The Allowing

Dear Friends,
This is a poem set in the style of a Pantoum; a wonderful stream of consciousness, yet contained 4 stanza quatrain format. To learn more about this style and other forms of poetry I invite you to read “Unbroken Line: Writing in the Lineage of Poetry” by Miriam Sagan. 

The Allowing…a Pantoum

I cried myself to sleep last night thinking about you.
I pressed my warm hand onto your cold folded hands,
kissed the hardness of your forehead leaving an imprint of my lipstick.
I thought, “This kiss goes with you forever”.

I pressed my warm hand onto your cold folded hands.
The full harvest moon hides behind thick clouds.
I want to be more like myself than ever before.
Your hands, cold but solid, give me ground.

The full harvest moon hides behind thick clouds.
What does authentic mean to me now?
Your hands, cold but solid, give me ground.
Where is the ground I once knew?

What does authentic mean to me now?
A siren sounds in the distance and Lucy howls in response.
Where is the ground I once knew?
There is now only free falling.

A siren sounds in the distance and Lucy howls in response.
I carry you both with me now in every moment there is.
There is now only free falling.
I am now free to carry myself into the future.

I carry you both with me now in every moment there is.
I cried myself to sleep last night thinking about you.
I am now free to carry myself into the future.
I thought, “This kiss goes with you forever”.

Dedicated to my Parents
Loretto Sherman, 2/4/1921-9/25/2006
Duncan Sherman, 8/2/1923-5/2/2011

Also posted today over at Vision & Verb:
http://www.visionandverb.com/

Beginning of Autumn

Took a wonderful walk today up in the Aspen Vista; 9000 altitude. The most perfect of an autumn day. In honor of my Mom's 5th anniversary of her passing it felt right to be out in nature and allow whatever thoughts and feelings that came up to have a wide berth. I don't know about any of you but this whole grief processing experience cannot be contained in words that I am familiar with. My friend Melissa asked if I was thinking about my Mom today. I said, "You know, it's bigger than words or thoughts. It's bigger than anything I've ever known.
And now, with having both my parents gone; allowing everything to come up and show itself seems to be the only way. Allowing gives freedom to the thoughts and feelings. No need to define or place in a box or give boundaries to.
As Joan Didion writes in "The Year of Magical Thinking", she describes a day as being "...seemed to unfold with the nonsequential inexorability of a dream."
That is grief written like I've never seen before.

Courage to Answer the Call

Lo-mob& iris studio, a photo by Mary Sherman on Flickr.

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face....You must do the thing you cannot do.
~Eleanor Roosevelt

A different dance

A different dance, a photo by Mary Sherman on Flickr.

The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is Real.
~Marge Piercy

Self Cherishing

I've been having a lot of feelings lately, like worry and fear and "bracing against" what could happen. And I'm realizing how these feelings are all so self-centered. They aren't productive thoughts and feelings; they are all emotions that bring me back to me - in other words, self centered and as the Buddha phrased it, self-cherishing. Not good Mary.

And since having the awareness that these are self cherishing thoughts I go to what Abraham says about the more you don't want something the more you are in fact inviting it into your awareness and into your life.

So now, I've been working on really watching what thoughts and feelings come up for me and immediately changing them to what I do want. Staying on the side of positive and affirmative. Oh...that feels so much better!

The Invitation

The Invitation
by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon...
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.

It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.

By Oriah © Mountain Dreaming,
from the book The Invitation
published by HarperONE, San Francisco,
1999 All rights reserved