My counselor said, look at that young girl’s stories

with compassion (I unhook the bra).

How to step into the gravity field of my own longing. *

I dream the river is rising. The big car rounds

the bend, makes a wide turn to avoid

splashing water at the crest of the hill.

I round up the kids, get us to higher ground,

look for a shortcut over that highway.

But a man says, only turnpikes, clover leafs,

You can’t get there on foot.

Swallow my grief? Or swim right through it?

I step into the river.

poem by me
*quote from David Whyte

Conversations with God

Love this book.

Here's an excerpt I particularly like:

"The most loving person is the person who is self-centered.

People think, "If I can just love others, they will love me. Then I will be lovable and I can love me." Deep down we've been lead to believe we are bad, unworthy, missing some essential ingredient and we have to behave well to be loved.

...Your first relationship must be with your Self. You must first learn to honour and cherish and love your Self. You must first see yourself as worthy before you can see another as worthy.

Honour your feelings means to honour the self. Then you can honour the feelings of another. Have the feeling  and then you step back from the rage,  upset, disgust - you disown them as not who you want to be. You try them out until you realize you don't want to do that anymore - it's no longer who you want to be."

Keeping Things Whole

In a field
I am the absence
of field.

This is always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

- Mark Strand

Stepping Westward

Denise Levertov

What is green in me
darkens, muscadine.

If woman is inconstant,
good, I am faithful to

ebb and flow, I fall
in season and now

is a time of ripening.
If her part

is to be true,
a north star,

good, I hold steady
in the black sky

and vanish by day,
yet burn there

in blue or above
quilts of cloud.

There is no savor
more sweet, more salt

than to be glad to be
what, woman,

and who, myself,
I am, a shadow

that grows longer as the sun
moves, drawn out

on a thread of wonder.
If I bear burdens

they begin to be remembered
as gifts, goods, a basket

of bread that hurts
my shoulders but closes me

in fragrance, I can
eat as I go.

To all my women friends, who carry that basket, and bear those gifts.
I learned this poem in a poetry class with Fran Quinn, in New York City several years ago, in which we all learned the value of learning a poem by heart, and making it our own.

Welcome Change of Seasons

in our bodies we feel the wind get colder
in our bodies we see the sun shining in a thousand mirrored flashes of light
on the water
in our bodies we feel the rain grunting into earth
in our bodies we feel the gorgeous colours reeling in the trees
in our bodies we feel the fall
in our bodies we feel the turning over

let it shift you
let it shift your gears
let it shift you into whatever fall brings you
butternut squash soup and mushrooms
zuccini flowers and pumpkins
the end of black eyed susans and impatience
the comfort of blankets and scarves and fireplaces
let it soothe you

that the circle keeps turning

welcome fall

Wisdom for women: Spring Retreat Collage by Suzy

Wisdom for women: Spring Retreat Collage by Suzy

Spring Retreat Collage by Suzy

the collage above was done at our Spring Retreat at H-OM yoga studio in April 2009 by Suzy, one of our participants.

She is a photographer, and she added the words in digitally after the fact.

Gorgeous artistic reminder of our need for self-care and kindness.

musemother