Life — Page 6

The Red Shoe

July 25, 2018 by Barbara

[From a Poetry Workshop on Ekphrastic* writing given by Pauletta Hansel. The poetry challenge was to find a picture on the walls of The Essex Art Studios where the workshop was being held that called to us, and write a poem. Here is mine.]

“Red Shoe”
Kevin T. Kelly
Serigraph 19″x19″
©2017

There was a time before…
before the guy selling lettuce
said “I don’t think of you
as an old person.”

A time when grey didn’t
dominate the landscape.
Mirrors meant a quick
combing, maybe some lipstick.

There was a time before
shoes became practical.
Memories burn of a time
when people noticed.

Where anticipation
of a steamy night
was just life.
There was a time before…

*Ekphrastic: This is a word from the Greek which means “one art form commenting on another.”

Filed Under: Emotion, Life, Love

Acceptance or Need vs. Love

July 12, 2018 by Barbara

I need you
to love me!
The death knell of
of relationship.

It closes off
seeing the other,
kills the curiosity
the joy in difference.

Needing hardens
the heart already
damaged by wounds
long forgotten

Needing is fear in
disguise, a spiritual
hole we look to be filled
by someone out there.

Accepting the loss
the familial love
we never had
frees us

Only then
can I love you
without demands that
you be anything but who your are.

Filed Under: Fear or Courage, Life, Love, We are creators Tagged With: family

Whose life?

June 19, 2018 by Barbara

It has a will to live
popping up everywhere
in the lawn

light yellow-green
calling attention
to itself.

I pull them out
but more pop up
not to be defeated.

One pull had good roots.
It sits in a pot
on my counter.

I say it’s to identify it.
But maybe it’s just
a symbol of Life.

Something that
wants to be,
that has its own world.

Parallel lives
driven by a life force
seeking expression.

Filed Under: Life, Oneness, We are creators

Embracing it all

June 13, 2018 by Barbara

I didn’t expect the anger
Memorial Day
I finally got it
I was alone
I didn’t like it.

I was surprised
thought I was done
moving forward,
instead was pushing
down what I hated.

Anger
irrational
beneath me.
I removed myself
slightly, from life

Denial can’t coexist
with life, pulls you away.
I starting dropping things
worrying about decisions
blind to the growing congestion.

Until I could feel….I’m angry,
and just let it be – no more, no less.
Experiencing life
simply as it is,
Enjoying the ride.

Filed Under: Emotion, Fear or Courage, Life Tagged With: anger

Grace

May 5, 2018 by Barbara

This poem/prayer came to me in my meditation after a struggle with that part of me that always wants to get it right, the “I’m supposed to be better than this…” part of me. Each line speaks to me though they aren’t words I would have chosen.

Receive!
Back strong.
Heart open.
No begging.
No collapsing in.
Grace flows.
Just because.
You are His.

I say it when I start to forget how blessed I am. I say it when I remember my intention to keep my heart open to Divine guidance and then to actually follow it. I say it when I feel myself start to physically slump, caving in on myself. I say it when the old “I’m not good enough” belief vies for my attention.

I share this as a reminder. We always get what we need often in surprising forms.

Filed Under: Heart's wisdom, Life, Love, Oneness, We are creators Tagged With: grace, Heart, Love

Emergence

May 2, 2018 by Barbara

No longer used
his bookcase is gone.
Space waiting.

The futility of clinging.
Change
has happened.

“Peaceful Form” by Thomas A. Yano

Life’s flow
rearranges things…
Always creating anew.

The emerging Self
begins to surface.
Found treasure.

Filed Under: Choice, Emotion, Life, Love, We are creators Tagged With: change, Life, Self, treasure

Between

April 16, 2018 by Barbara

Words don’t comfort me
My sense of self is fading
My mind stalls
Fear of rejection,
need for approval
seep out in the confusion.

I know this is a test.
Giving up or standing
in the truth of who
I am beyond conditioning,
beyond the fears ,
beyond the comfortable.

Trust ….I never used to
Now I do but still…….
I’m restless
How hard can it be
to rewire a brain? a heart?
a life?

A period of dormancy – a seed waiting:
“It turns out that there is no “right” or “wrong” way to grow into a hundred-year-old tree: there are only ways that work and ways that do not.

A seed knows how to wait. Most seeds wait for at least a year before starting to grow; a cherry seed can wait for a hundred years with no problem. What exactly each seed is waiting for is known only to that seed. Some unique trigger-combination of temperature-moisture-light and many other things is required to convince a seed to jump off the deep end and take its chance—to take its one and only chance to grow…

…When you are in the forest, for every tree that you see, there are at least a hundred more trees waiting in the soil, alive and fervently wishing to be…
from “Lab Girl “ by Hope Jehren

Thanks to Improvised Life for this reminder: https://www.improvisedlife.com/2016/06/13/the-secret-treasure-within-lab-girl/

Filed Under: Choice, Fear or Courage, Life, We are creators

Nine months

March 3, 2018 by Barbara

In some traditions
Nine is completion.
For the Hebrews
nine is a symbol of truth.
When multiplied, nine
always reproduces itself.

For me, nine has meant
a shift…to what I don’t know.
But something has changed.
I still want him beside me,
so much I can feel him.
He grows inside me.

Still, something has changed,
beyond my knowing.
I stay alert for clues, seek
guidance in the mundane
listen to the whispers of truth
floating on the wind.

Alert, aware, curious
nine months makes a baby
nine months ends a cycle
opening to what is and
what is to come –
nine, the number of magic.

You can feel a shift before you can define it or understand it. I’ve learned when you feel, the key is to pay attention. Stay in the heart/body, away from your head. What a strange journey life is. How unpredictable is the way grief unfolds and shape shifts. And how mystical is rebirth.

Source: https://mysticalnumbers.com/number-9/

Filed Under: Life, Love, Steps, We are creators