Poems – Page 2 – Generous Wisdom

The Shape of Sound

The shape of sound – cicadas’ buzz rippling in the air

The shape of shadow – falling angles of light from the house windows

The shape of breath – cylindrical
ribcage expansive, circular, contracting ribbons of bone

The shape of flower blossoms – doubled, orange begonias in an arc of crumpled fabric

The shape of sky – between leaves and branches, inverted butterflies

The shape of trees – moving in a wind I can’t feel

The shape of the hawk – rocketing out of the pine, arcing behind the house

The shape of space between the stars of succulents – always three curved angles

The shape of me? What shape do I make in the evening sky descending its shadowy deep blue light against my skin?

The shape of love – sometimes close, sometimes spacious – always pulsing, the vibrations rippling toward infinity.

There is so much to discover when we meditate on Shape.

Find your sit-spot. Just Be.

Notice the shape of sound, of texture, of air, of breath.

What shape do you make in the gorgeous sky?

What shapes are blossoming between your fingers, the lashes of your eyes, the parting of your lips, the curving angles of your sweet and precious toes, the arc of your nose?

What space, what shape does love make and take up in your living?

How is your heart’s spaciousness rippling toward infinity?

Gravity: A Poem-Prompt

Below is the poem-prompt from yesterday. It now has a name 🙂

I wanted to share it again because I practiced with it after I posted, and I discovered some things.

It was late in the day, and the earth and sky were moving from evening into night.

As I was guiding myself, I noticed how deeply I had been in the practice during its writing, at my computer. I also noticed the familiarity of this gravity-awareness practice. It felt easy to sink myself into the earth, but difficult to stay present with it. My mind was busy offering me other things to pay attention to. I kept bringing myself back to the softness of my neck and the slope of my shoulders. The weight of my arms and hands pressing into my lap, my hips and legs pressing into the chair, my legs and feet pressing into the ground. Bringing myself back to these sensations. Gently. I invited myself to shift my body position when I needed to. After experiencing an insect bite during my meditation the day before, I allowed myself to brush a mosquito off my nose. When I noticed the change in air temperature, I allowed myself to pull my sleeves over my hands and tuck one inside the other.

In case I haven’t said this before (I don’t think I have), please remember that the meditations and prompts and practices are here to serve you. They are here as an invitation to self-discovery. They are not here to demand, control, or oppress you. They are gateways to freedom inside a frame of tenderness, loving-kindness, and care.

Only you can offer yourself these things: tenderness, loving-kindness, and care. Please try them out. Liberally and with joy, as you would praise a puppy for his sweetness and delight running through the grass after the white cabbage moth.

Gravity asks us what we want to set down and what we want to pick back up. When I arrived at these inquiries, happiness and kindness arose in my mind. I want to set down the weight of other people’s happiness. By this, I mean I want to set down the weight of thinking and feeling that I need to create, enhance, fix, and sustain everyone else’s happiness at all times. I’m not sure when or why I picked this up. But it’s real, and I need to set it down now.

Happiness comes and goes, just like overwhelm, just like sadness, just like tears, and just like giggles. When I attempt to fix or change someone else’s emotions, I’m making it about me. Instead, I want to pick up kindness and offer that. I want to offer the gift of sitting with someone in their despair. The gift of resting beside another person in their overwhelm. Without making it about me. And also, without looking away. To stay beside them by becoming porous enough to allow their emotional energy to swirl over, under, past, and through me, without it knocking me off balance. To have them know they don’t have to hide or fix or feel bad about their emotional experience in order to stay with me, physically present next to me, in the same room with me.

So, I’m going to try that today. Setting down the weight of other people’s happiness and picking up the ease of kindness. Kindness is being expansive enough, spacious enough to allow what is to be what is. Acknowledging the truth of the moment is a kindness deeper than almost anything else I know.

