Posted in Marvelous words on December 8, 2023| Leave a Comment »
And I marveled to find that at last I loved you and not some phantom instead of you; and I did not hesitate to enjoy my God, but was ravished to you by your beauty.
By Saint Augustine.
I feel these words viscerally, none more stonger than ravished. I don’t even know what the word exactly means, just that it is featured in romance novels, hopefully positively. But here, “ravished to you by your beauty” knocks my breath out every single time
Posted in Marvelous words on May 31, 2023| Leave a Comment »
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
Lines 4-6, he speaks for me. Line 3 – he’s a lucky sod. Not me. Is there anyone who feels beloved? To my knowledge, DD comes closest, she’s beloved to her father and me. But I know she feels it as oppressive than a source of comfort and joy.
Posted in Marvelous words on August 17, 2022| Leave a Comment »
From Victoria Chang, 2nd most marvelous one from Ben Purkert’s twitter.
The Lovers
There is a wildfire
starving on top of a lake
See how the water holds fire
but cannot end it?
We insist on love
when all we want is mercy.
Such a short poems and I went through all the emotions – where is this going? upto line 4, oh! on line 5 and then the gut punch that you feel all over your body on line 6 and carry around with you for days afterwards. Joy!
Posted in Marvelous words on July 27, 2022| Leave a Comment »
I started another one earlier, but the bus reached the destination before I got to finish it, so this is #2
I just finished reading this book by Katherine Center, “How To Walk Away”. The start was intense, I think I cried, I was certainly obsessed – what is going to happen to her? And after that, I don’t think I’ve ever had this experience – there were two voices – one felt too glib after a catastrophic accident, the other, esp the parts that explored grief, the terror and trauma were so well done – new words to see that place. There was a line about making a calendar for a year and if at the end of it, things didn’t get better, she would take herself out. It was so true to the character and shocking+logical. And at another time she says something like pre accident emotions were like disparate boxes. Now they were like Seurat paintings, each point depending on the others to give it its color and intensity. – yep, that made a fan out of me
Posted in Marvelous words on June 28, 2021| Leave a Comment »
“If I insist on giving you my truth, and never stop to receive your truth in return, there can be no truth between us” – Thomas Merton
What a perfectly constructed sentence! When I feel I’m right, I always want to tell you how I feel – I insist on giving you my truth. My reception is null, I have already judged your position and found it unworthy – I do not stop to receive your truth in return. And so we walk around in our own fog of righteousness. Talking is useless, writing maybe slightly less so since you won’t repeat yourself so much. I’m just reeling here from the simple truth of this line. Yes, I do know people who have stopped to receive others’ truth in return in the moment – Babaji – actually, he’s the only one I have seen do this. I think JD and Teacher might. Ok, I think I’m conflating disengaging from an argument with stopping to receive your truth. With Babaji and DH, it was Babaji stepping back from their argument on what is important – money or contentment in your path. My most practical DH wanted to follow the money, Babaji said go for contentment, money will follow. DH (animatedly): Oh no, won’t happen. Babaji: ok (I can still see him sit back in his chair and with the smallest nod and a gentle smile to indicate convo done and DH nonplussed). DH did a similar thing once (recorded here) where someone said an asinine thing as a winning argument and instead of decimating the guy, DH just sat back and said ok. So yeah, I think I’m tearing off on the wrong path. Sir Merton’s advice is not about disengaging from an argument. Though the same underlying principle holds – you have to not be vested in winning the argument.
I’m also taken by how this line jumped out at me. I was reading about the idiocy of some cabal of Bishops deciding they wanted to have a rule of who can receive the Eucharist at Mass – politicians who support abortion (Biden) cannot and then some other larger group said there won’t be any such ruling. Eyes skimming over the paragraphs and towards the end of the article, the beginning of this line made my head snap back. I have a problem with the phrase “my truth”, goes against Truth is indivisible. I was ready to dismiss, but part II and III just bound me with the sheer rightness of the statement. This is the most perfect usage of “my truth”. I thought one of the Bishops quoted in the article wrote this, but of course not.
