Category: Poem a Month

Don’t rush me
to the Light.
I need to
soak in my tears
in the mothering darkness.

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Questions for Contemplation

In many ways we are a ‘feel-good’ culture. We value light over darkness, but both are integral parts of life. A common tendency when we’re experiencing any type of pain is to rise above the discomfort as quickly as possible. Accepting our light and shadows is part of the journey towards wholeness – an ongoing process of uncovering and embracing our human and infinite nature.

The dark contains many rich gifts, such as depth, the capacity to feel, mystery, myth and magic, deep Silence, creative abilities, passion and the ability to feel compassion and empathy for the suffering of others. Exploring the shadow offers opportunities to reclaim parts of ourselves that we’ve repressed or denied.

If you feel drawn to do so, reflect on or write in response to the following questions. What is your relationship to the dark? What gifts have you discovered when you have explored your shadow?

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Poets have a vocabulary that includes
birdspeak
moonspeak
painspeak
angelspeak
plantspeak
cavespeak
lovespeak
crowspeak
oceanspeak
starspeak
deathspeak
griefspeak
weirdspeak

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Questions for Contemplation

If you are drawn to do so, create a short or long list of “Yourspeak.” Possibilities that represent you might include peacespeak, worryspeak, art speak, hopespeak, etc.

Choose one or more to use as prompts for reflection or free writing. Take as much time as you like for each one, beginning with a few minutes of relaxation, followed by opening yourself to feelings, images and sensations. Then you can contemplate peacespeak, for example, and see what arises for you.

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What words

seep deep

into your skull,

calm the thought storms,

show the boulders the way out,

sky the way in?

What are your words

that cast spells,

summon the song of the stone

who wants to love you?

What words

can unearth

your buried pain?

What words are

dense   tense   untouchable,

scare others away,

even the bats and scorpions?

What words

are not yours,

are the inheritance

from your wounded lineage?

What words

are locked in a bleak, grimy dungeon,

sobbing their hopelessness,

dying

to be heard?

What words

thrill your wild,

won’t let you rest

until you howl,

until you claim

your fur and tail?

What words

paint the true shape of you

when you are broken

and

what are your words

when you are

One With All That Is?

What words,

spoken,

bless others’ pain,

soft-stitch the gashes,

kiss awake

the dormant shine,

offer a portal?

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Questions for Contemplation

What helps you navigate challenges and become resourced in stressful times? This poem points to beauty and creative forms of expression as ‘medicine’ for the mind, body and soul. How do you relate to this idea?

What creative forms inspire, nourish, balance and help you heal when you encounter difficulty?

If you’d like to explore this further, choose one form, for example, listening to classical music, and engage in free writing about the benefits to you mentally, physically emotionally and spiritually. You might also choose to write about the benefits in one or two areas rather than all four.

Take a few minutes to relax. Then write for 8-10 minutes, letting words, feelings and images spill onto the page without censoring. Don’t be concerned about grammar or punctuation. Have fun.

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wait in the bedroom
while I sleep,
ready when I am thrust awake
by the cries
of my sisters, brothers, the children.
I am derailed
by seeing with raw eyes
how we have abused and destroyed
the creatures, oceans, mountains, forests –
stunned by the madness
of these times.

Words, colors, shapes, sounds –
loyal friends
that reach into me,
move fearlessly
towards the caged pain,
thaw the icy numbness,
teach me the ways of the dark.

The books on the table,
beauty on the walls,
music in the air,
breathe sanity
into the spinning flames,
announce the presence
of the Sacred,
illumine the Soul threads
that point me
to the fields of Wisdom and Love.
I ask for guidance
to help me find my way
in this broken world
and show me
how I can give back,
how I can help.

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Questions for Contemplation

What helps you navigate challenges and become resourced in stressful times? This poem points to beauty and creative forms of expression as ‘medicine’ for the mind, body and soul. How do you relate to this idea?

What creative forms inspire, nourish, balance and help you heal when you encounter difficulty?

If you’d like to explore this further, choose one form, for example, listening to classical music, and engage in free writing about the benefits to you mentally, physically emotionally and spiritually. You might also choose to write about the benefits in one or two areas rather than all four.

Take a few minutes to relax. Then write for 8-10 minutes, letting words, feelings and images spill onto the page without censoring. Don’t be concerned about grammar or punctuation. Have fun.

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Tonight
a cricket chorus,
firefly light show.

Tonight
fish slow dance
in their dreams
after a day of
cool    clear    clean    calm.
No hooks,
no screeching parties
irritating the lake.

The crows,
strangely quiet this evening,
resting up, I imagine,
for tomorrow’s
raucous performances.

Tonight
my granddaughter settled
under Mommy’s wing
and their icy tensions thaw.
They move inside night
and read the stars.

There is a mountain of Silence
across the lake,
suggesting that I look
without words, that
perhaps the tumultuous waves
still roiling in my chest
might become this Peace.

Tonight
is an invitation
to forget the day’s
 accumulations and losses,
enjoy Impermanence
and Freedom.

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Questions for Contemplation

Is there a line, phrase or stanza in this poem that speaks to you? If you’d like to explore this further, choose one and reflect on it for a while. What is evoked in you? Take as much time as you’d like to contemplate or write whatever comes to you.

If you are drawn to do so, spend some time reflecting on the last stanza. Experiment with “forgetting the day’s accumulations and losses.” What is your experience of doing that?

