Is It Not Enough?

Is it not enough

for Grover

to sway upon a floor

of my thighs and knees?

Is it not enough

the bird sounds and airplane low loud hum

with the door open?

Is it not enough

without a plan for exercise

or dinner

or tonight?

this pressure to self-care the weekend away

“Is it not enough?” Someone of me asks and

“It is never enough,” someone else of me proclaims.

But someone else of me, in his fear,

decides this cat's cuddling motion

is a waste of my present

Momentous unreality

Impersonal truth

Oh, the nourishment of

"It has always been enough."

Dear Safety

Dear Safety,
      I want nothing to do with you. I throw off your constrictive, binding shackles in order to pursue a fuller life. A life worth living. A life worth losing. I don't want your fat steady paychecks or white picket fences. You can keep your stability and predictability and I'll take my adventure and purposefulness. Come after me with worry and I'll explain that you only need to worry if you won't let me go. Then    you     can     worry.
      Clip the wings of a bird because you're afraid it'll fly away and won't come back, and you'll never know how high it can soar. Deny it of it's inherent need to fly and it will forever resent you. Put it in a cage, tell it it's pretty, and only take it out when it's convenient and it will never sing for you.
      Safety, do not mistake my rejection of you as a fleeting infatuation with recklessness. No, I indeed also reject such a temptation. I am leaving you behind because you lie. You tell me that if I cling to you I will be happy and satisfied and better off. No more am I enchanted by these blissfully empty promises.
      With you I am safe. Without you I have the chance to be selfless. So, goodbye safety. I don't think I'll miss you.

Unregrettably,
             
                      Cami

You Should Call Me Five Times a Week

To tell me a specific feeling you're feeling in that present moment wonderful moment
To express 1/1,000,000,000th how much you treasure Matt
To describe one of those famous Chicago winds
To share one Gujarati word I really should know
To  narrate one minute of an encounter with one patient

If you don't get me
Leave a message of 14 seconds
Or 5 minutes

What History Teaches by Steve Tamari

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Leader of the Free World, Commander-in-Chief of the War on Terror, First African-American President, First Community Organizer in the White House  Barak Hussein Obama pronounces, “Israel has a right to defend itself.”

This, after Israeli forces...

Remove 750,000 non-Jews from their homes to create a Jewish state;

Invade Egypt with colonial powers Britain and France;

Occupy the remaining 25 percent of historic Palestine, 

While conquering the Golan Heights from Syria and the Sinai from Egypt;

Annex Arab East Jerusalem;

Assassinate PLO leaders from Rome to Tunis,

But mostly in Beirut,

Where poets Ghassan Kanafani and Kamal Nasser were gunned down;

Defy the Geneva Conventions and settle occupied territory;

Bomb a nuclear facility in Baghdad, Iraq;

Launch a full-scale invasion of Lebanon;

Occupy southern Lebanon for 18 years;

Build more illegal settlements; 

Kill (directly or indirectly) President Yasser Arafat;

Launch another full-scale invasion of Lebanon;

Fortify a land, air, and water blockade of Gaza,

A land of refugees;

Target kill Hamas leaders;

Bombard the most densely populated territory on earth for one month;

Assault unarmed civilian vessels carrying medical aid to Gazans;

Launch another air assault on Gaza and threaten a ground invasion;

O’ Supreme Protector of Human Rights, Democracy, and Freedom,

who has the right to defend itself?

Children Are Dying by Fatima Rhodes

Children Are Dying

Woke up this morning
The day before Thanksgiving
Watched with heavy heart
The one sided news reports
Of more violence and destruction
Children are dying
Had my coffee, checked my email
On my smartphone, Facebook too
More depressing news
Of bloodshed and death
Mixed with advertisement
For great shopping deals
And Black Friday is now
A Thursday sucking the life
Out of struggling workers
Undeserving of the luxury
Of even enjoying a holiday
With loved ones
So the rest of us can buy
more for less. Ain't that
The sprit of Thanksgiving?
And children are still dying
There is nothing more depressing
Than starting the day
With news of death,
destruction and consumerism.
A second a cup of coffee,
I share post on Facebook
Asking questions no one can answer
How can one human life
be worth more than another?
How can we condemn one form of violence
And defend another one?
How are individual, group or state
terrorism different from each other?
How many children, mothers, fathers,
Friends, LIVES are massacred
Before we can learn how to coexist?
Children are DYING

Hi Friends,

Here's an interesting look into the writing lives and disciplines of well-known authors.

