Circle begins at 10 am ET this morning: join us in a half hour loving kindness meditation!
There will not be a circle this coming Monday and Wednesday, Back in a week!
The guides love Circle of Light and make their appearance there.
Circle of Light is back on this morning! We will be meeting as usual next week, then not on Wednesday December 25 or the following Wednesday January first.
Here is the poem I read this morning that people wanted to copy:
Love Does That
All day long a little burro labors, sometimes
with heavy loads on her back and sometimes just with worries
about things that bother only burros.
And worries, as we know, can be more exhausting than physical labor.
Once in a while a kind monk comes
to her stable and brings
a pear, but more than that,
he looks into the burro's eyes and touches her ears.
And for a few seconds the burro is free
and even seems to laugh,
because love does that.
Love frees.
by Meister Eckhart 1260-1327
@deetoo @raincloud @MaryS @Jude
Circle of Light is starting now. Hope to see you there.
Circle of Light is starting now. Hope to see you there.
Circle of Light is starting now. Hope to see you there.
It's when the earth shakes And foundations crumble
That our light is called to rise up.
It's when everything falls away and shakes us to the core
And awakens all of our hidden ghosts
That we dig deeper to find once inaccessible strength.
It's in tines when division is fierce that we must reach for each other
and hold each other much tighter.
Do not fall away now.
This is the time to rise.
Your light is being summoned.
Your integrity is being tested.
That it may stand more tall.
When everything collapses, we must find within us that which is indomitable.
Rise, and find the strength in your heart.
Rise, and find the strength in each other.
Burn through your devastation,
Make it your fuel.
Bring forth your light.
Now is not the time to be afraid of the dark.
By Chelan Harkin
Today's poem in Circle of Light.
We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love.
--Tennessee Williams, 1982
Here's the whole thing:
"The world is violent and mercurial--it will have its way with you.
We are saved only by love--love for each other and the love that we feel pour into the art we feel compelled to share: being a parent, being a writer, being a painter, being a friend.
We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it, all the time, is love."
Poem:
I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”
Danusha Laméris: Small Kindnesses, 2019, Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection
Community! I read one or two poems every Circle of Light, while we are settling into meditation. People have asked me for copies. Here is one of the poems I read last Monday morning.
There's a thread you follow,
It goes among things that change.
But it doesn't change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You explain about the thread.
But it is harder for others to see.
While you hold it, you can't get lost.
Tragedies happen.
People get hurt or die.
And you suffer and get old.
Nothing you can do can stop time's unfolding.
You don't ever let go of the thread.
--William Stafford
(I also read this one last Monday. :-)
@jeanne-mayell I love both of these poems! But that one about the thread really resonated. So true. A core path of your life that you follow through it all.
Circle is on at 7 pm ET today. Sometimes things don’t go, after all, from bad to worse.
Sometimes
-Sheenagh Pugh
Sometimes things don’t go, after all,
from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel
faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don’t fail.
Sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well.
A people sometimes will step back from war,
elect an honest man, decide they care
enough, that they can’t leave some stranger poor.
Some men become what they were born for.
Sometimes our best intentions do not go
amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to.
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen; may it happen for you.
Poems from Circle:
The mind is like a garden. The seeds of memory are planted in it and we must be careful of what grows. by Thich Nat Hahn
Nothing is Lost by Noel Coward
Deep in our subconscious, we are told,
Lie all our memories, lie all the notes
Of all the music we have ever heard.
And all the phrases those we loved have spoken.
Sorrows and losses time has since consoled.
Family jokes, out-moded anecdotes
Each sentimental souvenir and token
Everything seen, experienced, each word
Addressed to us in infancy,
Before we could even know or understand
The implications of our wonderland.
There they all are, the legendary lies,
The birthday treats, the sights, the sounds, the tears
Forgotten debris of forgotten years.
Waiting to be recalled, waiting to rise
Before our world dissolves before our eyes.
Waiting for some small, intimate reminder,
A word, a tune, a known familiar scent,
An echo from the past when, innocent
We looked upon the present with delight
And doubted not the future would be kinder
And never knew the loneliness of night.
@jeanne-mayell I love both of these poems! But that one about the thread really resonated. So true. A core path of your life that you follow through it all.
I love it too and many years ago, I made a little poster with it:
CIRCLE IS ON TODAY AT 7 pm ET. There was a glitch in my zoom link so just use any link for any Circle of Light and it will be good. They are all the same link. I will be there. Here is the link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/upMvf-Gtrjops6UWtB8ML-AioDYBQP3eug
Poem I've read at Circle recently:
Do not be dismayed by the
brokenness of the world.
All things break. And all things can be mended.
Not with time, as they say, but with intention.
So go. Love, intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally.
The broken world awaits in darkness for the light that is you.”
L.R Knost
Poem read at Circle:
|
More poems read at Circle:
Sonnets to Orpheus, Part Two, XII
Want the change. Be inspired by the flame
where everything shines as it disappears.
The artist, when sketching, loves nothing so much
as the curve of the body as it turns away.
What locks itself in sameness has congealed.
Is it safer to be gray and numb?
What turns hard becomes rigid
and is easily shattered.
Pour yourself out like a fountain.
Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking
finishes often at the start, and, with ending, begins.
Every happiness is the child of a separation
it did not think it could survive. And Daphne, becoming
a laurel,
dares you to become the wind.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~
(In Praise of Mortality, translated and edited by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy)
Poem for you ALL:
It's when the earth shakes
And foundations crumble
That our light is called
To rise up.
It's when everything falls away and shakes us to the core
And awakens all Of our hidden ghosts
That we dig deeper to find once inaccessible strength.
It's in times when division is fierce That we must reach for each other And hold each other much
Much tighter.
Do not fall away now.
This is the time to rise.
Your light is being summoned.
Your integrity is being tested
That it may stand more tall.
When everything collapses
We must find within us
That which is indomitable.
Rise, and find the strength in your heart.
Rise, and find the strength in each other
Burn through your devastation,
Make it your fuel.
Bring forth your light.
Now is not the time To be afraid of the dark.
Poem by Chelan Harkin