The point is to turn your grief into love. The roses are helping you find grace.
Holly Lynn Payne
Resonances…
Watery abstract of the Mississippi River, Almonte, Ontario
People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking.
I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.
Joseph Campbell
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Blue lake and rocky shore…
Blue lake and rocky shore
I will return once more…
From Land of the Silver Birch
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A life of their own…
For years upon years upon years,
I dreamed the days away.
As I stared out the window of my speeding train,
the images of my life rushed by in a bright stream,
pulsing, flowing, exploding with colour and light
never stopping really,
ever.
There were always words there too, in my mind,
but they fluttered in and out,
trying so hard to make me believe them.
I couldn’t love them enough, though,
to give them a life of their own.
Until now.
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How to eat a poem…
Don’t be polite.Bite in.
Pick it up with your fingers and lick the juice that
may run down your chin.
It is ready and ripe now, whenever you are.
You do not need a knife or fork or spoon or plate or napkin or tablecloth.
For there is no coreor stem
or rind
or pit
or seed
or skin
to throw away.
Eve Merriam
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What I’m loving right now…
I love that Labour Day weekend is here and I don’t have to go back to school. Not that I didn’t love school — I was a good student and I loved learning — but elementary and high school were way too regimented for my free spirit. CEGEP and university were where I really soared.
I love that I can continue learning and discovering and creating and practising skills so many years later, but now at my own pace and free of the pressure of judgement and comparison. This time is truly a gift.
Nothing pleases me as much as a new recipe to try…a new taste combination…something I have never thought of before. This week it was melon jam, inspired by a crop of cantaloupe that we couldn’t eat fast enough. The colour is sublime, but I wish I could give you all a taste too!
Rebecca Solnit On being a “bad Buddhist” … “Buddhism is your guiding star, not the planet you live on necessarily every day.”
Kim Manley Ort on Pivotal Photos I read this and immediately related to what Kim described as a “pivotal” photo. They’re “the ones that made me see my life, photography, and even myself differently. They’re not necessarily the best, but they sent me in a new direction.” If you want to understand more about your photography and yourself, go through your images … I think your “pivotal photos” will jump out at you. Some of my pivotal images
Thank you…
I want to sincerely thank all those who took time to comment on my recent attempts at poetry, with so much encouragement. A kind reader said she found my poem “thought-provoking and relatable” which made me very happy, although a bit surprised, since I was hoping it might be…
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I listen between the words…
I listen between the words
you speak.
As you mouth the story,
a flutter of fear
a glimmer of gladness
a shiver of sorrow
all hover like hummingbirds in the air.
This is really the truth of your life right now, isn’t it?
Ever-changing, illusive, elusive.
Mine too.
I wrote this after thinking about how often we utter words to each other that have little to do with what we’re experiencing at a deeper level — in our guts, our hearts, our souls.
As Gibran observed: The reality of the other person lies not in what he reveals to you, but what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says, but rather to what he does not say.
To do this, we have to slow right down, and become very curious about the quick small signals that flash on and off in conversation — signals we so easily miss when we are caught up with our own image and persona. Recognizing that our stories are just that — stories — can break down barriers and reveal what is common to us all.
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The window through which you look…
There is a beautiful complexity of growth within the human soul. In order to glimpse this, it is helpful to visualize the mind as a tower of windows. Sadly, many people remain trapped at the one window, looking out every day at the same scene in the same way. Real growth is experienced when you draw back from that one window, turn, and walk around the inner tower of the soul and see all the different windows that await your gaze. Through these different windows, you can see new vistas of possibility, presence, and creativity. Complacency, habit, and blindness often prevent you from feeling your life.
So much depends on the frame of vision — the window through which you look.
John O’Donohue from Anam Cara
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Poetry is my language…
Poetry is my language.
I do not care for beginnings and endings —
it is the present of the present I cherish,
and your truth buried in a picture of the still moment
that makes me thrill as if on a ride
ever deeper into the fathomless.
I said I was taking a blogging break, and I am…But I did not expect that a poem would come to me in these last days of summer that captures how I feel about photography and poetry. So, in the spirit of spontaneity and inconsistency, I offer it to you…
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Every gardener knows…
Heirloom tomatoes — Black Krim variety
…Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen: reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always, for every gardener knows that after the digging, after the planting, after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.
Marge Piercy
I’m taking a bit of a blogging and social media break this August and enjoying the remaining summer and fruits of our labours. Thank you so much for dropping in to visit.
Sherrygaley.com 