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/11/20/daily-routines-writers/

Ann

Writing to Wake Up with Jenn Lay and Doc Chmiel: Give Thanks

Writing to Wake Up with Jenn Lay and Doc Chmiel: Give Thanks

Woke up this morning with a dozen thoughts -- that’s usually a sign of a productive day to come -- unless I get lost in the maze that is my mind.  I have a writing date today which I am looking very forward to.  One thing I do love about taking the bus is that it necessitates an early arrival to my destination, which I’d likely otherwise be, though fashionably, late to.  

How to begin the day, to begin the writing session with friends? Oh I feel so behind, because of time missed. Or due to life lived in the gap, am I behind at all? It’s not something that can be measured, and does it matter? The willingness to join up again and walk together is all I need to feel up to speed.

Giving Thanks -- a good topic for the week as I really haven’t thought about what I’m thankful for lately considering it is the week of Thanksgiving.  Maybe it’s the busyness of work lately where the only reason I remembered Thanksgiving was seeing the lady in the office making a turkey hand sign -- so joyously too!  I couldn’t help but wonder if it’s the one creative thing she gets to do each holiday.

**Meandering complaints omitted -- not the focus of the exercise, nor necessary for this practice to include.  Sparing the cyber-world of my begrudging, though I know better than to censor myself!  I do myself a disservice, though for now it keeps the pond around me unrippled, likely best for now.  These thoughts might be included in future machete-written words -- stay tuned.**

I am so thankful that I can say yes and no to work.  I can work at 3 in the morning, and on another note, no one is going to tell me today that next week at this time I have to be available from one time slot to another.  No not having enough vacation days to go home...what vacation days?  For part of every week I have vacation days if I choose.  This certainly isn’t a time of banking Benjamins daily, but I can truly say that no amount of money can replace the joy and relief of autonomy -- invoicing others who are invoicing still others for time and talent -- talent that is appreciated in a tangible way, dollars, the way that as a society we operate through this life, which allows me to live and explore and enjoy my life.  I’m grateful for the different and interesting people that I get to work with, and I’m grateful that good work is rewarded with bigger jobs and a bigger price tag on, oh, me!

I’m grateful for friends calling me up -- and bummed when I can’t make it over, but know there is a bond that goes beyond time and place.  I’m grateful for a wonderful boyfriend who supports me in all of my dreams and visions, some pretty hazy, lofty, and he still cheers me on never doubting my newest hobby -- this week it happens to be sewing a shirt from a Simplicity pattern, and no, I've never sewn anything by myself.  For his amazing cooking skills sparked with creativity and innovation that -- though I can follow recipes, I will never have skill or desire to pursue.  For many other things he does and is that is more suited to live in a thick book.

For happiness each day.  For laughter every day.

I’m thankful for a loving family, though they do not always see eye to eye with me -- at least that care a lot and show it in the ways they know how.  I know not everyone is so lucky.  I’m grateful for all of my family members who I’ve had a childhood and adulthood to grow up with and around -- to know them.  For various skills I’ve learned from them, for their attention, their interest in all of my endeavors; for love.

