Beginnings of Easter

 

Beginnings of Easter

 

As the sun rises

Bringing with it a new day

On this day in particular,

I am deeply reminded of new beginnings.

Easter occurs in the early weeks

Of spring time.

Together they serve as a

Reminder of renewal.

After the darkness

Of winter,

Of sadness,

Light will always come again.

Light is just as inevitable as darkness.

All things end, but all things begin as well.

This time of year,

This day brings us back to the light

Back to the love of the world.

The flowers are blooming,

The earth is awakening

Beckoning to us

To join in the process

And become even more alive.

Take a moment

And really let this feeling of

Birth, renewal and hope

Sink deep into your soul.

 

Happy Easter, Happy Spring, Happy Time of New Beginnings no matter what religion you are. While I’m not a very religious person, I was raised Catholic and I do still celebrate Easter. Even though I don’t agree wholeheartedly with everything the Catholic church stands for, I can relate to and understand Easter and it’s message of beginning a new. I tie Easter with spring and make it meaningful to me in my own way. This poem lets you into that a bit.

What helps you remember the beauty of renewal?

At the end of the day it’s acceptance

 

At the end

At the end of the day

It all boils down to this,

Awareness, acceptance.

Allowing yourself to be where you are

Allowing yourself to be who you are

To feel what you feel

Without judgment.

This is the way

To get out of your own way.

It’s the best solution,

To accept what is

Instead of wishing, hoping, worrying

About what isn’t.

To be in the present moment

Completely, wholly as it is

Will set me free.

The present moment is

An inevitable piece of human existence

You can’t live in the past or the future

No matter how hard you try

No matter how much you think

And imagine

Living behind closed eyes.

It is not possible.

When you can breathe

And accept that

A world

Brilliant beyond compare will open up

You will be free

To live exactly as you are

Flaws and all

And it will be perfect

Merely because it is.

 

After having a wonderful conversation with a great friend of mine, I was inspired to write this. We talked about lots of things especially the difficult things we are each dealing with. What we both realize and are working on is that accepting where we are, and what we are feeling is the key. It’s not always easy to sit with the way you are feeling and let it be, but it is the only way to loose yourself from emotions tight grasp. After this conversation a wonderfully talented woman posted about a similar idea in her post Just Like You and I knew it’s a reinforcement of what I already was feeling about needing to sit with my emotions. I love the synchronicities of life!

What happens when you accept where you are?

Strangers reflection

 

Strangers Reflection

 

Watching my reflection in the screen

Brings tears to my eyes.

The frustration, the sadness,

The hope, the peace.

Living behind the eyes.

It’s only just a face,

The first thing people see,

Without knowing what it really means.

 

The moonlight plays with my emotions

Turning everything all around.

Running trains through my mind.

It spills light onto places I thought

I’d long since left behind.

It makes tears shimmer and fall,

Diamonds rolling gently down

Naked cheeks.

I’ve forgotten what I’m doing,

Forgotten who I am,

This stranger staring back at me

Seems so unfamiliar.

Moonlight may be at fault

Shifting my reflection

Creating someone I never knew.

Showing me the possibility

Of who I just might be.

 

Somehow nature always has a message for me, it always brings me back to lessons I need to learn. The moonlight shining on me can remind me to take another look at who I am. The way the light shifts and changes my reflection reminds me to question and forget who I am. Forgetting can be the best way to discover the possibilities I never knew existed.

 

When did forgetting allow you to make room for something new?

To the edge

To the edge

 

Sometimes you need something to happen

A great life occurrence to knock you around,

Pushed all the way to the edge

In order to realize just how far you could go.

When you have only ever known

To hold so very tight that letting go

Seems sheer madness,

That is when you are nudged and pushed

Until out of weariness and fatigue

You let go.

In surrender to that which is beyond you,

 Your grip loosens and

You are suspended in midair

No longer fearing what will happen when you hit the ground,

Because all time has stopped and nothing

Else matters but this precise moment.

After a while you realize you aren’t

Slamming to a gruesome death,

But that you are supported and lifted

By something

You cannot see,

But you can feel

It is not of you and yet lies within.

