Not knowing where to turn, I look to poetry for wisdom

I am heartbroken with Juliet's  news. I am also hopeful because I have to be.I call on every saint, light all of my candles and burn sage. I ring bells in mediation, scream out to the pines, to the birds and the wolves for strength, for justice and healing. Juliet, you are in my heart, always will be. I am at your side. I love you dearly, friend.


In Blackwater Woods
By Mary Oliver

Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars of light, are giving off the rich fragrance of cinnamon and fulfillment, the long tapers of cattails are bursting and floating away over the blue shoulders of the ponds, and every pond, no matter what its name is, is nameless now. Every year everything I have ever learned in my lifetime leads back to this: the fires and the black river of loss whose other side is salvation, whose meaning none of us will ever know. To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.

Motivation : Be Who You Are

Mary Oliver reads her poem Wild Geese

Staying Motivated

Some days you'd rather pull the covers up over your head and go back to bed. I am having one of those kind on Mondays. So how do you stay motivated? I'm going to read some poetry and try to start this week anew.

Why I Wake Early
by Mary Oliver

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and crotchety–
best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light–
good morning, good morning, good morning.
Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.

A little Monday motivation

Here's a poem today from one of my favorites, Mary Oliver. Be inspired and keep going, you can do it!

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save. 


Source : Dreamwork (Atlantic Monthly Press)

Writerly Wisdom

“You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body 

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

call to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.” 

― Mary Oliver

Writerly Wisdom

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

- Mary Oliver

A few of Regina's favorite things

Picture Books are a big part of my life as a mom with a 4 year old and 3 year old daughter. These

 books were our favorites this year.













For middle-grade my pick is Wonder by R.J. Palacio. After being home-schooled for years, Auggie Pullman is about to start fifth grade, but he’s worried: How will he fit into middle school life when he looks so different from everyone else? Auggie has had 27 surgeries to correct facial anomalies he was born with, but he still has a face that has earned him such cruel nicknames as Freak, Freddy Krueger, Gross-out and Lizard face. Though “his features look like they’ve been melted, like the drippings on a candle” and he’s used to people averting their eyes when they see him, he’s an engaging boy who feels pretty ordinary inside. He’s smart, funny, kind and brave, but his father says that having Auggie attend Beecher Prep would be like sending “a lamb to the slaughter.” Palacio divides the novel into eight parts, interspersing Auggie’s first-person narrative with the voices of family members and classmates, wisely expanding the story beyond Auggie’s viewpoint and demonstrating that Auggie’s arrival at school doesn’t test only him, it affects everyone in the community. Auggie may be finding his place in the world, but that world must find a way to make room for him, too. A memorable story of kindness, courage and wonder.

 

When I make time to read for myself the first thing I grab for is poetry. It has always captured my heart and I have to say that in many ways it has saved my life. These three collections were my favorite reads this year.

These poems broke me open and then put me back together.

Mary Oliver's collection released this fall. The dust jacket is missing already and I have glued a bee emblem to the front. I have made this book mine, inside and out.

Although an older collection from Wyatt Townley, I read it for the first time this year. I drank it in and let it settle into my bones.