I’m grateful for education, Wikipedia, Ehow and Adobe product tutorials.  For free shipping and delivery.  For SLPL, the public library; for my downtown branch (opening December 9!).  For free trials and support in nearly every software program that I'm interested in.  For popcorn with flavors, for wine and coffee (mmm -- yes).  For wine and coffee connoisseurs to direct me to flavors I enjoy most.  For so many things that make life joyful, rich and interesting.  For my two dogs, who give us such joyful days full of entertainment.  For books, for reading, for All Along Letterpress. For the gift to tell their story in a sequence; to use my gifts, something they cannot do to highlight their gifts, something I cannot do.  I want my entire life to be filled with things like these -- codependence and mutual benefit -- a lifetime of gratitude.

This Christmas Season...

"Appreciation is the sacrament."
--Allen Ginsberg

"If the only prayer you say in your entire life is 'Thank you,' that would suffice."
--Meister Eckhart

"Be grateful to everyone."
--Buddhist mind-training slogan

This Christmas season
I want to give a lot

Spend a small fortune
On stamps

As I write by hand a gratitude a day
Three to 13 lines or sentences

To notice someone's gifts
And say so--

Her humor, compassion, benevolence
His mischief, fire, generosity--

To do this for people
Who aren't the usual suspects or the BFFs

To do this as a slow, calm meditation
When the culture's getting frenzied

To spend a few minutes a day doing this
As a joyful activity

To acknowledge these glorious and gracious people
Teachers and artists and avant-gardists

Actors and bodhisattvas
Animators and exhilarators

All these people  who are --ta-daa--
"the light of the world"

Or my world anyway
The world of my beloveds

--from a writing practice with Brittany Accardi & Jenn Reyes Lay
10 a.m. Tuesday 20 November
Northwest Coffee
(under the not so subtle influence of a discussion two days before
With Nebu and Allison at Café Ventana)

Dear Jane Austen

Dear Jane Austen,

It is a truth universally acknowledged that you were a remarkable woman.

You opened up the vistas of literature, impossibly expansive as they are, right before my eyes. I can't tell you how often I have fallen in love with Mr. Darcy, or how many times I have visited Pemberley while walking alongside Eliza Bennett, seeing what she sees, feeling what she feels.

You detested that anyone should determine who you ought to be and how to live your life. You would deplore how others think of you now - as this demure woman who hid her writing should anyone have walked into the room (which, by the way, is a myth). Emily Auerbach had it more correct; you were likely more sarcastic (as evidenced by the way you lampoon your neighbors in your letters to your sister), less demure (which is why your sister Cassandra burned over half of your letters when you started getting famous...couldn't have anyone finding out how "unladylike" you really were!), and more your own person than anybody here in "mainstream" today thinks you were.

You were my first real heroine. Thank you for being you, undeniably and irrevocably.

I hope the rumors are true that you found love. I know you rejected suitors, even after accepting them, because you would only marry for love, and you never married. Was Tom LeFroy the one? Did you ever love?

I miss you dearly. I am missing the expansive vistas of literature. Rhetoric can be as stolid as these brick buildings which are always crowding my view. We should meet again soon.

Much love,
~Priya

I'm Thankful for...

(written this morning at Northwest Coffee)

I'm thankful for...
The present moment
people who turn garages into coffee shops
chai tea latte
writing
writing with friends
friends
friends who keep me accountable to myself
friends who take time to check in
my many circles of awakening and liberation
co-counseling
Sts. Clare and Francis, ECC
Writing to Wake Up
Saturday morning Sangha

I'm thankful
for these hands
that are writing
these words
for two good legs
to get me where I want to go
for feet
that make the road by walking
for this brilliant brain of mine
that can think a new thought every second
for my big bottomless heart
that welcomes the world in
for my life
that has been blessed
to cross the path
of so many amazing
spirits/teachers/friends/beloveds

I'm thankful
for the words of others
who inspire me
to find my own
who let me know
I'm not alone
who create worlds
I can escape into
when I just need a break

I'm thankful
for all the tears I've shed
because I've loved so hard

I'm thankful
for all the laughs
that extend my life

I'm thankful
for the hospitality
I have received
the homes and families
I've been welcomed into
the embraces and kisses on the cheek
the firm handshakes
and hand holding

