Month: September 2021

The Grace Of Empty Space

Posted on by rita kowats 
Curious, isn’t it?
How laying bare 
one emptiness
exposes another
        and another
        and another.

Yesterday my friend’s cat
snuggled in her lap as we met
and I woke up later reaching for mine
but found instead the space 
where he used to be.
Where a sister used or be
            a brother
            a friend.

As this wave of grief recedes
I comb the beach of my soul
for bits of grace left behind.
Emptiness isn’t so empty after all.

c. Rita H Kowats
September 26, 2021

Reimagining

Posted on by rita kowats

“After trauma the world is experienced with a different nervous system.“

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk

Photo credit: shininglightenergyworks.com


On this day of remembering the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, the effects of trauma are very much with me.

I began my day listening to family members read the names of victims. Then I read the newsletter from my 55+ apartment building which announces that management is being harrassed and treated as less than human. It was not stated, but I wonder if as Asian Americans, they are being unconsciously scapegoated for “causing” the pandemic. I am brought back to our response to 9/11: an endless war laced with anti Muslim sentiment.

We are afraid. We feel helpless. Instead of reimagining a life without the threat of COVID, thus ending the power it has over us, we project our fear and rage on the nearest target.

I send light today to all the loved ones left behind.  May we all find healing.  Here is a guided meditation to help us through.

Dance Today

Posted on by rita kowats
NYT

Tomorrow’s dance is for tomorrow.

Dance today’s dance

Today.

RHK
Soon we live again exuberant and relieved;
But now we do a strange Lindy Hop
In a marathon not of our making,
We drag our weary bodies and souls behind us
Waiting for the Big Band to play the last note,
Releasing us from our dis-ease.

We yearn to dance again with abandon;
But in the time between we endure,
Faithful to this dance here and now.
Learning the steps as we go
Leaning against one another,
Cheering on, crying with.
Tomorrow’s dance is for tomorrow.
Dance today’s dance
Today.

c. Rita H Kowats 3/20/2021


A bit of context. You can have this day’s dance. I don’t want it. I imagine there are some dances you don’t want either. This one is called pneumonia. The fact that precautions weren’t enough in this precarious time is what sticks in my craw. I feel more vulnerable. So I searched my posts for a spiritual practice that sustained me in another time. I’m getting ready for the Lindy Hop.

Spiritual Practice

I often use the Insight Timer free meditation app on Google play. My favorite music is “Delta Waves and Oceanic Sounds.” I like it because I can sync my breathing with the ebb and flow of the waves and because it is unobtrusive.

Inhaling, I breathe in healing energy.

Exhaling I send it to every place in my body that needs healing (to my mind as well, in an effort to dispel fear and anxiety).

Inhaling I gather up all sick energy from my body.

Exhaling I send it down to the earth where it can be renewed.


Soon we live again exuberant and relieved;Ssdo a strange Lindy Hop
In a marathon not of our making,
We drag our weary Sssssbodies and souls behind us
Waiting for the Big Band to play the last note,
Releasing us from our dis-ease.

We yearn to dance again with abandon;
But in the time between we endure,
Faithful to this dance here and now.
Learning the steps as we go
Leaning against one another,
Cheering on, crying with.
Tomorrow’s dance is for tomorrow.
Dance today.

c. Rita H Kowats 3/20/2021