Blue moons

Blue moons bookend January. Two full moons in one month. Auspicious and daunting or momentous and uplifting?

In our frailty it is easy to drift toward the daunting. “Only the healthy find relief in heavenly arrays,” we bemoan. “I am in too much pain.” Perhaps even too much pain to go outside and look up.

In our frailty, let’s look in our deep darkness to catch sight of a glint that redirects our gaze upward. The blue moons are not either daunting or uplifting. They are both and. As is our pain. Hope you get to step outside inside tonight.

renascence at the new year

Solstice 2017

New Year 2018

…It is not strange though it is mysterious that our “New Year” comes at the darkest time in the seasonal cycle. When there is personal darkness, where there is pain to overcome, when we are forced to renew ourselves against all the odds, the psychic energy required simply to survive has tremendous force, as great as that of a bulb pushing up through the icy ground in spring, so after the overcoming, there is extra energy, a flood of energy that can go into creation.

May Sarton 1912-1995

Equinox, Rosh Hashanah and a beloved's birthday

God let there be awareness
where ignorance now prevails.

Scatter our long hidden fears
with your bright beam of courage.

And knit fine cloaks of your love
to shelter us and the world.

                   

by Debbie Aliya

from  Prayers for Healing, 365 Blessings, Poems, and Meditations edited by Maggie Oman. 

Keeping the Sabbath

Why is it that when I am sitting in nature I am flooded with the feelings I long for when I'm sitting in church?

Emily Dickinson
Keeping the Sabbath

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church –

I keep it, staying at Home –

With a Bobolink for a Chorister –

And an Orchard, for a Dome –

Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice –

I, just wear my Wings –

And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,

Our little Sexton – sings.

God preaches, a noted Clergyman –

And the sermon is never long,

So instead of getting to Heaven, at last –

I’m going, all along.

Happy Birthday, Vincent

“It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.”
― Vincent Van Gogh

What crisis?

Approaching 60 degrees on the west porch for Sunday mugs of tea at 4 PM in late February. FEBRUARY! A lovely interlude but clearly something is wrong. The ice is completely out of the farm lake which is unheard of; four inches of snow two days ago also gone. And disavowing that something is wrong was our new President's first official act. I thought then I had identified a cause to strap on a shield for. But then the refugees, beloved brethren of the very same planet. Now the press. What crisis next? And which one will ignite my most fiery passion? [It's strategic scattering, neh?]

Solidarity

It is no miracle our mood is high.
Courage is in the air in bracing whiffs

These two lines are from Robert Frost’s poem Dedication. He wrote it for the inauguration of John F Kennedy. The glare of bright sunlight on that winter day and Frost’s failing eyesight (I believe he was 87 at the time) prevented him from reading it aloud. He recited another of his poems from memory. 

Yesterday Donald Trump was inaugurated and I was attached to the radio listening for high mood and courage in the air. I was disappointed. Last night I even ventured into television viewing, a rare activity for me, to check again. I heard a pundit say, “If you wanted poetry there was another candidate for you.”

So today we walk,
Bracing courage in the fog.
Mindfulness.  Kindness.