I'm thankful
for human connection
for knowing that
I am because you are
for earth connection
for roots
for fresh grown food with love
for communities of resistance
who believe in a better way

I'm thankful
for those who can still inspire me
in a world full of
bad news
I'm thankful
for good news

I'm thankful
for the women
who have gone before me
and sacrificed so much
so that I have more opportunities
more freedom
and we're not done yet

I'm thankful
for the ordinary people
who did extraordinary things
do extraordinary things

I'm thankful
for the women
who teach their children well
I'm thankful for children
the little ones
who remind us
how to be fresh from God
newly human
exploring the world
with energy and enthusiasm
and creativity and curiosity

I'm thankful
for these eyes
that get to witness
the mystery and beauty
of the world daily unfolding
and these ears
that can listen
to great symphonies
spoken word
and the stories of others

writing blocks 11/17

Why I don't share my writing/ Why I often just don't write anything...

Because nothing ever feels complete.  I just read over the piece I wrote on the martyrs.  I hate it.  It's scrambled eggs.  It is thrown together thoughts from this place, and that book, and her story.  It's not complete.  It's not coherent.  It's scrambled eggs.  And I don't want to put it out there, to the world, if it's not perfect.  And it never will be.  Nothing ever is.  I can't say I honestly feel really content with anything I've ever written or shared.  I believe parts of it are good.  I think maybe you'll read it and think, well that line was really powerful, or I like this story or image she shared.  But the written work in general, the complete piece.... no good.  garbage even.  There were so many holes, more than swiss cheese.  Maybe some parts were too cheesy... or too preachy... or too sentimental.  Maybe there will be too many questions and not enough time for answers, not enough time to explain myself.  I could edit my work.  But I don't think I would like it any more or feel any more satisfied with the finished product.  And if I waited and edited and re-wrote until I thought it was complete, and accurate, and I was thoroughly pleased.... it would never be published.  You wouldn't even be privileged to the half thoughts, and run on sentences, and stream of conscious ramblings.  If I think too much about my writing, I go crazy, and drive myself into a deeper hole of doubt and fear where my thoughts and writings stay buried.  So I push forward with feelings of unsettled stomach and doubting mind.  I write, and I'm sharing what I write.  I think, and I put those thoughts out there.  They aren't everything, but they are something.  I'm not trying to sum up my entire being, life experience, world view, and/or personal beliefs every time I share a thought.  It is a part, never a whole, and you need to accept that just as much as I do.  To sit with the uneasiness of imperfection, of empty spaces where maybe you want more details.  And I might change thoughts and words from one day to the next, or one moment to the next.  In the words of Whitman: "I'm large, I contain multitudes."  So no piece of writing will ever contain the whole ocean, but maybe a drop of water is just as valuable and still worth sharing - one drop at a time. 

Seattle by Kelley Schwartz

Liquified
Sky inhabits city
Clouds writhe
Stretching to be the vicar of the horizon
Crystallized drizzle
Trees dress thick with color
City of visual voice
Wildly answers
Creativity provoked
Awash in the pelting drops
Designs possibility
Sparks tunes of puddle- hop and splash
City of saturation
Drenched in living beauty

Dear Martyrs,

What a name, what a title, what a story to be told.
I knew nothing of you when I first arrived in El Salvador. I didn't know where you came from, what you did, and most importantly what they did to you. I saw your clothes, stained in blood. The roses planted where you bodies once rested. I was sad and it made me angry but I was naive and tired and it didn't yet make much sense. But then I heard stories of the war, shared tears with the ones I loved, attended masses, sang songs...all in your honor. And it hit me. Despite the typical sense of sadness brought with death yours came with a celebration of life. Life reflected in the candle I held in my hand, paralleled to the millions of stars in the sky. I've never met you, I've never had the chance to hear your homilies, you never laid your hands upon me  and whispered a sweet, soft prayer. But you have strengthened me. And like Monseñor, you have resurrected in the Salvadoran people. In Angelica and Omporo as they struggle to feed their children, and Froilan as he holds a megaphone demanding respect for his land and his people. You are resurrected in the women that sells Quesadilla by the bridge each day and the man that picks coffee more than he sees his own family. You have been resurrected in me, and my friends. You showed me strength and determination and showed me it's okay to fight. To fight with peace, without weapons or machines, but rather with education and solidarity. You taught me to walk with a purpose, arm-in-arm with the ones I love. And tomorrow as I reunite with my friends in honor of you all I thank the people I've never met...that somehow shaped the person I have become.
Sinceramente, Linsita

