spiritual poetry

Weeping Willow Meditation

Posted on by rita kowats

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Weeping Willow Meditation

 

My seven-year-old self often sat
Settled under the swaying, trailing branches
Of the weeping willow that stood guard
In the center of her backyard.

 

The wispy caresses of the supple branches
Danced on the gentle wind,
Soughing a message unheard
On the other, unsettled wind
That gusted through the house-

You are loved. You are whole.

 

My seventy-five year old self
Now sits before a willow weeping
For a world not supple,
A world bending to its breaking point.
Trailing branches whip and slap,
Howls replace affirming whispers.

 

The weeping will wane
With every sway of every branch.
Hope will caress us again.
Weeping and rejoicing are One.
Live through each,
You become the Other.

 

© Rita Hemmer Kowats 4-30-2020

 

Photo Credit: Photo by Daria Sannikova from Pexels

Where Have You Gone?

Posted on by rita kowats

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It has been two days since I visited my sister-in-law in the memory care unit.  An intense collage of feelings have mixed with tears as I struggle to make sense of the unsensible.

GONE   WHERE ARE YOU   MOMENTS OF TERROR   HUMOR   GRIEF  UNLESS YOU BECOME LIKE LITTLE CHILDREN YOU CANNOT ENTER THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN  WITHOUT THE ABILITY TO THINK…IS THERE A SOUL    it’s all there.

Phyllis was diagnosed with Alzheimers two years ago and now after another fall and a broken hip and a move, the disease has progressed dramatically in a short time. I am grateful that my brother hasn’t lived to witness this.

At last this morning I was gifted with a measure of sense and hope:

Gone

 

Photo Credit:  pexels.com

 

 

 

Wounds As Tender Tinder

Posted on by rita kowats

 

 

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This poem follows on the heels of yesterday’s prayer.  It dogged me with the tenacity of Heaven’s Hound until this was born.  Ponder with me.

 

Tender Tinder (1)

A Timely Mandate: Play Your Heart Out

Posted on by rita kowats

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We are called to play one another
into being
         with the instrument we’ve been given.

RHK

 

 

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Photo Credit:   

“SoulCards” by Deborah Koff-Chapin.  The technique Deborah has created is called “touch drawing.”  The  cards come in two decks of 60 images and can be used alone or with others as reflection tools.  They have enriched my meditation for years and have helped those I companion with.  www.soulcards.com

Used with permission from the artist

 

“Sleepless in Seattle”: Navigating an Ego Storm

Posted on by rita kowats

spider alone

 

 

Spirit-Weaving

A web of webs
connects bar to bar
on the lanai railing,
its silver threads catching
the subdued September sun
as it inches its way across the eastern sky.

Early autumn wind cools
the coffee hoarded in my hands-
a comforting respite from the nocturnal
ego storm that ensnared insectile what ifs
in the web of my soul, exhausting me
with their raging
against the storm.

Now
out here in healing sun,
wind and real webs
a Spirit-Web of trust
has neutralized the what-ifs,
calling me back to rest
in the center of my own best self.
Steady
Ready.

© Rita H Kowats 9-9-19

Homecoming: A Feast Of Sacred Poems

Posted on by rita kowats

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Once again I am honored to introduce you to a freshly published volume of poetry penned by my friend Kay Mullen.  You can read more about it and order a copy at her  website.

I leave you now with a glimpse into kay and a taste of her poetry.

About Kay

[…in later life] Kay… earned a Master of Fine Arts from Pacific Lutheran University with a focus on poetry. She received a First Place in the Washington State William Stafford Award and was a Best of the Net nominee as well as a multiple Pushcart Prize nominee. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals including Shark Reef, and Literature and Belief. Anthologies include Becoming: What Make a Woman, edited by Jill McCabe Johnson, and Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose About Alzheimer’s Disease, edited by Holly Hughes.

…Looking back on her writing she states: “I realize I intuitively strove to follow my birth mother’s music and artistic gifts somehow weaving them into my poems. My mother left me a legacy I discovered long after her death. She has become alive again in my poetry.” www.kaymullen.org

 

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Photo Credit:  https://www.pexels.com/search/nautilous%20shell/

www.kaymullen.org

Being Light

Posted on by rita kowats

light in eye

 

Recently I introduced the newly published book of spiritual poetry, Rose Petals Floating Downstream by Anita Neilson (  https://anitaneilson.com/ )

I picked up the book in an in-between time today and opened to the poem below, “If Thine Eye be Single.”  Here it is, accompanied by what it evoked from me.

If Thine Eye be Single

“The light of the body is the eye:
if therefore thine eye be single,
thy whole body shall be full of light.”

Matthew 6:22

 

Eyes twinkling
like headlamps dipping
o’er the brow of a hill;
silent messengers
through the mists of time.

Windows on the world
but also to the soul
if we look deeper.

Codeless truths blink
to those who seek
meaning en route.

An eternal clignoter
Clic, clic, clic.

If thine eye be single
a million stars
Will diffuse into one
and every twist and turn
a delight will be
on this path to eternity.

Anita Neilson

 

Response

The eye with which god
sees me is the same eye
with which I see god.

One seeing
knowing
loving.

My eye and god’s eye
are one.

Meister Eckhart

∞  ∞  ∞  ∞  ∞  ∞  ∞  ∞  ∞  ∞  ∞  ∞  ∞  ∞  ∞  ∞

The light with which god
sees me is the same light
with which I see god.

One seeing
knowing
loving
One  Light.

God’s light and my light
are one light.

rita h kowats

 

 

 

 

 

Rose Petals Floating Downstream

Posted on by rita kowats

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I recommend this lovely new book of Anita Neilson’s spiritual poetry:

https://anitaneilson.com/2018/12/07/its-raining-rose-petals/