Logically you are the least safe you’ve ever been

And yet you have never felt more safe

Or more at peace.

Without coming to the edge,

Without being pushed just beyond

You never would have found

That peace and love that lie beyond.

 

The interesting thing is that we actually come to many edges in our lifetimes. Over and over we are pushed, and push ourselves in ways we hadn’t to that point been pushed to before. When we can remember that there is always further to go, always more to come it can make each time less scary. To approach life with inquiry instead of fear, and trust instead of distrust it will be less tumultuous. I’m working on this…shall we say it’s definitely a work in progress. 

A reminder

 

Just A Reminder

 

Maybe a reminder

To turn off the power,

Get back to what’s important.

Spend real time with loved ones,

Get creative in the kitchen

Let go of all the deadlines

The trappings of daily life.

Disconnect for a while

Enjoy the simple pleasures

Of walking on a cool crisp day,

Laughing with people you love

As you play a silly game.

Check up on people,

Provide a helping hand.

Why is it that tragedy seems

Sometimes to be the only way to

Make us all remember

What is really important.

 

This past weekend I was down in Seaside Heights, NJ – that’s when I took this picture. It’s amazing to see the progress that is being made, the restoration that is happening. It is also devastating to see all the destruction that happened. It brought me back to October when Sandy happened. I wrote this poem shortly after we got power back.

What was your experience of Sandy?

Secret desire

 

Secret Desires

 

Creeping up and

Sweeping down,

The mountains whisper

Through my ears.

Each rock holding memories,

Life, a voice

Calling out to me.

Tempting me to climb

To risk it all

To come back down again.

Push my body to a place

Of pure, complete unknown.

An obsession of high risk.

An obsession existing

Mostly in my mind,

A life full of excuses

A life with little time

To pursue the love that

Flows through my very veins.

Holding on to far away dreams

By holding on to words

Reading all I can,

Soaking up the adventures of others

Till I can have one of my own.

Each story brings me back

To the desire for a different life

The freedom each climber speaks of.

Funny how so much money

People spend to climb the highest mountains

To prove something to the world

Risk their lives, to reach the top.

My desire lies in the mountain

A need to be close,

To press myself against the rock,

Feel it beneath my fingers,

My desire also lies

In the need to push my self

Feel my body working in amazing ways

To trust my body and the rock

To work together becoming one

Propelling me upward,

Forward to the summit.

It lives inside,

People don’t really see

The desire for the rock

The mountain,

Secret desire for climbing exists

Within my hands,

Fingers and my toes.

One that many don’t understand

It’s not about risking life

Or proving anything

Other than to myself.

Climbing is about trust

In yourself

The people you are with

And the rock, the universe and

Mother earth.

It’s about letting go,

In the letting go I find my strength

I find myself.

 

This picture is one I took during a climb up Mt Monadnock in NH. Climbing mountains and hiking is a love of mine. I have a dream of climbing Mt. Everest one day. Now it is a realistic dream eh, not so much, but I do love to climb. It’s one of those things that I don’t really get to do all that often partly because I don’t live near many mountains and I find it difficult to find time for it. But I love it none-the-less. It does feel like a secret desire because not too many people know the depths of my desire and love for the mountains. 

 

What do you love to do that not many people know?

A glassy lake

 

A Glassy Lake

 

Watch the water

To learn about the wind.

A glassy lake

Tells stories of the

The breeze.

Big smooth ripples

Slowly travel cross the lake

As prompted by the wind

Wide in their migration

Till a change blows

Smaller choppy ripples

Quicker from side to side.

Baby waves,

Happy to flow

Into and out of one another.

Each ripple is the water,

The water is the ripple

But also so much more.

One becomes the other

And recedes back to itself.

Reflecting back, the mountains

Tall standing trees.

Reflecting back the stillness.

So loud it fills all of me,

To be the trees, where not one of the leaves

Blows in the wind.

Breezes so soft, they can’t disturb the trees.

A silence, and a stillness

Deeper than the earth, upturned by greedy shovels.

It takes me to a place,

Beyond my understanding, beyond my

Recognition, where all is one

And breath begins.