What kind of people are writers?

from psychjournalism.blogspot.com

Common Characteristics of Natural Born, Freelance, or Career Writers

• An “odd ball” childhood.

Writers tend to start off as peculiar kids. They never quite fit in with their classmates. Their abstract thinking begins early on, and it causes them to struggle to relate to other children and elementary interests. Future writers commonly start off as either lonesome or socially inept kids.

• They were handed books as toys.

Naturally gifted writers are almost always reading enthusiasts. They have a further developed vocabulary and stronger syntax abilities because their scholastic experience goes beyond traditional curriculum. 

• They believe in the “All or nothing” policy. 

Writers are often perfectionists that will edit until their eyes bleed or completely scratch an idea off the table. They tend to carry that trait into their other projects as well. The writer will either create something complete or nothing at all.

• They take pride in their work.

Even if they need help, writers like doing their work 100% themselves without contribution. This is seen often in college, when the self-proclaimed writers don’t show up to office hours or ask for tutoring. Writers tend to treat even essays as a personal work of art. It’s their work, and it matters that it’s only theirs.

• They are equally organized and disorganized.

A writer’s mind works in choreographed chaos. With too much chaos comes no productivity. With too much organization comes no passion. The writer has learned how to have the perfect combination of both.

• They have both an ego and self-doubt.

-Enough ego to invest in one’s own thoughts, enough doubt to revise and rethink continuously. 

• They enjoy simplicity.

Hot coffee, music, and a sunrise could make their morning flawless.

• They are observant. 

Writers tend to learn about things from as many angles as they can. They’ll see the same sign for ten years and connect ten-thousand other separate things to the sign in that amount of time. They take in what they can and make a mental map of how things co-exist. 

• They  recognize the importance of memories.

Writers learn how to utilize past moments as criteria for their work. A writer will not forget their first love, or heartache. 

http://psychjournalism.tumblr.com/post/26331487204/common-characteristics-of-natural-born-freelance

this blue tattered notebook

Funny thing words on paper. Words strung together by me and accumulated in one spot, one space. They make an indent on each page and leave smudges on my hand where my pinkie and palm have glazed over the newly formed words almost like sealing them to the paper- sticking them there so they won’t fall off. I love flipping through notebooks in which I have written, especially full ones. To feel the words on the pages, to hear the extra crinkle that only comes with the fullness of pen touching paper. I can’t wait until this notebook is full. It will be better than anything my hands have graced and turned and glided over. It will be better because I will know it is mine. I cannot help but flip through the pages and pages filled with my thoughts, my musings, my infatuations, my self-centeredness, myself. It’s like brail to my blind heart. My fingers read the emotion behind each page without ever recognizing or acknowledging a single word.

I am afraid to create...

This came from a prompt all the way back on October 11th, but it came nonetheless.

I am afraid to create…

Because I will hurt someone I love.

Because my words will undo a thousand thank yous and leave a thousand more left unsaid.

Because my words on a page, closed in a notebook and hidden in a drawer preserve some small amount of decorum and civility in my life.

Because the ink of my head and my heart will not cease to flow as easily as my blue Papermate pen.

Because I am afraid they will be disappointed once they hear what I have to say.

And yet I must. I must create and write and share…

Because this fake smile from the fishhooks in each cheek pulling them up and outward no longer suits my face.

Because I refuse to be the only one noticing the darkening under my eyes-the half moons indicative of leftover eyeliner and mascara and the endless nights I am awake well into the morning.

