Spirit Within

The beauty within.....

2011-06-28T08:58:00.000-04:00

Questions In The Mind Of A Poet While She Washes Her Floors

Will obedience leave me unknown to myself, stranded?

Is it enough for me to know where I'm from?

If I do more truth-telling will I be happier with what I say?

If I had three days to live would I still be sensible?

Is the break between my feelings and my memory
the reason I'm unable to sustain rage?

Am I a peninsula slowly turning into an island?

If I grew up gazing at the ocean would I think
life came in waves?

If I were a nomad would I measure time
by the length of a footstep?

If I can see a cup drop to the floor and shatter
why can't I see it gather itself back together?

If a surgeon cut out my mistakes
would the scar be under my heart?

How much time will I spend protecting myself
from what the people I love call love?

Would my desires feel different if I lived forever?

Will my desires destroy my politics?

Is taboo sex the ultimate aphrodisiac?

If I fall in love with the wrong person
How do I learn to un-in love myself?

Can I make my intuition into a divining rod?

Is music the closest I can get to God?

How many of these questions will remain
when I kneel to wash my floors again?

- Elena Georgiou

Walking on the Edge

2011-06-08T09:52:00.000-04:00

...when walking on the edge of life or death,

when pressed to be fully here,

we peer into a truth that changes everything.

Then, if still here, we come back with our hearts

seared anew by that seeing.

If blessed, we come back to live in days

that say so sweetly that everything,

even dust, is beautifully ordinary and irreplaceable.

~ Mark Nepo

...the soul, after all, is only a window...

2011-05-24T09:35:00.000-04:00

Have You Ever Tried to Enter the Long Black Branches?

Have you ever tried to enter the long black branches
of other lives --
tried to imagine what the crisp fringes, full of honey,
hanging
from the branches of the young locust trees, in early morning,
feel like?

Do you think this world was only an entertainment for you?

Never to enter the sea and notice how the water divides
with perfect courtesy, to let you in!
Never to lie down on the grass, as though you were the grass!
Never to leap to the air as you open your wings over
the dark acorn of your heart!

No wonder we hear, in your mournful voice, the complaint
that something is missing from your life!

Who can open the door who does not reach for the latch?
Who can travel the miles who does not put one foot
in front of the other, all attentive to what presents itself
continually?
Who will behold the inner chamber who has not observed
with admiration, even with rapture, the outer stone?

Well, there is time left --
fields everywhere invite you into them.

And who will care, who will chide you if you wander away
from wherever you are, to look for your soul?

Quickly, then, get up, put on your coat, leave your desk!

To put one's foot into the door of the grass, which is
the mystery, which is death as well as life, and
not be afraid!

To set one's foot in the door of death, and be overcome
with amazement!

To sit down in front of the weeds, and imagine
god the ten-fingered, sailing out of his house of straw,
nodding this way and that way, to the flowers of the
present hour,
to the song falling out of the mockingbird's pink mouth,
to the tippets of the honeysuckle, that have opened
in the night

To sit down, like a weed among weeds, and rustle in the wind!

Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?

While the soul, after all, is only a window,

and the opening of the window no more difficult
than the wakening from a little sleep.

Only last week I went out among the thorns and said
to the wild roses:
deny me not,
but suffer my devotion.
Then, all afternoon, I sat among them. Maybe

I even heard a curl or two of music, damp and rouge red,
hurrying from their stubby buds, from their delicate watery bodies.

For how long will you continue to listen to those dark shouters,
caution and prudence?
Fall in! Fall in!

A woman standing in the weeds.
A small boat flounders in the deep waves, and what's coming next
is coming with its own heave and grace.

Meanwhile, once in a while, I have chanced, among the quick things,
upon the immutable.
What more could one ask?

And I would touch the faces of the daises,
and I would bow down
to think about it.

That was then, which hasn't ended yet.

Now the sun begins to swing down. Under the peach-light,
I cross the fields and the dunes, I follow the ocean's edge.

