Tag Archives: joy

The Song Rises above All Else

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When the night is long and the day after it dawns dark and grim, sing.photoWhen winter is colder than the inmost heart of death and is finally supplanted by the least promising spring, empty of graces and starved for new, green life, sing again and sing out loudly as you can.

When age and infirmity and dangers of every kind are buffeting all the lovely youth and strength they can find in this sad world into terrible dust-devils of desiccated sorrow, sing with all your heart and soul and make the most tuneful, joyful, glorious prettiness that you can float into the air, and know that your song, no matter how wholly alone it may float up, is powerful enough to rise above it all. This is the only way that any of us will rise above it all. And that we will, so long as we sing.photo

I Close My Eyes

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photoI close my eyes.

Breathe. Breathe, and think nothing–deliberately think nothing: not thoughts about nothingness, but no thinking. Just feel. Feel my breathing. Let it slow and deepen. Sense how my lungs are filling and how cool and soothing the air can be. Feel the inside of my eyelids becoming less dry and harsh, softening with the renewing almost-tears that mark the relief of closing my eyes after too little sleep and too long a day to follow it. Breathe.

I can smell the familiar scent of my freshly washed shirt collar that’s pulled up close to my chin, not because I’m cold but because it’s a favorite and a comfortable, so-soft shirt. All I hear is the gentle whirring of the air through the house, the light flickering of leaves outside the window in the slightest breeze, and a bird not far away, practicing its sweet and simple arias without tiring. The sun’s warmth, coming in the window, is blushing its way through my eyelids but still I keep my eyes lightly closed. I am content to maintain my steady breaths, my slowness, my calm, my emptiness, and simply to feel. My pulse ticks softly, steadily, unhurried.

There is no need to think of anything just now. Nothing I could think would change what is real in my world or better my place in it, at the moment, so it is good to turn off the thinking and just let go of my usual tense grip on it all for a little while. The world will wait for me.

I can visit other worlds if I like. Sometimes, with my eyes closed, I will. I can make such wonderful worlds inside, when I wish.

But for now, what I want most is this silence that I have sorted out from what’s outside of me; these slow and steady and uncomplicated open spaces I am cultivating and embracing on the inside. The warmth of the sun, through glass, caressing my face. The depth of soothing air moving through my lungs in a grateful, peaceful sigh.

Everything that must Happen and Change and Do will have to wait for me while I am so very un-busy just being. That is enough for now; sitting, eyes closed, breathing, silent, open. For now, that is everything.photo

The End of One Chapter Leading to the Beginning of the Next

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digital painting from a photoThe road is long; the way grows faint,

But with a song and no complaint,

I’ll walk it more at peace and ease

If you will shore me up, and please:

Your love for me is deep, I know,

Yet sing me to sleep and let me go—photoA path unclear as nighttime draws

Me ever near its end, because

I’ve had full count of wealth and known

Such joys a fountain might be thrown

Beyond its rim in rushing streams,

So if grown dim, the way holds dreams

Enough to lead me happy hence,

And I’ll not plead in self-defense:

Though ever deep your love, I know,

Sing me to sleep and let me go—photoInto the night that never ends,

Where dark is light, and waiting friends

And quiet rest and graceful peace

Draw every guest to sweet release

How-e’er the strain of verses went,

With this refrain as Testament

And Will: Deep is your love, I know;

Sing me to sleep and

Let me go—

As the Evening Blooms

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There are moments when one simple thing–the appearance of its shadow under a boat in a clear lake, kids on the playground chanting a silly song, the smell of potatoes roasting in the oven as you walk in the door at the end of the day–stops you in your tracks with a pang of intense gratitude. You’re filled with wonder that something you may have seen or heard or felt a thousand times before can suddenly arrest you and fill you with such an unmitigated thrill. Your internal sky clears, and you remember how it felt to believe without question in today, in tomorrow.

digital imageOne of the situations that is most able to evoke such potent magic for me is that sweet transitional time when dusk is just about to fall. I’ll be going along the road on the way home, and the peculiar slant of the light makes every color twice as brilliant and saturated as it ought to be, and the clarity of the view seems to intensify so that I feel certain if I looked I could see individual grass-leaves at a hundred yards, maybe even the gossamer lacewing perched on a single blade. I open the window of the car and think that the robin warbling its evensong could be two miles distant and I would hear it just as sharply in its unimpeded clarity, maybe even a hundred miles. Have I fallen into a miracle myself? Become some sort of supernal being?digital painting

No, but at this hour and in this light, the new, dense tapestry of wild spring greens lining the side of the road becomes a moment closer to the perfection of heaven’s glow and I feel as though I myself might just take wing. As the evening starts to fall, this glow is rich with grace and filled with dreams of coming good and present hope. And along with every little else, I know that this beautiful glorious nothing of a thing will happen another time, and not when it will come or what it means, only that life is loaded up with marvelous moments of sweet and poignant joy.

Fanfare

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My friends, whether you celebrate Christmas or not, between that and the coming of the New Year this is certainly a time of year in the western world when the presence of Christmas and New Year advertisements and discussions and preparations are ubiquitous to the degree that many of us still get drawn into the whole element of assessing our lives and our places in both the temporal and our inner worlds. It’s not a bad practice to do a bit of examination and evaluation from time to time anyhow, I think. Regardless of beliefs and philosophies, hopes and dreams, politics and projects, we can all benefit from a bit of gentle thinking-through about what matters to us. Somehow, for me that makes the end of a calendar year a cleansing time and a happy one in which I can look forward to a grand and hopeful entrance into the year just ahead.

With that in mind, I wish all of you great happiness in this time. I hope that you can find all the friendship, healing, comfort, peace and joy you desire, now and in the year ahead. And if you do celebrate Christmas, I wish you a truly happy one. If it’s Hanukkah for you, L’Chaim! If you’re preparing to celebrate any other holy days or holidays or are simply going forward full steam ahead with life, I send you my most heartfelt wishes for these delights to fill you now and in the year to come.

digital imageRinging Twelve

As the midday bells are sounding,

Morning light sharpens to blue,

Quiet moments find their grounding;

Thought needs no more things to do

To resolve all unsolved queries,

Weary, troubled, trying times–

Now thoughts rise to higher aeries

In the bell tower, where chimes

Ring new peace, and calm awaken,

Where new joy can sweep away

All the old thoughts, now forsaken,

At the bright noon of the day.

photo + textFanfare

With trumpets blazing bright as stars

The grand procession moves apace

To urge us from a darker place

Into the light no shadow mars

Nor chill cuts in; no drop of gloom

Can enter when this day springs forth

And blossoms cross the secret north

And leave no sorrow any room—

Let each take up the pageant’s pace

To follow at the trumpets’ call

And sing their joy to one and all

In this extremity of spacedigital image collage

Great Things Ahead

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photo collage

Such wondrous things are all around if only I remember to keep my eyes open . . .

It’s Time

It’s time

to hitch up my skirts

pick up my feet and

run like a madwoman

howling gleefully

shrieking with wildness

through the weedy grass

through the prickly woods

across the stinging rush

of that icy brook

and leap headlong

back into full-fledged life

photos x2

Brilliant things await me!