Posted in Marvelous words on June 19, 2021| Leave a Comment »
By Elizabeth Bishop. Brought to my attention by, of all things, the New York Times. Idk if this is a regular thing by the Times, unpacking a poem. This is the first time I’ve seen it. I’ve read this one before and reeled from the walloping last paragraph. I’ve spent time wondering who/what/how. The simplicity and perfection when you gently nod along in resonance and wondering what’s the reason behind the poem and the sudden pain that squeezes your heart at the end and you have the answer, it is beautiful. I cried at the end, I’m sure I cried when I read it before too. This reaction feels so intimate and personal, yet so many feel this exact same emotion on reading it and the Times chooses to profile it. I want to share my (re)discovery with someone, I’m worried their reaction will not be the same as mine and detract from my joy in it. Here it is for me to (re)discover later:
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
The Times also broke it down. It’s a villanelle poem, I believe. 19 lines, 3*5 + 4. Repeating phrases like an incantation, the position of the phrases is set. I go through the poem like this:
1st para – hmm, yes
2nd para – yes, esp the hour badly spent
3rd para – does she mean memories? Perhaps avenues closing as you grow older?
4th para – She had to sell her place to get some money? moved away?
5th para – yes, definitely moved away. The realm business must be hyperbole
6th – oh! just helplessly oh!
The Times gave a few hints on the devices in the last para, the – in the beginning, shan’t, too and the parentheticals.
Bishop wrote at least 15 drafts, massaging it as each step to produce this perfection. It looks like it rolled out of her pen, fully formed. Hard work, my love, it can’t be faked
Posted in Marvelous words, Uncategorized on May 8, 2021| Leave a Comment »
On the hunt for my next read, I saw this excerpt. A better way to say “God willing” or “Bhagavan punyatthula, kandippa varuven”. It always sounds performatively holy and a bit of preemptive defense, maybe? In any case, RB does it better. Striking close to home in the present time 😦
Unless God send his hail,
Or blinding fireballs, sleet or stifling snow,
In some time, his good time, I shall arrive.
– Robert Browning
Posted in Marvelous words on June 28, 2020| Leave a Comment »
He who binds to himself a joy
Doth the winged life destroy.
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in Eternity’s sunrise.
This utter gem by William Blake flew across my radar this am. That wave of happiness when words, meaning and the resonance form a perfect union, the soul relaxes, the breath becomes full and the smile can’t be stopped – that is my experience of bliss. Kisses the joy as it flies – can there be a more evocative phrase?!
Posted in Marvelous words on May 16, 2020| Leave a Comment »
By Adya. I was in the Sat am meditation class and this guy who I’ve seen before, I can’t remember where in MMC, was leading it. I was not happy, he’s young and could be one of those woo-woo people, I was doubtful. And he turned out to be wonderful, so thoroughly calm that I felt his depth of practice. Btw, that’s the second time this week I dismissed a person because of their youth and they amazed me with their insight. Sean started the session with this poem by Adya – he didn’t use the first two lines, but all the rest of it.
Praise This Day
Save your mentally manufactured tales of
enlightenment-to-come for someone else’s ears.
The price to enter this love
is your hope for a better future.
We are not a crowd of beggars here.
You and I have been down that long, twisted road
all the way to its end.
Here we do not ask God for favors
but instead celebrate the light in each other’s eyes.
So, if you are ready to stop denying yourself
your own beauty
you have come to the right place.
Wake up now and praise this day
when you realize that God’s eyes
are the ones you are looking out of, and into.
Praise this day…
and with each breath you take
be filled with the golden arc of love
which announces the ending of
your argument with God.
Praise this day
simply because it exists
and sit down now in the warm skin
of your own lap;
for you are home
and it is time to rest
in the merciful light
of your own eyes…
Posted in Marvelous words on April 30, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Ok, who are you Mary Oliver and why has it taken me this long to find you?!
And you too have come into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine – Involuntary gasp as the walls in my heart are kicked down. xoxo!
WHEN I AM AMONG THE TREES
by Mary Oliver
When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay awhile.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”
I’m around mostly oaks and pines. I don’t see them as giving hints of gladness, more as being tolerant and indulging me when I walk through them. The time on Rancho San Antonio – the memories of that day are so wonderful.
Also, remember the note on PostSecret – the guy is an atheist, but he believes a tree he used to have around his house was glad to see him and would greet him when he came home, he considered the tree a friend.
My Reality 