There’s a quality of light just after a rain, when the sun first shines through gray and turns every green thing several shades brighter. The birds are subdued, but sound hopeful. The light sparkles in drops of water suspended on pine needles. It dims, then grows, in a pulsing kind of dance, from gray to green to gray again. Cars take on a different sound, driving a little faster, tires stirring up the water as it drains away.
It’s a liminal time, like dusk or dawn, or the beginning or end of the world. We stand inside the metamorphosis. Wet to dry, dry to wet. A moment suspended in time. Peace, for just a second, while the future resolves itself and prepares to unfold. More rain? Or not? Then a patch of blue appears.
I planned to post a poem, about posting work on the internet before it’s really finished. Ironically, that poem is not yet finished enough even to post unfinished. (See the category “Poetry Sketchbook” for my poems posted to date.)
So instead I’ll post a few links to what others are saying, and my take on some of them:
One House wrote earlier this month about one of my favorite passages by Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, his advice on washing dishes, in More Dishes. I don’t have the book mentioned there, The Miracle of Mindfulness, but I have four of Thich Nhat Hanh’s other books, and his writings always bring me to a peaceful place. In particular I like his biography of Gautama Buddha titled Old Path White Clouds. The book I own that contains the dish washing essay is Peace Is Every Step, a compilation of short readings that can be opened to any page, any time. In the Foreword, the Dalai Lama voices his support of Nhat Hanh’s method of bringing about world peace through the internal transformation of individuals.
Those words reflect a personal belief of mine that the universe is held together by energy that’s a form of divine love, and that each of us is a conduit for that perfect, unconditional love. Each of us in this world, in our imperfection, has our little (or big) blockages and resistances to that energy. What I consider a very important purpose in my life is to gradually work out those resistances in myself, to let love flow freely, in me, in my life, and thus in my little part of the world.
I’m sure that seems simplistic to some, maybe even a little “goody-two-shoes.” I’m certainly not perfect at this. I have so many flaws, if they were physical holes I’d be see-through—and leaking like a sieve! But everyone needs a goal, something to work toward, right? That work can take me into the shadows, and it used to startle me when that happened, but I’ve learned that in order to clear out my resistance, I have to understand where it is, why it is, and what to do with it. That last part, what to do with it, can be the real trick. But for some of us, in some circumstances, acknowledging the resistance is there to begin with is the trickiest.
One of the best ways I know to encourage and spread love is through creativity. The language of art is universal. By showing others what we see, what our personal world looks and feels like, we encourage understanding, sharing, and taking an interest in what’s really happening — both inward and outward. Awareness of ourselves and each other can’t be a bad thing, provided we respect one another, and each other’s personal boundaries.
Kerrdelune, at Beyond the Fields We Know always leaves me a little breathless with her nature photographs, poetry and prose, and she did it again with The View From Here, which just sort of stopped me in my web-browsing tracks. No explanation needed. But she also posted recently in response to a prompt of “shoes” a photo and blog post that, well, resembled me. I don’t own any boots or snowshoes, don’t need them here. But like her, I used to think high heels were a necessary part of my life, especially when I worked in an office. I never could manage the really high ones, even then. Two inches were my limit. These days, my shoes are all flat, out of respect for my poor aching back, and those that I wear most days, if I wear shoes, are primarily functional. If they happen to look nice too, that’s a bonus. I like it that way! No more torture for beauty, especially a particular flavor of beauty — that state of fashionable or popular showboat perfection (always youthful and symmetrical and airbrushed) which, no matter what you do, only lasts a few years anyway, and that’s if you’re lucky enough to have it to begin with. Even if you have it, it’s way too much work to maintain, and not worth the trouble unless you’re a fashion model or making movies, and I’m not making movies, I’m living a life. My beauty priority at the moment is eating right and working very slowly and without undue pressure on losing weight — without dieting, without guilt, and being healthy, without shame over how I look right now. In fact, guilt has nothing to do with it. I’m losing it to help me feel better and be healthier, and that’s all. I have, by the way, declared a moratorium on guilt of all kinds. Beauty is a process to me now, a more authentic way of living my life.
