now that i'm free...

Feeling slightly less discombobulated...I spent some time yesterday in nature with only the elements and creatures as company. Earlier today I found this very apt poem by one of my favorites, Mary Oliver.

Now that I'm free to be myself, who am I?

Can't fly, can't run, and see how slowly I walk.

Well, I think, I can read books.

"What's that you're doing?"
the green-headed fly shouts as it buzzes past.

I close the book.

Well, I can write down words, like these, softly.

"What's that you're doing?" whispers the wind, pausing
in a heap just outside the window.

Give me a little time, I say back to its staring, silver face.
It doesn't happen all of a sudden, you know.

"Doesn't it?" says the wind, and breaks open, releasing
distillation of blue iris.

And my heart panics not to be, as I long to be,
the empty, waiting, pure, speechless receptacle.

-Mary Oliver from Blue Iris

I'd love to hear what this poem says to you. Personally, I find myself hanging onto the first and last stanzas. Now that I'm free...

discombobulated

I am really having a hard time finding my center these days. Perhaps it is being away from home and routine. Late nights filled with a little too much wine and festivity. Groggy mornings spent lounging and sipping cappuccino while the ocean breeze blows across my face. Is there such a thing as too much paradise?

I wonder if the discombobulation comes from too much activity – lack of routine – overindulgence. Or perhaps is it a result of my recent “retirement” from a job and institution I have loved for five years? What comes of being surrounded by people who talk of high-level politics, economics and other “ics”? I want to indulge in matters of the heart, but find there are few doors in. My heart feels lonely and sad. I am a spiritual misfit here.

The crowds are thinning and I will hopefully have a little more time to center over the next few days. My favorite monk arrives this afternoon. Perhaps the spiritual balance will shift. I am really having a hard time finding my center these days. My writing feels stifled. My voice sounds hollow. And even my skin is having a strange reaction to the sun.

Weird unfurling and a struggle to list Bliss even as I sit in the middle of paradise. Wonder what’s up with that? Anybody besides me (and Sue) ever feel discombobulated?

are you awake?

"Only that day dawns to which we are awake." Thoreau

Posts to help awaken your May day:
Blisschick
Abbey of the Arts
Anchors & Masts

happy anniversary to us!

22 years of marriage. let the celebration begin (continue)!!
see ya later.

sometimes they do surprise us!

Yesterday I came home to find this lovely photo printed out and laying on the kitchen counter. It is a photo I have not seen before now. For those of you who might need a little context, the dog is my beloved, Curry, who left this earthly plain last Labor Day. The sweet face next to his is my teenage daughter who most often communicates in one syllable responses these days.

I wonder what she is trying to say now? Sometimes they do surprise us!