A Spirituality Of Aging

Posted on May 18, 2020June 27, 2020 by rita kowats

I stand here
Outside of myself
And watch as I commence
the journey
Into venerable vulnerability-
At least that’s what the young call it;
It doesn’t feel venerable yet.

I watch with surprise
That this old body that once
Could stave off
All manner of ailment
Bouncing back stronger,
Now fights a succession of infections
On a pilgrimage to commune
With the bones
Of my once stately cathedral.

I stand here
Outside of myself
And watch as I
Cry through the loss
Like an ancient willow wailing
Over limbs taken by thankless winds.
I feel the phantom sensations
Of my coveted limbs tingle
With strength, endurance and joy.

If I stand here
Outside of myself long enough
I will see green-leafed limbs
Poke through the paneless windows
Of my bone cathedral,
Stretching toward
patience, acceptance and resignation.

I stand here
Outside of myself
Awestruck by this holy episode
We call life.

c. Rita H Kowats May 18, 2020

Photo Credit: Wikipedia Commons

Respite

Posted on April 21, 2020April 22, 2020 by rita kowats

How do we cope with the pace of covid 19? This poem was my outlet. It is heavy, but the times are heavy and allowing myself to feel puts me in solidarity with the suffering of others, and my own suffering. I hold all of you in my prayer.

Respite
(Upon seeing Aid Units take neighbors to hospitals)

Last night
Lopsided Luna
Had shrunk to a sliver
While I rested safely
In the crook of her crescent elbow.

Yet today, as sometimes happens here,
Sol soars above the Salish Sea
In full, bold brilliance
Prompting squints to soothe and temper.
But try as we might to temper traffic-
The Aid Units keep on coming.

How I long to stagger the relentless surge
Of this viral onslaught.
Let me linger longer in that calm crescent cave
Where raw sadness can live its way back to hope,
Where I can hone the creed
That all is well-
Regardless.

C. Rita Hemmer Kowats 4-20-2020
Birthday of my father George J. Kowats +1988

www.etsy.com/shop/AbstraxStudio?ref=simple-shop-header-name&listing_id=724710159

This sculptor does poignant, skillful work. You might enjoy visiting this website.

Regardless

Posted on April 10, 2020 by rita kowats

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Quarantine
Day four

Sleep paces in the lobby
Of my soul

The waning supermoon
Rises to eye level
Dispersing divine light
Over Under Around Beyond

Ahh
Welcome, lopsided Luna.
All is well
Regardless

c. Rita H Kowats 4-10-2020

Wisdom from Parker Palmer

Posted on July 2, 2019 by rita kowats

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It’s a soggy summer day in Seattle, folks, a day to silently drink in this pithy piece of wisdom and store it until the sun graces us with its presence again.

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Photo Credit: true self portraits https://www.newscientist.com/round-up/your-true-self/

A Spiritual Practice For Aging

Posted on April 25, 2019 by rita kowats

THE ABANDONED VALLEY

Can you understand
being alone so long
you would go out in the middle of the night
and put a bucket into the
well so you could feel something
down there
tug at the other end of
the rope?

Jack Gilbert in Refusing Heaven

RESPONSE
(for a loved one who wandered too far)

Old age is like
an abandoned valley
where you have to
venture out in the middle of the night
to find a well to sink your bucket
in search of someone to send it back.
Don’t wander far.
The well is closer
than you imagine.

© Rita H Kowats

Sending Loving Kindness to Furloughed Government Workers

Posted on January 17, 2019 by rita kowats

The Scream Edvard Munch

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/mysterious-motives-behind-theft-scream-180964531/

Loving kindness Meditation

https://ggia.berkeley.edu/practice/loving_kindness_meditation

One Day At A Time

Posted on November 28, 2018 by rita kowats

Sway With the Wind

Posted on October 13, 2018 by rita kowats

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The black wrought iron bench was toasty-warm today where I sat watching lakeside trees sway against the gentle autumn wind. Against the wind. I hear Bob Seeger singing in my ear,”…we were running against the wind.” The wind today was coming from the Fraser River Valley in Canada. Normally wind comes from the south around here in the Puget Sound area and our trees know that. They are genetically disposed to sway with the southern winds. When those winds howl down from Canada in winter accompanied by cold temperatures, we can be in trouble. It happened one winter when I lived in a rural wood. I woke up to eighteen trees uprooted on the road behind me. They can’t handle seventy-mile-an-hour sustained northern winds.

I saw the lesson in the trees gently swaying today. I’ve been feeling a bit off lately, an underlying dis-ease in response to an impending hip replacement. The surgery itself doesn’t make me uneasy…I’m a pro, having already had both knees replaced! It’s all the preparations and doctors’ appointments and constant questions and questionnaires that unnerve me. The trees reminded me to be flexible, to sway with the wind rather than against it. Much easier. Much healthier spirituality and physically. Of course, sometimes justice demands that we run against the prevailing wind hanging on tightly, but not this time.

“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

photo credit: KarinKarin2 <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/123747563@N07/32265204954″>Sylt</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>(license)</a>

Innocence Re-Membered

Posted on May 24, 2018May 26, 2018 by rita kowats

Epilogue

On my way home I passed the girls and stopped to chat. They showed me each new leaf on a shrub they had discovered and their brother told me the story of the Tyrannosaurus Rex that lumbered across his T- shirt.

Also, this…

from “A Brief for the Defense” in Refusing Heaven, Jack Gilbert

We must risk delight. We can do without
pleasure, but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness
in the ruthless furnace of this world. To make injustice the
only measure of our attention is to praise
the Devil.

photo credit: James Bowe <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/29848680@N08/41372593744″>Buttercups</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>(license)</a>

Ruth Uprooted

Posted on March 23, 2018 by rita kowats

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But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God will be my God”. Ruth 1:16

Imagine this. Your father is eighty years old and his wife of 55+ years has just entered a Memory Care Unit. Every visit to his wife is a painful death. The added stress of learning how to manage his household and care for his own aging body is quickly depleting him of energy.

Like the biblical Ruth you hear a call that is more than duty. The call to loving compassion sounds clearly and insistently across Badlands and Cascades: Uproot. Go. Your people shall be my people. So you leave everything to make a new home with your father.

Who does such a thing? I am in awe of the courage and aware of the challenges. May I someday learn to be this selfless.