Who Cares - What Matters
I came to offer a prayer
and receive an answer for One
But the gates were locked
the doors were securely shut
The Lights, off
I got Nothing
And was Blessed
Anyway
I just never recognized it
y e t. . .
S O M E T I M E S
the easiest way to open a door
is just to
TURN THE KNOB. . .
SOUL-AR ECLIPSES
We never name them
and do all we can to avoid
But they exist
as sure worn old joints ache
and dimmed over cataract eyes
strain to see more clearer
These Soul-ar Eclipses
that delve deeply from partial
to total blackouts
Lurking in shadows
that make believe masks
are more real than what they attempt
to cover
Don’t be fooled by what would
shroud the Soul
It can’t be done
but the illusion of it
will never convince you otherwise
with the inkiness of pain
it paints over
even as it evaporates
S O M E T I M E S
when there are
NO WORDS
you just don’t watch
YOU HEAR
what can’t be
S A I D
and then you
K N O W
NO MATTER WHAT. . .
THERE’S
A DAY AFTER
and days after
A F T E R. . .
(Forgive this amateur cinematographer who took a sorrowful minute long video of what truly can’t fully be capture by any lense or video that having experienced, one truly knows. . .as always thanks for your JUST A MOMENT time; it’s appreciated too, beyond words)
A N D
A N D
A N D
A N D
A N D
A N D
M O S T L Y
Worried
Mary Oliver
I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?
Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?
Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.
Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?
Finally, I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.
Hmmmmmmm’s
They’re mostly unnoticed
severely unrecognized
but they do reside softly in the soul
in a place that doesn’t have secret places
And even though they may be out in the open
they’re never really seen
and even more rarely understood
But always questioned
without the hope of ever being answered
Hmmmmmmm’s
are a holy hymn of their own
never to be sung
or hummed
but painfully heard in endless refrains
Hmmmmmmmmmmm’s always get me thinking and at their worst, WORRY. . .AND YET. . .
Ahaa, AND YET, indeed; the vastness of the
AND YET
has some glorious answers
or at least some well welcomed comfort
hanging out of reach of frosted over trees
but still very much in touch
with what brings comfort to our souls
when everything else seems to steal it. . .
WORRIED. . .Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. . .
H E Y. . .
Wait a Moment
DID YOU. . . ?
Actually about 6 minutes of moments
with a severely powerful, undeniable
TRUTH:
1 out of 1 of us will die;
though we know this brutal truth,
few ACT
as if this is a bonafide truth
and we live, well,
like we’ll live forever. . .
THE SECRET:
Life gets Lived best
when every moment is lived
as if it might be the last
or better
as if it’ll never be lived again. . .
WAIT A MOMENT:
ONE OUT OF ONE OF US DIES
. . .and. . .
LIFE
GOES
ON
R E A L L Y
(uhhhhhhhh. . .that’s a STATEMENT not a QUESTION)
Holidays always have a way of spelling
H-O -M- E
in all of the ways we not only know but experience it best. . .
Pssssssssssssssssssst:
The best Holidays are the ones that
A R E N ‘ T
but we MAKE
(often on the spot)
without any specific date on a calendar
H O M E
KEEP BRINGING IT
KEEP BEING IT
KEEP GIFTING IT
I M A G I N E
W A I T
A
MOMENT
STEP BACK
and just take another look at things, not only to see how they look
but how they actually are from just another simple perspective,
Y O U R S
“I was in darkness, but I took three steps and found myself in paradise. The first step was a good thought, the second, a good word; and the third, a good deed.”
• Friedrich Nietzsche
HEY, WAIT A MOMENT
STEP BACK
(see. . .EXPERIENCE things in another way)
“Until I die, I will be knitting,” Matsouka said. Her knitting needles clicked through her expert fingers, her nails painted red. “It brings me joy to share them.” Since she took up knitting in the 1990s, Matsouka has easily made over 3,000 scarves, her daughters estimate.
In the hallway by the door, shopping bags filled with her latest creations await their new home. A knitted patchwork blanket is thrown over the sofa where she spends her days.In the beginning, the scarves were gifted to friends. As stock grew, they were donated to children’s shelters across Greece. Then, through acquaintances, they reached children in Bosnia and Ukraine. The latest batch of 70 went to a refugee camp near Athens this winter, via the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR.
“The fact that we give them away gives her strength,” said her daughter Angeliki.
Matsouka knits one scarf a day, now with small imperfections. Her vision is impaired and she suffers from bouts of severe facial pain, a condition known as trigeminal neuralgia.
“It’s the happiness I get from giving,” she said, sitting beside a big blue bag brimming with yarn.
HOW’S THAT FOR SOME KNITTED UP LOVE. . .
KNOWING YOUR
W H Y
AT ANY AGE
IS THE GREATEST SECRET
TO NOT JUST GROWING OLD
BUT GROWING FOREVER
…just sayin’
I start my mornings with a cold plunge. For three minutes I immerse myself in approximately 44 degree water for three minutes.
The health benefits are manifold and it’s worth looking up.
However, health is just the way I rationalize it. You see, at 5:45 AM, 25° outside, the last thing I want to do is step naked into my cold garage and subject myself to freezing water. Therefore, making the choice to do the difficult, dreaded, extremely uncomfortable thing, and DOING IT, is a metaphor. I’m proving myself to myself. I am creating a habit of doing the hard stuff so it becomes muscle memory. I want my natural inclination to be that I just automatically do the difficult stuff first.
I am showing myself that I WILL make the tough choices, have the difficult conversation, stand up in the face of hate and adversity, embrace discomfort, and push my own limits.
It’s my daily reminder that the best things in life rarely come from my comfort zone.
I’m wondering if I’m the odd-man-out in choosing to doing something difficult every day as a personal challenge and metaphor, or if you do that in some way… set your pace, affirm your standard of excellence, prove yourself to yourself?
So. . .
Up for taking the
P L U N G E
to change
to be different
to brrrrrr(EAK)
out of your
COMFORT ZONE. . .
I don’t know my Mike Rayburn personally, but only know him through the National Speakers Association globally. When I read his post, it made me start thinking how much I do in my comfort zone and rarely what I do out of my comfort zone and taking a plunge in cold water at 5:15 in the morning would definitely be out of my comfort zone, but not comparably to the things that every day I have a chance to do out of my comfort zone that would take much more courage than a cold morning plunge; How about you?
Where’s your comfort zone and how much time do you spend in it and what kind of caring catalyst things do you think you could do and would even be possible if just for three minutes a day you took the plunge and did something out of your comfort zone?
I guess there’s only one way to find out and it ain’t to dip your toe into the cold water
like without hesitation,
jumping in head first. . .
R E A D Y
S E T
GO