(I've been sick for a couple weeks, just beginning to feel good again. Here's a poem I wrote just before I moved from the farm to our cohousing community, and it seems a good one for us right now in our troubled world.) Centering I taught my two grandsons to use a potters wheel. They were excited, ready to engage, imagining beautiful vases, plates, creations. And then they found out about centering, a challenge only one of them finally mastered. There is the whirling surface, and the hunk of clay in the center, wobbling and bumping around, all cattywhompel, uneven, rough and stubborn. What is needed is firm, strong hands, braced on stability, urging the clay down and in, resisting the pull outward, resisting the pull to disorder. It takes slow patience, easy breathing, focus, unflappable intent. And once the clay is finally guided to the still center, it spins beautifully, smoothly, unerringly in place. It is only then that the potter can begin to shape, to carefully, bit b...
I have just signed off from our sixth session of the Resilience and Acceptance course. Last week, I must admit that I struggled with accepting the state of the world right now, accepting the reality that we are already heading for the sixth extinction, and that it is too late to prevent it. It felt so very sad, such a tragedy. This was not just a story, but something all the people living now will experience soon. I thought of my grandchildren, and of young people all over, just starting in their lives and having to tackle the unraveling of culture that has already started. All week I vacillated between being angry and being sad. And I didn't start our homework for tonight's class until this morning. However, it was just what I needed to shift out of that dark mood. The focus in this week's class was on indigenous wisdom. We saw video clips of many indigenous elders explaining their view of the earth, their guides for living, their long history and traditions, and their an...
It's been too long since I wrote a post for this blog. Part of that is because my schedule was totally full of meetings when I got back from Asheville a week ago. And part of it is that I've had a hard time not feeling angry and depressed by what is happening in our country, at least politically. I read Heather Cox Richardson's posts every day, but I'm almost deciding to take a break for awhile since the news is so very terrible. I know there are still good things in the world, and I'm starting to actively look for them and let them inspire me. Last evening, walking back from a meeting in the common house to my front porch (a 20 second walk), I looked up and saw the moon, and it filled me with something big: gratitude, perspective, awe. When I got home, I wrote this cinquaine: Full moon. High in the sky. What a reminder that Some things in our world are still here, Touch point. Just looking up to something way out of my worried everyday life was such a gift. Some t...
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