October 1st, 2017

October 1st, 2017


Affirmation:  I am efficient and creative in my work.

I let myself receive the healing I need.

I take timely right action and engage in correct conduct.


Word of the Day: milquetoast (n):

(sometimes initial capital letter) a very timid, unassertive, spineless person, especially one who is easily dominated or intimidated: a milquetoast who's afraid to ask for a raise.

Gordian knot (n):

1: an intricate problem; especially : a problem insoluble in its own terms

2 : a knot tied by Gordius, king of Phrygia, held to be capable of being untied only by the future ruler of Asia, and cut by Alexander the Great with his sword

irenic (adj):

tending to promote peace or reconciliation; peaceful or conciliatory.

Too Happy, You Could Not Sleep Last Night

I am the slave who frees the master.

I teach the teacher.

I am essence born freshly every day.

I built the ancient civilizations.

I brush medicine on fading eyesight.

I relight intelligence.

In grief, I am pitch black darkness.

On a feast day, the children's excitement.

I am the ground who fills the sky's brain

with fiery lightning-love, air, wind.

You could not sleep last night,

too happy with how I was remembering you.

No one is to blame that sometimes

I am a scandal, or obviously unfair.

The surface is rusting over.

I had better go into silence.

I am breathing too close

to this mirror's face.

Meadowsounds

We have come again to that knee of seacoast

no ocean can reach.

Tie together all human intellects.

They will not stretch to here.

The sky bears its neck so beautifully,

but gets no kiss. Only a taste.

This is the food that everyone wants,

wandering the wilderness.

Please give us your manna and quail.

We are here again with the beloved. This air,

a shout. These meadowsounds, an astonishing myth.

We have come into the presence of the one

who was never apart from us. When someone chews

sugarcane, he is wanting this sweetness.

Inside the globe the soul roars like thunder.

And now silence, my strict tutor.

I will not try to talk about Shams.

Language cannot touch that presence.

Deliberation (2)

Constant slow movement teaches us

to keep working like a small creek

that stays clear, that does not stagnate,

but finds a way through numerous

details, deliberately.

Deliberation is born of joy

like a bird from an egg.

Birds do not resemble eggs.

Think how different the hatching out is.

A white leathery snake egg, a sparrow's egg,

a quince seed, an apple seed.

Very different things look similar at one stage.

These leaves, our bodily personalities,

seem identical, but the globe

of soul fruit we make,

each is elaborately

unique.

_____

On Loneliness

A large part of the pain associated with loneliness has to do with secrecy and hiding, with feeling like we must conceal or mask our vulnerabilities, to cover-up scars, to tuck ugliness away. But why are we hiding? Why do we feel shame about having failed? Why are we feel embarrassment about our desires and our longings? Why is there this need to constantly be at the top of our game, to achieve, to strive, and to always feel good - about and with ourselves and others?

In the words of Olivia Laing: "I don't believe the cure for loneliness is meeting someone, not necessarily. I think it's about two things: learning how to befriend yourself and understanding that many of the things that seem to afflict us as individuals are in fact a result of larger forces of stigma and exclusion, which can and should be resisted."

- How will you be a friend to yourself today?

- How will you integrate self-friendship into your daily life and as a practice?

-  What are some ways in which larger forces of stigma and exclusion are impacting you as an individual? How can - and how will - you empower yourself to resist and fight against these forces?