Branding, American Style

Early morning walk
on Naperville-Wheaton Road
I see this collection of signs:

One caught my eye
Power Yoga
Power Yoga?
Of course
Power Yoga!

A Short Digression While Discussing a Tolstoy Story

At McGurks I asked Siobhán, “Did I ever tell you about the ‘Meanwhiles?’”
“I don’t think so.”
“Back in the days and nights
When The Book of Mev wasn’t The Book of Mev
(I was calling it The Holy Contour of Life)
I asked an acquaintance
A published writer
If he would read the manuscript
And give me some of his seasoned advice

Gratitude/728

This weekend is commencement

Each day is commencement

Each hour is commencement

I've known you 

Twenty months

May I know you twenty more

On being broken

I am broken to my core,

Yet I have never woken up feeling so whole.

I am confused about life,

Yet I am left wildly embracing the mystery of it.

I am profusely sweating from every pore of my being,

Yet I am profoundly refreshed to the depths of my soul.

I am in a place where beauty and brokenness co-exist,

Trying to understand my place in all of this,

Trying to touch the sacredness of “this”

I am trying to feel what matters here…

That feeling the presence of Fahima’s prophesying matters

That Karief remembering sight words matter

That Nadia letting go of being shy and shaking it in zumba class matters

That hearing gun shots down the street as “too close” matters

That J.R, Angel and their crew in the mango tree at lunch time matters

That driving Fadda’s truck through potholed lanes with Jaiden, Phil and Tati matter

That finding peace peering through broken things…gap toothed smiles, holes in the sidewalk and through open windows matters

And I too want to matter here

But… realizing that I am only one of many matters most of all.

I am trying to understand what this is all about…

About seeing raw humanity beyond homes, clothes and smells

About scooting chairs so that everyone can come sit at the table

About being governed by courage rather than fear

About a love that doesn’t condemn

About praying off my knees and praying with my life

About struggling to keep order in the classroom

About breaking bread and breaking expectations

About the pulses within, and feeling them

About letting life grasp me

About being sweaty, wiping it off and getting more sweaty

About trying to read the sky when I am feeling lost

About feeling home in once strange arms

It’s about these fleeting moments of life here

Its about two years and being birthed a new each day

It’s about struggling less and less for the idea of this all, but about more and more for people

It’s not about saving and doing, but about being and being saved

It’s about being one tiny factor of all this

And it’s about understanding that all of this is greater than me

And most of all… it’s about being broken and seeing peace peer through.

By Looking There

by looking there

i found them

hear

their words

perfectly imperfect

permission

true love transforms

the reflected

Gracias

for every good thing
I give thanks
for snow covered mountains
I give thanks
for aspens quaking in the fall wind
I give thanks
for flowing water
stony brooks
and roaring waves
I give thanks
for thunder and lightening
for wind and rain
I give thanks
for camping alone on the Great Plains
I give thanks
for being
for birth and for death
I give thanks
for love, lust and loss
for beginnings and endings
for words on paper
and words falling from the mouths of friends
I give thanks
for laughter and happiness
for the morning sun and the evening moon
for mosses and ferns and liverworts
I give praiseful thanks
and count them as blessings
for babies and children
for snotty-nosed teenagers
and angry rioters who call for us to see
I give thanks
for mothers and fathers
who are here or not here
for cousins near and far
I give thanks and cherish their memory
for those who have taught me
for Tina, for Mark, for Tom
for my sister who calls to me
for the joy of aloneness
for the sadness of aloneness
for the closeness of others
for the distance of many
for the miles that are near and the miles that separate
I give thanks
for the open-hearted of the world
for the closed and fearful
for the dreamers lying in the open fields
and for the students in their classrooms
I give thanks each day
for those who suffer, who are abandoned
for the sick and the dying
for the scorned and the desolate
I wish hope and peace

may all hearts be opened
may all minds love the search for truth
may all bodies be at rest
for all of this I yearn
for all blessings I am grateful

5/26/15

secrets

I could tell you all my secrets
(if I could remember them)
after all, secrets are put aside
secreted in that dark side of our souls

do you know your secrets?

my secrets began with my entry into the world
my longing for touch
for being held
do you know your secrets?

wishing to be held
longing to be held, but not held
I fell into a box which I myself created

do you know your secrets?

and in this box of longing
I watched the world pass by
and allowed myself to be a victime of the world

do you know your secrets?

I am not asking for pity
I am just relating the facts
this is what happened in the beginning

do you, you yourself, know your secrets?

and then with the force of habit, it continued
there are people I have longed for
but I have kept it a secret, hidden, of necessity

do you know your secrets?

being dissatisfied, is it possible to love?
or am I forever searching for a closeness which may or may not be love?
I have been wrapped in the cloak of feeling smitten with lust

do you know your own secrets?

I cannot say smitten with love because I do not know what love is
I only know what longing is
that is my secret.

do you know your own secrets?
do you own your secrets?
your secrets may lead you to a place you've never been.

do you know your secrets?

4/19/15