Journey of the Heart

Lately I have felt like my life has been a scribble of concentric circles… …and what I find always is that space holds a light to truths that help me move out of my vortex back into my life, with more to give and more love of living to help me live. I sifted through my work to find what I wanted to share and this found me: “Yes to Yes”. The beauty is that though I wrote it in 2007 it speaks to me today and the fun is running through it line by line to tighten, mold, and reframe the insides a bit so its ring is even truer, to me. Yes to Yes I say yes to yes, to the dark circles That cycle backward until water stops, Until banks dry out and a sandcastle Emerges where the wealth of yesterdays Show me barren, though the riches of now Like grains fill what I cannot count when Holding anchors my tears—anguish green As Spring, fills me as words dice truth Into bits of light raining darkness into a rainbow, Play that teases pain into a gift the living gives to...

 This poem essentially fell into my napkin as we were eating dinner one night… Sometimes our children can be such fine teachers, helping lead us to an appreciation for how ephemeral, how precious our life is. I was aware, as the conversation was happening, both of what was happening in our room and outside of our room,  ...and the poem was a way to circle around what was happening inside of me—some simultaneous experience of discovery and loss. I think all of us look back on past conversations and think of what else we might have said. I still don’t know how I might have handled it differently.   I have been wondering a lot lately about the ways we try to protect each other from difficult subjects.  But as my teacher says to me: "Everything you love can be taken from you, and eventually will be."  The more I can accept this truth, instead of railing against it, the more peaceful I am. But how do we frame these truths with our ch...

(Editors note: This is   National Suicide Prevention Week.  The poems we feature this week are meant to contribute to raising awareness toward this cause. All are welcome to participate) For some, adolescence painfully toys with their lives like a cat plays with a mouse before devouring it… With its overwhelming swirls of hormones and individuating drives, adolescence can rip into sensitive hearts like fangs into soft skin.  Mercilessly, it leaves some young girls dragging themselves to school, only to question why their peers seem to be smiling and laughing frivolously, planning prom dates, while they are throwing up in the bathroom or up all night agonizing over ways to take their own lives. The contrast is dramatic. This drastic difference is perhaps one of the most tormenting realizations depressed teenage girls can have: the observation that they are experiencing struggles that most of their peers are not. It is an incredibly i...

This poem is about Frida Kahlo and how her art has comforted me for years… "The Broken Column" by Frida Kahlo  I simply adore her for many reasons. I feel a sense of connection with Frida because, like her, I went through many surgeries as a child and had to spend time at hospitals. The experience has left me with some scars and trauma to deal with.   I still remember the first time when I saw Frida's The Broken Column -painting and just felt like crying... ...because in that portrait she had painted EXACTLY how I felt as a child and still often feel. She's the only painter I know who's captured that sense of being broken in your body perfectly and that deep sorrow that comes from living in such a broken-cut-open-repaired body and that feeling of being deserted in your own experiences of pain, sorrow and suffering.  Her paintings are like visual poetry to me, and her life story and art are...

 A few months ago, well after winter made her entrance...  I rose early one morning and, after chanting and reading for awhile, I paused from my spiritual pursuits and simply turned  my gaze and attention to what lay outside my window.  My senses became captivated by the rising  sun unfolding its glorious garments of light across the treetops of oaks, maples and pines that lined the horizon before me. It was then that I began to write whatever came to mind, purging my consciousness of stray thoughts that had been curled up tight in its corners, dark and hidden.   I scribbled six pages of what most would probably consider contradictory nonsense. Philosophical and spiritual ramblings, one thought leading to another, a string of jumbled up observations and insights. That was inconsequential to me, however, because when words and thoughts seem to flow out like that I feel so alive and it causes my consciousness to greet the day w...