Several tidbits of inspirations have come my way over the last few days. Tidbits that would be well-served by some extended dwelling time.
I’ll mix some of the tidbits together here. All, for inspiration. Perhaps a spark. A memory. An association. Perhaps some medicine.
- My friend Janice Rous writes of trying “softer rather than trying harder.” Janice turned 76 earlier this week. She inspires me with her playfully serious heart and with her wisdom. Janice quotes the poet Andrea Gibson, “I know most people try hard to do good and find out too late they should have tried softer.”
- A recent participant in Wanderful Excursion sent me this poem by William Carlos Williams. It fit to the theme of our Excursion. And I loved that she offered it in the spirit of an appreciation, like she’d left me a bag of plums.
This Is Just To Say
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast.
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold.
- And then there’s this Rumi quote, picked up through the randomness of an email inbox. I appreciate the reminder, again, that love is a state inner and outer. With self and with others.
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers
within yourself that you have built against it.
- And then this portion of today’s Tuesday pot pourri insights. It’s the poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. The Word Woman writing about clarity and settling in a river and in a human soul.
The Clearing
Already the river is lighter in color,
less brown, less turbid, more
translucent. Just yesterday
the currents were thick with mud
and logs, needles and sticks
and bits of once-living debris.
Now that the furious flood has lost
its force, the gravel and sand
have begun their settling.
Whatever was floating now rests
on the banks and all that is left
suspended in the water
is what is most fine.
Soon, even that will sink
and the water will be clear again.
I, too, have felt the gift of slowing,
how it invites a sedimentation
of all I try to carry—the silt of my stories,
the muck of the world.
Like a river, the more calm I am,
the more clear I can become.
No magic, just a matter of physics.
How natural it is, the clearing.
I love it when the butterflies land on me. When I’m not chasing. But rather, watching them land. Perhaps you do to.
Living more softly.