Because I have 20 years of mismatching my face and my emotions to undo.

Because the voice bubbling to the surface is one which I have ignored and suppressed for far too long.

Because now I can actually love someone I love.

This Morning

This Morning

        By Ann Heyse

I am in line with

a red-coated, dark-skinned beauty,

my bank-president neighbor in an expensive silk suit (probably acquired on his latest trip to China)

the young, orange-pants clad artist, probably here for  his first time,

the family that has made it an event: stroller plus three kids, complete with donuts,

and of course, the nearly 120 others who are here in the early hours as it just grows light.

I chat with my teacher friend who lives just three streets over;

we are listened to by her pastor husband,

a tuck-pointer filling up on coffee for a long day laboring in the cold,

a tired, cranky grandmother ( her sweatshirt said so) 

and a strong, hunky man in a motorcycle jacket (I wonder if he came that way, on motorcycle.)

And there was Patricia who talked back to the security guard when she was told she couldn’t bring in Ella, her dog.  “No,” Patricia said, “this is a service dog in training, so she’s allowed.” 
(I know better; Ella’s not in training; Patricia just wants to bring in her dog.)

In the quiet of this morning

In this calm crowd of unabashed democracy,

I am channeling Walt Whitman

as I think so warmly and so gratefully of this

beautiful line

full of people

that are me and not me. 

Reflections on a Fall Float by Jerry King

Tom and I drove down to Akers Ferry on the Current River a week ago this last Thursday for a day float. The congenial proprietor of the Cracker Barrel general store (and ferry master) at Akers Ferry outfitted us, and drove us to the put-in spot several miles upriver, Tom loaded his fishing gear into the canoe, and off we went. The day had threatened rain, and we were prepared for temperatures down in the 40's or low 50's, but instead the sun had come out and the temperature was moving up as we entered the water.

As we meandered down the river, and began to realize how glorious the day was becoming, I started to really focus on the foliage and the uniquely beautiful Missouri limestone bluffs. And then I couldn't help thinking about the immeasurable time that passed for the formation of those amazing bluffs--first the eons of sedimentation from the great inland sea to form the layers of limestone, and then the passage of time for the erosion of those layers by the carving power of what is now the Current River.

And it occurred to me how spiritually inspiring even my feeble understanding of these evolutionary forces is, compared to the poverty of vision available to those who believe God formed these places in a moment of Disneyland-type creation. I don't even have the gift of faith anymore in a personal god, but I do believe, as Hanlon puts it, "somethin' happened". And the fact that it didn't happen in a single moment of directorial mandate, but over an unimaginable period of evolutionary history, makes the somethin' that much more special.

I'm just sayin'.....

364 Other Days

People think they are making a big contribution by voting

But don't forget—a year has 364 other days:

To come together face to face

To get to know each other

To name the problems that afflict us and others

To share stories of struggle and shining

To realize there's sanity in numbers

To share the wealth of our insight, curiosity, passions, and experience

To appreciate one another's presence

To savor the potluck's soups, salads, dal and basmati, and any-and-everything brought by Fatima

To learn how to rule ourselves as individuals through the practice of mindfulness (sovereignty over ourselves)

To improve how to rule our tongues by practicing the Sufi three-gate rule (Are the words I’m about to speak true, necessary, and kind?)

To swim against the current of gottahaveit consuming by practicing Gandhi’s maxim, “Renounce and enjoy"

And, speaking of Gandhi, to "prepare for mountains of suffering" and not get hung up on tactics and debates

...

Voting can take 10 to 20 minutes or much longer

Depending on the crowd, lines, and wait

364 days-a-year democracy

Is so much more involved and demanding

Wouldn’t you agree?

 

Chelsea Jaeger and friends being the change

–writing practice during Writing to Wake Up class, October 2012, Spring Avenue

Sometime in early 2013 we hope to have a small mindful community to engage Thich Nhat Hanh’s latest book, Good Citizens: Creating Enlightened Society.