I climb, I backtrack.
I float.
I ramble my way home.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(West Wind: Poems and Prose Poems)

immeasurable

2011-05-20T07:56:00.000-04:00

Crowning.....

the dawn came and the wreath of leaves was laid upon her head

ancient ones watched from the depths of the trees

the moment had come

she was

and ever more she will be

the light of her own life

the joy of her own heart

One

immeasurable.

When the moment cracks open, ecstasy leaps out

2011-05-19T09:29:00.000-04:00

THAT LIVES IN US

If you put your hands on this oar with me,
they will never harm another, and they will come to find
they hold everything you want.

If you put your hands on this oar with me, they would no longer
lift anything to your
mouth that might wound your precious land –
that sacred earth that is your body.

If you put your soul against this oar with me,
the power that made the universe will enter your sinew
from a source not outside your limbs, but from a holy realm
that lives in us.

Exuberant is existence, time a husk.
When the moment cracks open, ecstasy leaps out and devours space;
love goes mad with the blessings, like my words give.

Why lay yourself on the torturer’s rack of the past and the future?
The mind that tries to shape tomorrow beyond its capacities
will find no rest.

Be kind to yourself, dear – to our innocent follies.
Forget any sounds or touch you knew that did not help you dance.
You will come to see that all evolves us.

~ Rumi ~

(Love Poems From God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West by Daniel Ladinsky)

this bizarre and spectacular Existence

2011-05-18T09:10:00.000-04:00

IF THE FALLING OF A HOOF

If the falling of a hoof
Ever rings the temple bells,

If a lonely man's final scream
Before he hangs himself

And the nightingale's perfect lyric
Of happiness
All become an equal cause to dance,

Then the Sun has at last parted
Its curtain before you -

God has stopped playing child's games
With your mind
And dragged you backstage by
The hair,

Shown to you the only possible
Reason

For this bizarre and spectacular
Existence.

Go running through the streets
Creating divine chaos,

Make everyone and yourself ecstatically mad
For the Friend's beautiful open arms.

Go running through this world
Giving love, giving love,

If the falling of a hoof upon this earth
Ever rings the
Temple
Bell.

~ Hafiz ~

(The Gift - versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)

At the window....

2011-05-17T09:15:00.001-04:00

"All you need now is to stand at the window and let your rhythmical sense open and shut, open and shut, boldly and freely, until one thing melts in another, until the taxis are dancing with the daffodils, until a whole has been made from all these separate fragments."
- Virginia Woolf
Letter To A Young Poet
a writer's ruminations

Unfolding Beauty

2010-07-14T21:20:00.000-04:00

I took this picture on an early Spring day as some new young plants were unfurling their leaves. Now in the midst of summer I have taken this image and unlocked the beautiful patterns inside. I like the essence of this....new life being spun into new patterns, finding new beauty, adding new colors, shining new light and discovering more and more as time passes.

We can do this in our lives any time we choose....wake up new and begin to recognize the beautiful patterns we've kept locked inside...find the beauty, the color and light that we truly are. Sometimes it just becomes a habit to see things a certain way and if we allow it, everything can unfold around us in beauty.

Caterpillar in the Dill

2010-06-23T22:59:00.003-04:00

I discovered this colorful visitor in my garden a couple of days ago. It is a caterpillar who will later become a swallowtail butterfly. He and a friend seemed to be thoroughly enjoying my dill plant for a summer solstice picnic and have since invited other friends over to join them. They are destroying the plant but they are so interesting looking and the butterflies will be beautiful so I let them stay and eat the dill.

I really loved the art that spilled forth from their beautiful spirits. The dill added strong lines as well as a light feathery pattern to play with. I've created a slide show below to share the artwork. You can click on it to view a larger version or use the buttons at the bottom to pause or move backward and forward through the images.

White Blossoms

2010-06-09T19:46:00.000-04:00

I took this picture last month as the spring blossoms were just coming into full bloom. The flowers, stems and deep contrast with the background created beautiful patterns as I cut and pasted and played with the image.

