Kindness

The road to freedom and kindness is long and hard, but it is well worth the journey!

photo by bill hughlett

Kindness

by Naomi Shihab Nye,
Words Under the Words

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

Dance of the Dolphins - Part II

"dancing dolphins"

One of the most delightful aspects of dolphins is their call to playfulness and dance. Both aspects are a part of life too easily forgotten amidst busyness and productivity. As I remember laughing with the dolphins weaving across the bow of Georgia J and wonder where I am being called today, the following poem speaks loudly of my dreams.

The God who only knows four words

Every child has known God,
Not the God of names,
Not the God of don'ts,
Not the God who ever does Anything weird,
But the God who knows only 4 words.
And keeps repeating them, saying,
"Come dance with Me, come dance."
--Rafiz

I am that child, and with the dolphins as my reminder, I dance.

On Friends

And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

--Kahlil Gibran "The Prophet"

For a closer glimpse into the hours lived among friends on the Georgia J, visit the Captain's post.

Gone Sailing

The Drop and the Sea

I went looking for Him
And lost myself;
The drop merged with the Sea --
Who can find it now?

Looking and looking for Him
I lost myself;
The Sea merged with the drop --
Who can find it now?

by Kabir

I am off to explore the Sea and the drop while I join dear friends for a sailing excursion from Mazatlan to Puerto Vallarta. I will be back with new photos, ponderings and possibilities around mid-January. Happy New Year!

photo by bill hughlett

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my childrens' lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water,
and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.
I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry, Collected Poems

This poem has been shared with me several times by intuitive friends. It has become one of my very favorites. May the peace of wild things be with each of us as we end one calendar year and begin another.