Category: Whole Life of the Poet (Page 8 of 18)

Where have I been? I lost two weeks in there!! Okay, one Friday I just plum forgot to post and then the next week was INSANE. The whirlwind included visitors, covering for someone at work with family care commitments. But so much has been going through my head: new MOOCs, short little trips, the holidays coming, a very sad death in the family just yesterday. So all the things I wanted to talk about came and went like a bird passing through. Did I mention Halloween??

That’s okay. If they were important, hopefully those thoughts will come back.

The Prompt: What You Think You Know

This week’s prompt:

“Knowledge is learning something everyday. Wisdom is letting go of something everyday.”
        – Unknown

First task is to sit for a meditation on that for 5-10 minutes or however long you feel is good to you.

The Drawing

My Haiku

…inspired by my drawing:

Leaving is for now
Dropping is for the season
They will all come back

The Reflection

This one is always work-to-do for me, the little Hermione that I can be. But I hear it in other people too: knowledge as a shield, as a way to gain traction in the world, as a way to master (even the word!), a way to elevate yourself above those without the knowledge. Sometimes you can plainly see this working intentionally in people. Other times, it’s completely subconscious.

Which is what makes beginners mind so, so handy. If you think you’re an expert at something: think again. Start over. 

I do this myself with instructional books of poetry. My first thought when I buy a book on how to write poetry (which I’m still doing 35 years in) is disappointment that the book is too “beginners.” I’m ready for the advanced stuff, teacher! Give me the hard stuff. And undoubtedly we get a lot from advanced books which crunch our brains. But I’m always humbled by some little gem hiding out in a beginners book, some perspective I’ve never ever considered. Admittedly if feels tedious at first, but it’s the surest way to true discovery: losing the crutch of the knowing. 

I think this is why teachers love beginners students: because they learn something from them. It’s also why beginner poems are so exciting: they’re freewheeling, and not from rules, but from innocence.

Give it a try.

This week's prompt is about erasing, which reminds me of erasers, an object I particularly love.

My first eraser set came in a tiny Hello Kitty package when I was four or five years old in 1975 (back when Hello Kitty was new and happily bizarre). I've long since lost that little set but when I started working at CNM years ago I had too much desk space and went on a eraser collecting binge.

Sadly, my collection is crammed into my home office.

Back at CNM I also started an Eraser Manifesto which became a poem earlier this year.

The Prompt: Erasure

This week's prompt:

"Only the hand that erases can write the true thing."
        – Meister Eckhart

First task is to sit for a meditation on that for 5-10 minutes or however long you feel is good to you.

The Drawing

My Haiku

…inspired by my drawing (it's a vinyl record, but it looks more like a boob to me):

Scratches of memory
Harsh runs the eraser
Thinning the ink trees

The Reflection

This is true with cleaning the house, cleaning your head, cleaning your writing and gardening: the art of taking something out is painful but makes a beautiful thing. It's a fine balance to learn how not to erase too much but also to take out just enough. It's fun to practice.

An eraser is a symbol as much as a pen or pencil of creativity and balance.

I need to take this lesson and thin out an eraser collection, eh?

What do you think?

This week autumn came….like Thursday. It was hot and then it was not. We had a hard freeze last night. The trees are confused. I have new sunflowers coming up! I traveled up to Colorado last weekend to continue researching the Goodnight Loving Trail for Cowboy Meditation Primer. It rained for hours on Friday, was incredibly windy on Saturday and sunny all day Sunday and Monday. Put up Halloween this week in anticipation of October guests! It smells good out.

The Prompt: Lessons

This week's prompt:

"Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know."
        – Pema Chödrön

First task is to sit for a meditation on that for 5-10 minutes or however long you feel is good to you.

The Drawing

My Haiku

…inspired by my drawing (it's a vinyl record, but it looks more like a boob to me):

Like a haunted sound
that plays over and over
skipping at midnight

The Reflection

Not much to say about this one. I'm sure I'll have more thoughts when I've figured out what it is I need to know!

🙂

Now you.

This week was pretty mellow. Taking a class. Getting reading done. Did some weeding. Just came back from lunch with old work friends. Nothing spectacular and yet spectacular things all around.

The Prompt: Being Judgey

This week's prompt:

"Wise men don't judge–they seek to understand."
        – Wei Wu Wei

First task is to sit for a meditation on that for 5-10 minutes or however long you feel is good to you.

The Drawing

My Haiku

…inspired by my drawing (which I have to admit I copied from another design online):

The song of the depths
are echoing the shallows
Of bullfrogs and birds

The Reflection

Another challenging prompt. You have to judge something: like murderers and the Holocaust. But do we need singing, cooking and camping competitions?

