(for National Poetry Month)
1.Will the hungry ox stand in the field and not eat
of the sweet grass?
Will the owl bite off its own wings?
Will the lark forget to lift its body into the air or
forget to sing?
Will the rivers run upstream?
~
Behold, I say--behold
the reliability and the finery and the teachings
of this gritty earth gift.
~
2.
Eat bread and understand comfort.
Drink water and understand delight.
Visit the garden where the scarlet trumpets
are opening their bodies for the hummingbirds
who are drinking the sweetness, who are
thrillingly gluttonous.
~
For one thing leads to another. Soon you will notice how stones shine underfoot.
Eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in.
~
And someone's face, whom you love, will be as a star
both intimate and ultimate,
and you will be both heart-shaken and respectful.
~
And you will hear the air itself, like a beloved, whisper:
oh, let me, for a while longer, enter the two
beautiful bodies of your lungs.
~
3.
The witchery of living
is my whole conversation
with you, my darlings.
All I can tell you is what I know.
~
Look, and look again.
This world is not just a little thrill for the eyes.
~
It's more than bones.
It's more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse.
It's more than the beating of a single heart.
It's praising.
It's giving until the giving feels like receiving.
You have a life--just imagine that!
You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe
still another.
~
4.
Someday I am going to ask my friend Paulus,
the dancer, the potter,
to make me a begging bowl
which I believe
my soul needs.
~
And if I come to you,
to the door of your comfortable house
with unwashed clothes and unclean fingernails,
will you put something into it?
~
I would like to take this chance.
I would like to give you this chance.
~
5.
We do one thing or another; we stay the same, or we
change.
Congratulations, if
you have changed.
~
6.
Let me ask you this.
Do you also think that beauty exists for some
fabulous reason?
~
And, if you have not been enchanted by this adventure--
your life--
what would do for you?
~
7.
What I loved in the beginning, I think, was mostly myself.
Never mind that I had to, since somebody had to.
That was many years ago.
Since then I have gone out from my confinements,
though with difficulty.
~
I mean the ones that thought to rule my heart.
I cast them out; I put them on the mush pile.
They will be nourishment somehow (everything is nourishment
somehow or another).
~~
And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.
I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.
I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned,
I have become younger.
~
And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?
Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.
~
by Mary Oliver
Tarot of the week: I drew two cards, since the first was reversed: 3 Pentacles. As mentioned in a previous post, this card stands for my occupation, at least in part, standing on a step stool, setting up a yet another window display. Reversed indicates that with the budget cuts coming up in the new fiscal year (July), I might possibly be downsized from my position. Since what I do feels custom made for me, that would be an unfortunate thing indeed.
So I also drew an upright card, I- The Magician, a more promising card, telling me that whatever happens, creative power is still on hand. There are at least 5-6 people I know who could embody the archetype of the Magician, but this week it was my pup who surprised me with a most magical gift. She was digging in the yard, and unearthed what looked like a simple tin band, but turned out to be an exquisitely sculpted pinky ring, set with a blue topaze or aquamarine. I used to have a similar ring, but lost the stone, so I discarded the band. Now I have it back again, an even more beautiful ring - Brava, Sophia!
In the 3 Pentacles, people are often shown working in a group, although some decks (s/a Ciro Marchetti's) show the artist working alone. The Magician, true to my own modus, works independently. Using hir resources well, the mage creates and manifests both the useful and the beautiful. All of us have this power within us, each an every one of us has an inspirational muse to guide us in ways that help each other and enhance each others' lives. Most people when they see this card maybe think of a stage magician, a wiccan priest or a sorcerer. Or, like the Temperance card shown earlier, an Alchemist. Given some of the songs that are popping into my head right now, it (and Temperance as well) can also represent council to live in a way called Hozho by the Navajo:
Tarot of the week: I drew two cards, since the first was reversed: 3 Pentacles. As mentioned in a previous post, this card stands for my occupation, at least in part, standing on a step stool, setting up a yet another window display. Reversed indicates that with the budget cuts coming up in the new fiscal year (July), I might possibly be downsized from my position. Since what I do feels custom made for me, that would be an unfortunate thing indeed.
So I also drew an upright card, I- The Magician, a more promising card, telling me that whatever happens, creative power is still on hand. There are at least 5-6 people I know who could embody the archetype of the Magician, but this week it was my pup who surprised me with a most magical gift. She was digging in the yard, and unearthed what looked like a simple tin band, but turned out to be an exquisitely sculpted pinky ring, set with a blue topaze or aquamarine. I used to have a similar ring, but lost the stone, so I discarded the band. Now I have it back again, an even more beautiful ring - Brava, Sophia!
In the 3 Pentacles, people are often shown working in a group, although some decks (s/a Ciro Marchetti's) show the artist working alone. The Magician, true to my own modus, works independently. Using hir resources well, the mage creates and manifests both the useful and the beautiful. All of us have this power within us, each an every one of us has an inspirational muse to guide us in ways that help each other and enhance each others' lives. Most people when they see this card maybe think of a stage magician, a wiccan priest or a sorcerer. Or, like the Temperance card shown earlier, an Alchemist. Given some of the songs that are popping into my head right now, it (and Temperance as well) can also represent council to live in a way called Hozho by the Navajo:
Walk in Beauty.
May it ever be so.
