Incarnation happens where it happens: East, West, North and South, Inside, Outside, In Isaiah and in Rumi too. May this new week bring us Incarnation.
spiritual poetry
Thanksgiving
Happy Thanksgiving
to all Americans,
and to every one else,
I am grateful
for what you bring to our world.
Where Have You Gone?
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:
Photo Credit: pexels.com
Wounds As Tender Tinder
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.
A Timely Mandate: Play Your Heart Out
We are called to play one another
into being
with the instrument we’ve been given.
RHK
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
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
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
Photo Credit: https://www.pexels.com/search/nautilous%20shell/
Being Light
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
I recommend this lovely new book of Anita Neilson’s spiritual poetry:
https://anitaneilson.com/2018/12/07/its-raining-rose-petals/
Welcome, Whimsy!
Good Morning, everyone. Today is a day to take our souls out to play. I will meet you in the backyard at the ancient cedars and we will swing away our cares.
TO BUILD A SWING
You carry
All the ingredients
To turn your life into a nightmare—
Don’t mix them!
You have all the genius
To build a swing in your backyard
For God.
That sounnds
Like a hell of a lot more fun.
Let’s start laughing, drawing blueprints,
Gathering our talented friends.
I will help you
With my divine lyre and drum.
Hafiz
Will sing a thousand words
You can take into your hands,
Like golden saws,
Silver hammers,
Polished teakwood,
Strong silk rope.
You carry all the ingredients
To turn your existence into joy,
Mix them, mix Them!
HAFIZ
Photo Credit: photopin.com, creative commons