My drawing this week was a cryptic homage to The Voice which is far less judgey than some things out there. But it's whole existence is to pass judgement. I can be very judgey. I learned how to do it from a friend of mine and then years and years of practice. It's addictive because it gives you the space to pontificate, which is, let's face it, kinda fun. I even used to love judgey zines, whose whole point of being was to judge (hence the transgression joy of them), like Beer Frame, a zine which wrote judgey letters to junk food companies. Another one I loved was The Curmudgeon' Home Companion, a small two page newsletter of grumpiness with recipes. Food and judgey seem to always go together. 

Anyway, like anything else, it's good to practice this stuff in moderation.

Judge away.

I loved this week! So happy to be back to my day-to-day job and I got so much done! It was lovely. Pot of Gold. Check.    

The Prompt: Pot of Gold

This week's prompt:

"When you realize nothing is lacking, the whole world belongs to you."
        – Lao Tzu

First task is to sit for a meditation on that for 5-10 minutes or however long you feel is good to you.

The Drawing

My Haiku

…inspired by my drawing (which I have to admit I copied from another design online):

Through the fog of want:
the turret and golden leaves.
You're already there

The Reflection

I love the Kool Aid guy…enough to inspire my pop of gold face. And it's almost egregious that when they say "don't drink the kool aid," they're really talking about the sinister poison of propaganda disguised within the innocent sugary drink. Arms akimbo, he's really a sassy little pitcher.

Now your turn.

So much insanity this week and last. I've made it through two weeks of boss-gone coverage. Did some stress eating. Went to see the movie It.  I am looking forward to getting away soon, getting back into the routine. 

The Prompt: Letting Go

This week's prompt:

"Let go or be dragged."
        – Zen Proverb

First task is to sit for a meditation on that for 5-10 minutes or however long you feel is good to you.

The Drawing

My Haiku

…inspired by my drawing (which I have to admit I copied from another design online):

Sitting and waiting:
Is it holding on or
Is it letting go?

The Reflection

This is great advice and I love this quote. So true. Tough love. And yet…am I the only one who has trouble getting to 100% on this? It's hard to know when is the time to give up before quitting too soon. If you someone who has a tendency to quit too soon, you know what I mean. Where is the line between an endurance run and futility?

There's plenty for me to let go of (mistakes I've made, stupid things I've said, fussy judgments I have)…but what about the good stuff about being dragged: on a sled, when you're being rescued, in a tickle fight…

Half the time I'm just winging it. And I worry about it; but maybe I need to let go of that?

Now your turn.

This week my boss is on vacation and I've been the boss. It has not been fun. Lots of wheels coming off this wagon. Well, not really but…it's been intense. This week's reflection was really helpful…everything is a brief flash of what it is and that's all (except actual tragedy, which this week falls way short of). I am not, however, a horse bred for intensity. I'm a meadow horse. I'm a lazy horse. 

The Prompt: Bubble in a Stream

Again this week's prompt is the last one from the Zen by the Brush book by Myoshi Nancy O'Hara. Thank you book for inspiring this project and getting us this far.

"Think in this way of all this fleeting world:
As a star at dawn, a bubble in a stream;
A dewdrop, a flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream."
        – The Diamond Sutra

First task is to sit for a meditation on that for 5-10 minutes or however long you feel is good to you.

The Drawing

My Haiku

…inspired by my drawing(s):

All the coupling ands
A chain of exuberance
Shining, lighting out.

The Reflection

So it turns out, untutored a dew drop is damn hard for me to draw. I give you two of three pages of my attempts. I was struck by the ands in this Diamond Sutra: all the things AND a dream. How wonderful. 

What do you make of it?

So I feel better this week. There's rumblings that the art brawl group might get busy again. We'll feel productive anyway. I've had a whirlwind week at work prepping me for some vacation coverage. So being in the moment has been what it's been. Post move, I've organized a lot, done some home improvement and am ready to dive back into creative projects. That should help.

The Prompt: In the Moment

Again this week's prompt comes from the Zen by the Brush book by Myoshi Nancy O'Hara. 

"Live in the moment.
The starry sky is just there–
Where else can you be?"
        – Myochi

First task is to sit for a meditation on that for 5-10 minutes or however long you feel is good to you.

The Drawing

My Haiku

…inspired by my drawing:

What you are given:
Wind, and the wind and the wind
And all the seeds…

The Reflection

🙂

Do it!