Category Archives: pain

New growth

16 Sunday Oct 2016

Posted by in becoming, break out, change, dark, Deliverance, devotion, Loss, nature, pain, poems, poetry, receiving, release, strength, wonder

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After wildfire,
in the enclosing wood
where bend of bough, like tuck of wound, 
cradles loss in darkness- 
please, 
time.
Time to pause, to sense,
for paws and scents to know
of safety’s approach.
For repair,
beneath dust-breath layer after dust-breath layer 
of grey white ash, does come:
New growth.
Pain, when given its due,
becomes not enemy
but ally and
its own necessary offering. 

 

In the dark

24 Wednesday Aug 2016

Posted by in abundance, adventure, becoming, change, courage, crafting, dark, discomfort, learning, listen, movement, mystery, pain, poems, poetry, the road, work

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This cracked and dusty pain rested 

in a distant corner 

season upon season-

never gone,

napping at most-

waiting

for a fresh split

to draw bright blood.

Not to be resolved, or

fixed,

but lived

in

through

with

beyond.

Yet again, it is not mine

alone.

I live it for you, as

you for me.

A new light breaks

in the dark.

Mosaic garden

19 Tuesday Apr 2016

Posted by in becoming, change, death, Expanse, Fire, freedom, gratitude, joy, learning, lovers, loving, movement, mystery, nature, pain, poems, poetry, release, transition, work

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The most dangerous words

she spoke-

“…but he has a really good heart”-

a knife

cutting her own heart out

in sacrifice to his.

A ritual, repeated,

a trance-beat of the drum

thrum pum,

only not for something holy, as imagined,

but for destruction.

The cold knife now shattered-

dropped gleefully from great height-

is planted in pieces in the mosaic garden.

Among lush green and fiery blooms,

metal glints in sun’s eye

as earthly reminder.

The grain mill

27 Sunday Mar 2016

Posted by in abundance, adventure, beauty, becoming, change, courage, crafting, death, devotion, discomfort, fearlessness, Fire, freedom, gratitude, honoring, Infinite, joy, learning, loving, movement, mystery, pain, poems, poetry, release, strength, the road

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Stretches

(or pockets,

or loop-de-loops)

of time

(meaningless time)

in transition

with sensations of being ground

in the grain mill,

where would we be without them?

In a blistering wind

anger rises and hands us the energy

to do away 

with a trail of uselessness hitching

to our backsides.

(Why were we dragging that marriage/house/walrus again?)

Without halting in mad winds

who jostle our brains and

send hairs flying

we’d not have noticed the 872 pounds

of shit

attached to our spines

which

we can now let go of.

Hallelujah for stopping

to strike the match of compassionate flame

and throwing it on

a tinderbox of ancient nonsense.

The best drumming

05 Saturday Mar 2016

Posted by in abundance, beauty, change, courage, death, devotion, discomfort, honoring, learning, listen, Love, loving, movement, mystery, pain, poems, poetry, presence, the road, work

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The sound of the rain

is the best drumming offered my ears 

in longer than can be said.

When telling a friend

I’m proud of you,

despite how patronizing it may sound, and

I recognize your fortitude,

a clear prayer was spoken-

fuck fortitude.

Amen.

In all the wriggling and stretching and pleading

and embracing,

Love’s got way more faces 

than we can imagine.

Ask them to tea

19 Thursday Nov 2015

Posted by in abundance, becoming, change, courage, dark, devotion, discomfort, dread, freedom, gratitude, honoring, learning, listen, movement, pain, poems, poetry, release, strength, wonder

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Shame is a dark and sticky thing.

A hole we never see.

A bottomless, unnameable void.

It snatches us in the unlit alleys of our minds.

Ghastly,

what it thinks it can make us do-

shrink ourselves to the smallest brittleness

of an undesirable,

worthless,

lifeless

outcast

who cannot get anything right.

Immense power we give to one with no hands,

no face,

not even a nose.

And, how lucky we are

to have the nerve

to turn and look,

to sniff,

to get to know

the lurking bogeymen, the paralyzing Medusas,

behind the fence

and around the bend.

Come, come-

Let us ask them to tea

to learn what it is

they really want.

I hold the fire

16 Thursday Oct 2014

Posted by in courage, joy, pain, poems, poetry

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With your hand
touching my skin,
I see-
I hold the fire.
Through dulled eyes of regret
my passion seems especially alluring.
The spark you seek,
another can not give you,
And mine’s neither for sale,
nor being offered.
Your pain, that of faltering flame,
requires your own tender attention
to feed it
with the missing joy you look outward to find.
Tend your own fire,
no one else can.

Darkness courting dawn

07 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by in lovers, pain, quotations, ramblings, work

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“The lover never despairs
For a committed heart
everything is possible”
Rumi

What is it to remind people of the pain they fear by squarely facing your own?

What is it to love someone beyond the limit of their self-love and watch them turn and walk away?

Our love is only as safe as the tender skills of our lovers to love themselves are developed.

Unbounded living begins with that embrace. The profound joy of existence starts with us, the one we’re always with.

We are the best we’ve got. Better learn to be our full, exquisite selves. No other reason to be here, really. For not until we reach that free, present, loving place can we truly be loved, nor can we give the gifts each of us is here to give.

Here’s to healing ourselves.
With a nod of delight to the world, let the real work begin.