The meeting for all things, the space

In between.

 

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again and most likely many more times – nature heals me. In particular, water heals me, sitting near a lake or river is enough to take me away from any worries I have. This particular poem was inspired by a beautiful lake in Vermont, one of my favorite places in the world. You see all of nature is special to me, but some places have a magical quality to them, energy that is different from any other – that’s what Vermont is like for me, a magical place. It does my soul good to remember it even when I’m not there. The picture is from one of the magical lakes I love in Vermont!

Where do you find magic?

To be extraordinary

 

To be extraordinary

 

We are all made for greatness

Built with an innate possibility

To be extraordinary.

 

In childhood

I knew this to be true

I thought I could fly

Never doubted

How special I was,

Never doubted I would be provided for.

 

In childhood, I believed in hope

I had dreams

Even though life was

Not perfect,

Even though there were hardships

I still had dreams,

I still had a trust beyond what I was feeling

That things would be OK

That I was and would be great.

 

Somewhere along the way

I lost that,

Somewhere along the way

Doubt crept in

Faith and trust became difficult to hold on to.

My ego took over and

Drew a veil of ‘less than’ over me.

Creating the belief that

I was less than great,

That it wasn’t possible for little old me

To be great.

 

But what my ego doesn’t understand

Is that it is just a veil

And all I need do is lift that veil

And I am back in faith and trust.

Because no amount of

Ego-centric thinking

Can erase the Truth

With a capital T.

That I am made for greatness.

That every single human

Is made for greatness.

That just to be ourselves

Is to be extraordinary.

 

It’s a beautiful Sunday morning here in NJ, albeit a bit chilly for spring. Today I wanted to post this picture and then picked out a poem to go with it. I believe animals can be our greatest teachers at times because they are free from ego which can cause us humans all kinds of problems. If we can pay attention to animals and how they live constantly in the present moment and try to do that ourselves we could really learn a lot.

What do animals teach you?

Seasons of life

Of seasons in Life

 

The seasons of my life

Knock against the windows of my soul.

Asking to be let in, with wizened years

Of movement and change.

The silence cannot drown out the sounds

Of a life – long lived

Singing and crying out about all that has transpired

And come to pass.

To let them in brings

Chaos and memories made to be real

But blurred with time and mixed emotions,

While also bringing lessons learned and

Love found.

 

When the days are finished and all is done

My soul will be and want to look back

On a life lived.

Through the eyes of my soul

Each season holds a lesson

Each season holds a purpose filled with and

Directed by a river of love and truth.

It will all blend into an unrecognizable

Painting I never knew I helped create.

 

With the coming of spring, seasons are on my mind. I usually enjoy whatever season I am in, but this past year I have found myself impatiently waiting for spring and summer. I know each season has lessons to teach, but I’m well over winter and its lessons. This poem deals with the seasons of life, it was inspired by the changing of seasons in nature.

What do the seasons inspire in you?

If my life was a book

 

If my life was a book

What if my life was really a book

Everything I think I’m doing is really just the

Words someone else is writing down

On a page?

What if the things I believe to be real

Including myself are not

Real beyond the page.

If I’m just a figment of someone’s imagination?

How would that change my view on things?

I’d see it all as part of the adventure, the story

As it unfolds.

Every hardship and tear

A beautiful, hauntingly sad part of

A story with a lesson

A reason for existence.

I mean the best books are ones where

Adventures happen,

I love it when someone goes through

An incredibly emotional and difficult time

Only to have it all work out some way in the end.

Maybe I could take it all less seriously

If I was just a character on a page.

My pain and struggles

Merely a way to move the plot along

For the entertainment of the reader.

What would it be if I was

Really just a reason for a book?

 

An interesting thought – if my life was a book. You see as much as I am a writer, I am also a voracious reader. I love books, have since I was young. One of my favorite places is the library, the quiet, the smell of the books, just being surrounded by so many words – love it! I recently had a thought after finishing a book for my book club, what if my life was just a story in someone’s book, that everything happening was inside someones imagination? That’s where this poem came from.

What would your life look like as a book?