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When there are difficult words
and I can remember
to soften,
I let them rise from my heart,
glide along my tongue,
float in the air
for some moments,
land gently.

When they arrive
I remain quiet, open –
nested in my heart
and hers.

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Questions for Contemplation

When we have something painful or difficult to communicate to another person, there is an invitation here to soften, allow the words to come from the heart. This may not be easy to do, especially if we are frightened, angry, impatient or feeling constricted about this conversation which, of course, is natural if this is emotionally charged subject matter.

If you’d like to explore this, I’d recommend experimenting for awhile in situations that aren’t too intense. If you do, notice how you feel when you keep your heart open and soften in your expression. Also become aware of how the person you are speaking to receives your communication, continuing to speak and listen from the heart if conversation ensues.

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We were taught to
build a shrine to the mind,
the mind that divides
boxes us into the finite
needs constant fuel
to duel, rule, fortify the trance
that crowds out
the majesty of earth, breath, death,
birth, endless sky, roaring wind,
sighing wind, life-giving rain,
Spirit-matter Oneness.

If this trance is our god,
we won’t let ourselves happen.

When we allow the mind
to crack open,
break the spell of the known,
let ourselves happen,
we will
be found by Silence
see lines of poetry in the sky
know the kindness of Light
deeply feel the pain and blessings
of the dark
see portals where walls once were
feel the depth and breadth
of the open wounds
that are everywhere,
vow to help,
let Boundless Wisdom guide us.

May we let ourselves happen.

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Questions for Contemplation

This poem points to the gifts of surrender and to the benefits of relaxing the tendency to become overly identified with the analytical mind.

What do the words “to let ourselves happen” mean to you?

What are some of the ways that identifying with the thinking mind may limit you? How does thinking critically and rationally serve you?

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My Light and shadows –
equally welcomed
by the Sacred.

I am tempted, at times,
to listen
to the seductive mind’s
soulless plans
for the dark and Light –
while Boundless Wisdom,
always here,
patiently waits for me
to turn to Her
for awe-inspiring
maps and directions.

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Questions for Contemplation

This poem speaks to the limitations of the linear thinking mind and points to the value of attuning to Inner Knowing.

What are some of the ways that the rational mind is helpful to you? If you perceive limitations of the thinking mind, what are they?

What is your relationship to Intuiton? If you would like to cultivate or strengthen your connection to Wisdom Mind, you might try the following:

1. Find time each day to engage in non-linear activities that you enjoy, e.g. free writing, being in nature, meditation, listening to music or playing an instrument, somatic awareness, sitting in Silence – anything that doesn’t involve much (if any) attention to the thinking mind.

2. When you are relaxed, begin to present questions about your life, one at a time, to the non-linear domains of your being – subtle energies and feelings or the Silence within, for example. Pose fairly simple questions or concerns initially, and just listen, see, feel. If you’d like, you can write what comes to you.

A quote I like: “What you feed, grows.”

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When I cannot see stars
I dive headlong
into the dark.

The Ancients,
who know what binds us
and
what will help,
welcome me.

They hold me
until I feel safe
and sobs
trapped from lifetimes
burst free.

The Ancestors
whisper wisdom
and reveal gifts
of the Sacred Dark –
deep mothering
deep feeling
compassion
vulnerability
humility
the ability to feel
the sorrow and grief of others
and the anguish of our Earth Mother
opening
growing our hearts
guiding us
to the cries for Love
from our world
and from our own wounds,
in caves,
still longing
for our tender care.

I remember
the ways and treasures
of the Shadow.
I also remember the Light –
always present, if not seen.

I feel blessed into Wholeness
on this dark, Sacred day.

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Questions for Contemplation

How do you relate to the words Sacred Dark?Do you resonate with the idea that grief and sorrow, for example, in addition to being painful and often difficult to navigate, may also contain ‘gifts’ such as those mentioned in the fourth stanza of the poem.

If you’d like to explore this further, bring to mind a time when you experienced grief or sorrow for a short or long period. Reflect on any ‘gifts,’ meaningful learnings or positive qualities that came forward in you as a result of this experience. If you’re drawn to do so, write about the ‘gift(s)’ of this dark passage.

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When I am true to the Sacred
that we are
not only does the
‘hungry for approval,
‘need to be special’ me,
slink away
from her self-made throne,
but she considers leaving
for a long while
because, really,
she is very tired.

When I am true to the Vastness
that we are,
the haunted beast of fear
I thought I was
becomes a gentle creature
who was always just looking
for Love.

The thoughts
I believed were real
relax their stiff postures,
lies and masks fall
into open space –
open space
that I was taught
always had to be filled.

The money
I thought I couldn’t survive without
and
the people I was certain
I couldn’t live without –
all started talking at once,
reminded me
that they began and will always end,
that they change and change –
to remember this
and
to stop pouring myself into cups
that will always break.

When I am faithful to the Divine
that we are
and everything that began, ends,
I might cry or wail,
struggle with saying good-bye.
Yet a deep Peace
will also be breathing
inside the tears
and
I’ll be able to say good-bye,
as I rest in the knowing
that it was time.

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Questions for Contemplation

Which stanza in this poem speaks to you the most right now? Reflect on the lines for awhile and notice what is evoked in you.

Reflect on a time that you were being true to your deepest Essence. How was that valuable to you? What were the benefits of being faithful to your Sacred nature?

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