When I turned 40, a friend of mine several years older told me that 40 was his best year. That was the year he finally stopped feeling it was more important to please others than to be himself. Maybe 50 is that year for me. Maybe I’m a slow learner. Maybe it’s something about being on the downhill slide of life. A slide should be fun. Even if I live to 100, it’s more than halfway over. Why spend it trying to be someone or something I’m not? Ah, it feels good just to say that.
I took a class once, provided by my employer, that was unusual as government-contracted classes go, in that the teacher asked us questions such as whether we could remember being born (one woman in class did remember her birth), whether we’d ever seen the human aura. He also taught us some things that were of a psychospiritual nature. If I remember correctly, the class was stress management, and not the half-day stress management class. This one was three days. I was in a stressful job at the time, and my boss knew it, acknowledged it, and — bless her heart — did what she could to help.
At one point the teacher asked if anyone in class was prone to migraines. When I raised my hand he fixed his gaze on me in a way that was almost mesmerizing, and asked why I thought I was responsible for everything, why I thought I had to be perfect. I nearly fell over. He’d nailed me. That is a tendency of mine, and I was in a job at the time that fed that tendency. It’s a losing place to be, because of course you never succeed. I always felt like a failure, no matter how much I did or how well I did it. Everything that went wrong filled me with remorse, guilt — even if I had nothing directly to do with it. And I’d been that way all my life. The fact that I remember that moment so clearly, five years or so later, is at least a good sign that I took him seriously, that I’ve been thinking about it, working on it. I have no idea how I got that way to begin with, maybe a nasty configuration of planets when I was born. I’ll blame Saturn and Mars this time around.
A crow wakens me
from a dream that you
found words I wrote in private.
Some groundhog far away
didn’t see his shadow, so
now crows pair off, dancing,
cawing, impressing mates for spring.
I sleep and dream
you found my journals.
I wonder if you read my stream
of consciousness, saw the flying
buttresses and spires of my heart,
sketches drawn on paper, then lost.
I don’t remember where I left them
that you found them,
so many words that I forgot I wrote.
I don’t understand
why you waited until
now, as I’m gathering
my things to leave,
to show me this, or
why my scribbled scraps
are mixed with yours
in wooden boxes,
a page of yours, a page of mine
still in your hand.
Do you care, I wonder.
Did you read them?
Were you annoyed
that somehow my words
fell in here with yours?
You don’t say and
I’m afraid to ask.
Are you as hesitant as I
to beg access to the heart
that played those parts
in other dreams,
that drew those things,
that strung those words?
I wonder what it is
you don’t say out loud.
Then I realize I’m awake
because I hear the crow.
Copyright © 2007 Barbara W. Klaser
Souls come in splashes of color, intermingling,
from pale spring pastel to chartreuse, opening
a gaudy bloom in a hot summer garden,
or tossing a pigment-saturated leaf in autumn.
One fades, a soft breeze that waved flower tops
departs in murmurs of leaves, a whisper lost.
Another dies. All the flowers droop, leaves fall as one,
surrender to winter’s chill and the death of the sun,
as if each only stood upright or hung on to
witness the flash and brilliance of a single hue.
Copyright © 2007 Barbara W. Klaser
Grief lays stones in my heart,
one for each loss,
gemstones all, but
it’s harder to pump
blood around stones.
Sometimes a family
of beavers moves in,
fells trees, sets up house.
Minding their business,
they don’t know
they stop the flow.
The pressure builds,
wet, heavy,
nudging rocks,
until the dam bursts,
catching me unaware—
catching us all unaware.
Sometimes the buildup’s
so slow I don’t know I hurt
until the dam bursts.
Sometimes I’m washed away.
But the rocks, they stay.
Copyright © 2007 Barbara W. Klaser