Please try out the body-scan meditation, the poem-prompt, Gravity, below. Even if you tried it yesterday. (Especially if you tried it yesterday?) As you open up to your inner knowing, see what wants set down and what wants picked up. And it’s okay if it doesn’t feel peaceful at first, or at all. Peacefulness comes and goes, too. What’s glorious is that we can create the circumstances that allow peacefulness to arise. We can create situations that invite peacefulness to bloom more often and hang out with us for longer and longer stretches of time.

Gravity

When you hold one hand in another
there is a heaviness
that is both light and solid

your hand, I mean,
I’m talking about when you
hold the weight of your own hand

resting one hand
inside the other
a nesting

Try it now ~

Cupping your hands
one inside the other
sense the weight of you

sense the weight of tenderness.

How tender is your care for your own sweet self?

Try resting your shoulders
and arms and let them be pulled
toward the earth…

Allow the gentle downward force of gravity
to be a soothing balm
like you’re setting down
every single thing you carry
every
single
day

the things you hold even in the night
in your sleep you’re carrying them ~

Just for now, just for this moment,
set down what you are carrying.

Try this ~

Notice the sensation of your feet
resting against the ground
the grass
the growing world.

Notice the sensation of your hips
resting in the seat of your chair
that’s resting against the ground
the grass
the growing world.

Notice the way the crown of your head
is floating into the sky
even as the the sides of your neck are softening
the tops of your shoulders sinking
and your arms
elbows
arms
wrists
hands
fingers are moving closer to the ground
the grass
the growing world.

Notice the sensation of being held by creation.

Even as your body stretches upward
with each of your breaths
your body relaxes downward
with each of your breaths

You are a growing being
resting against the ground
the grass
the growing world.

So as you nest your hand
inside your hand,
become the tender loving care of the creation that holds you
because you are what you have always longed for.
You belong to your own dear, sweet, and precious self,
a gift, from you to you.

Just for fun? Try this~

Notice if you’d like to switch the nest of your hands
allowing the other hand to be the cradle
of tenderness and loving care.

Feel the difference.
It is new. Awkward. Lighter Maybe?
It is similar. Odd. Fun Maybe?

Switch them back if you’d like.
Notice the ways you are opening into choice, ease, and freedom
inside the frame of this earth and sky,
this greening grounding
growing world.

You get to chose what your hands hold.
You get to chose which things you pick back up.
You get to chose to lift with your legs instead of your back.
You can allow the earth to lift you and all the things you choose to carry.

Remember that as much weight as presses down on her, the sweet, dear earth pushes back up just as much.

You are not alone.

How do you feel now?
What do you notice most?
What is resonating deep inside you?
What mysterious door have you walked through?

What is challenging you and what are the judgements your mind offers?

What kind of poem would you like to write now?

What kind of art would you like to create?

What kind of breath would you like to take?

xoxoxo,

An Little Introduction to Under the Magnolia Tree: 30 Poem-Prompts for Meditation & Writing

I spent a month sitting under my magnolia tree. Not a month straight. A month of mornings. And it changed the way I live. On the inside.

Several years ago I completed a meditation teacher training that prepared me to teach meditation to young people in schools. It was another jump into one of the “deep” ends of meditation, as people say, and it was glorious. Glorious in its supportive container, its approach, framing, and guiding – an abundance of wisdom and a swaddling of fellow travelers along the path. We had head-teachers, cohort guides, and companions. We all taught and learned from each other.

After I completed my practicum and received my certification, I celebrated by getting my nose pierced. And after our final online gathering I felt the emptiness of losing that nest, the organized safety net with its deadlines and accountability, it’s scheduled gatherings and required reflections. I felt the lack of those supports and routines immediately – an unmooring. I didn’t want my new way of being to fade, so I decided I would meditate every morning for thirty minutes. And I did.

I’m doing that again to create a book for us. Something we can hold to help us remember that we are humans being in the midst of all our doing. I’ll post some pieces here and hope you’ll share some feedback to help me craft what is most needed for your own dive into the deep.