Using color variations on this piece were especially effective in creating a whole new feeling with each new change. Sort of like looking at life through rose-colored glasses...we can look through our tangerine shades, turquoise spectacles or our psychedelic lenses....just taking a slightly new perspective, tinting things with a new hue, can create a whole new feeling in our lives and in our selves

(click on images to see a larger view)

Iridescence

2010-06-06T15:32:00.002-04:00

We went to an outdoor wedding celebration last weekend where they had beautiful peacocks and swans wandering about the property. I think the amazing iridescent blues and greens of the peacock have to be my very favorite color combination.

I looked up the definition of iridescence ... "a lustrous or attractive quality or effect" and "a play of lustrous, changing colors". Having just returned from spending the weekend visiting two of my favorite women on the planet, I'm feeling rather iridescent myself.

I used both of the photos above to play and discover even greater magic inside of these beautiful birds.

Click on the images to see a larger view . . .

Playing With Color

2010-05-26T20:16:00.002-04:00

I took this photo yesterday afternoon while keeping cool with my feet in the stream. The rocks, as well as the ripples on the water, made it an ideal image for cutting up and seeing what new patterns would emerge. This time I also had a little fun playing with colors. While the photo isn't very colorful, it is filled with plenty of contrast. Adding color brings the patterns even deeper and creates some very interesting new worlds. These really do feel like evoking a spirit from within to me. Why not add a little color to the patterns in your own life and see your own spirit emerge even more beautifully.

(Click on any image to see a larger view)

Pink Ice

2010-05-20T22:43:00.000-04:00

I know its a little out of season but I've already covered spring, summer and autumn so why not a little wintery looking ice. My friend Emma woke up this morning to snowflakes in Montana...so its not really that far off. This picture was actually taken in late fall after an ice storm.. The kale had still been bright and colorful in the garden. The worlds that came from this picture are so interesting and sparkly....

(click on any image to see a larger view)

The World Is Your Mirror

2010-05-16T13:11:00.000-04:00

I think most of us, at least if you've been on a spiritual path for much time, have heard of this concept of the world as a mirror. Meaning that what you see in your world around you is just a reflection of what is going on inside of you....your beliefs, identity, vibration, intentions....there are many words used that try to point us in this direction.

As I have been working on these art pieces...digitally cutting up my photos, creating mirror images that are cut up again and again, grouped and regrouped...the parallels have not been lost on me. It feels like a microcosm of my universe. As I step outside of myself and begin to observe I become the witness witnessing the witness and it is as if there are mirrors all around and the world is reforming itself in a million different patterns. The enormity of this witnessing with the heart wide open is breathtaking to me.

Lazy Summer Afternoon

2010-05-15T10:00:00.001-04:00

You may have noticed by now that I spend a lot of my time by the side of a stream :-). This picture was taken a couple of years ago on a lazy day in late summer. Hubby was fishing, I was taking photos and getting my feet wet. This was a really beautiful spot, I believe, in Fly Creek NY. Hope you enjoy the other worlds I found here too....

(click on any of the images to see a larger view)

Streamside

2010-05-11T23:44:00.002-04:00

This photo is from one of my many stream side explorations. I used several different snippets of the photo to discover these beautiful worlds locked inside.....

(click on any of the images to see a larger version)

Watery Leaves

2010-05-11T00:22:00.000-04:00

It was a cool, sunny autumn day last fall when I took this picture.

My heart felt sore,

wrung out and left to heal in the warmth of the sun

but my spirit was just beginning to open up to a new way of being.

Today as I played with this image the beauty of that moment seemed to flow out ...

Flowers for Mother's Day

2010-05-09T17:43:00.001-04:00

A whole field of these lovely little yellow field were lighting up the dusk .

Below are some images that came from within this field of flowers....

Old and New

2010-05-08T21:17:00.000-04:00

I took this picture of a new spring seedling popping up right next to a leaf from last year that was quietly decomposing nearby.

Below are some of the worlds that I found inside of this one....