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Jul 31

night sky in the city

the lights from the city

have stolen the stars
one by one
so that legs and arms
are missing
and arrows fly
without an archer or even a bow
and children
with wild hearts
and no one left to remember
rename the sky
summoning suns and planets
like imaginary friends

Jul 31

Rethinking Religion

I am coming to the comfortable conclusion that I am not a “believer.” While I believe there is a God, an Energy,… He, It, She is not the God I imagined most of my life. And imagine is indeed what I have been doing. What had drawn me to worship was a sense of community…what had drawn me to God..was fear and a desperate need to be feel safe.

Only I do not feel safe. Nor do I need to. What I need is to know myself and live openly in that. I have written before of my “meeting God.” I do believe that I did come to experience God’s love…that for me is not in doubt or question. What is no longer my belief is that there is one path out, a Savior, a need to be Saved, Hell and for that matter Heaven, Judgement with a capital “J”, those in God’s favor, those not in God’s favor. I have come to see my religion as a myth….a story I was told to explain all that couldn’t be explained. A story so old and passed down so many times that it no longer resembles the original.
What I do believe? That everything is connected; that we should love each other; that “enlightenment” happens when we are alive and awake in the moment …it can happen over and over again in small moments, or in longer moments; that I am more concerned with how I live, than what will happen when I die.
I am tired. I am tired in a way that I have not ever been….like woman in a bad marriage who has tried everything she knew to save it, only to come to the conclusion that it couldn’t be saved and wasn’t wise to keep trying. I am not bitter or even disappointed truly. But I am exhausted and I need some time to recover.

Jul 25

NSEW

A long drive into Seattle yesterday. But it was a beautiful day and I caught up with myself. Sometimes one needs to be trapped in a car for five hours to get some time alone. It was good.

At one point during my trip I found myself stopped completely on I5…one car among hundreds idling in place. I grabbed a CD to put in the player and noticed the art on the disc..it was a compass. I looked up and the car directly in front of me had the word “compass” engraved on the bumper, and the jeep next to it too had a compass on the spare tire cover. Coincidence? I can hear the cynicism already. But just the other day a friend compared me to a compass saying that I was “like a compass with a few more points of direction.”
I am one of those people who believes the world is wholly connected,and that in fact, nothing random. What the appearance of three compasses means, I don’t know. But if they stop my momentum and allow me to rest in the question for a brief instance, there is reason enough.

Jul 24

Ar-Ra’uf

the compassionate regenerative power of the One 
reconnecting your heart to Unity

If you want to be free of self,

haunt the tavern of love.
In this sanctuary, egotism is heresy.
Only lovers who have no fear can enter.
Only here the bird of your breath can
nest and rest in the
palm of the Beloved’s hand.

Shabistari

Jul 23

dragonfly

arizona heat
is old testament
full of vengeance
and an angry God
but the desert is resurrection
waiting for you
to endure enough
to reveal
that she is impossibly
alive
 
 
photograph taken in July
at a nature preserve
in Wickenburg, Arizona
temperature…  110 degrees

Jul 23

Two poems on a summer evening

written on Richard’s patio in the moment….
On the eve before collection day 

At 15th and Thompson

he sings 
as he works
to a percussion of metal and glass
he is like  a salmon
in a never ending river
always swimming upstream
not returning home
but away
from what is familiar
by Deidre

Applaudings
A dry leaf moving edge to edge on the sidewalk
 makes a simple crisp one
The bottle collector across the street demonstrates an appreciation 
 for lightness and attention to task with the falling glass mixed with
 the clap of cans
And Ms. Rybczyk had one for me,
 trying to influence another poem from my memories,
 before she settled into the bench , took up her pen and
 in her natural way slid her pink and sandaled toes to rest
 under the jeans of my leg.
The trees do a nice crescendo
 and no one bows.
By Richard 


Jul 19

Family

I am living in a very full home these days. My daughter, Devoney, is home for a piece of the summer, my son RJ too, before he heads off for his first year of college. And two friends, Marcy and Melissa, and their son, Trout, have also moved in. Six people in a two bedroom, one bath home. It’s been sweet and hectic. The best of this all has been the sharing of meals. Coming to a full table is nice…

Yesterday we celebrated my daughter’s twentieth birthday. Liss and I moved a table out of the now packed garage and designed an outdoor dining area, complete with lantern chandelier. It was lovely..a quintessential summer day…topped with great food and better company. Devoney invited a few friends; we made homemade ice cream and the adults lingered at the table as the “kids” went off for awhile.
Later two more friends stopped in to eat the leftovers. The day’s heat had cooled to that perfect summer evening degree…It was nice. My day was full, I was full. And I had found an effortless rhythm in which to live out each moment. Grace…

Jul 3

life and honesty

I am back after spending a week in the summer heat of Arizona.  It was family week, a week of family therapy as a part of my daughter’s treatment for an eating disorder.  I can only say it was an intense time, full of emotion, uncomfortable feelings, relief, pain, and even humor.  I believe we came out of the week closer and better able to communicate with each other. The key to this was honesty.  Honesty without placing a value or an expectation on it…not good or bad or “in order to” but really just in an effort to understand in new ways.  

Today I had a conversation with a friend of mine.  Moments of it were strained and awkward and finally I said, “the most difficult thing about difficult conversations is starting them.” I have often found myself avoiding the difficult because I had an attachment to the outcome.  But I have learned time and again, attachment to an outcome doesn’t necessarily yield what is desired. In the end,  Truth is always the easiest path to take.  It might be uncomfortable, but it leaves you with no baggage.  It’s clean….the truth is clean.  And when all is said and done, I want live clearly and cleanly.