poem: For the Unknown Self, by John O'Donohue

I am loving John O'Donohue's poems more with each one I come across. Could he be writing about the third chakra here?


For the Unknown Self

So much of what delights and troubles you
Happens on a surface
You take for ground.
Your mind thinks your life alone,
Your eyes consider air your nearest neighbor,
Yet it seems that a little below your heart
There houses in you an unknown self
Who prefers the patterns of the dark
And is not persuaded by the eye's affection
Or caught by the flash of thought.

It is a self that enjoys contemplative patience
With all your unfolding expression,
Is never drawn to break into light
Though you entangle yourself in unworthiness
And misjudge what you do and who you are.

It presides within like an evening freedom
That will often see you enchanted by twilight
Without ever recognizing the falling night,
It resembles the under-earth of your visible life:
All you do and say and think is fostered
Deep in its opaque and prevenient clay.

It dwells in a strange, yet rhythmic ease
That is not ruffled by disappointment;
It presides in a deeper current of time
Free from the force of cause and sequence
That otherwise shapes your life.

Were it to break forth into day,
Its dark light might quench your mind,
For it knows how your primeval heart
Sisters every cell of your life
To all your known mind would avoid,

Thus it knows to dwell in you gently,
Offering you only discrete glimpses
Of how you construct your life.

At times, it will lead you strangely,
Magnetized by some resonance
That ambushes your vigilance.

It works most resolutely at night
As the poet who draws your dreams,
Creating for you many secret doors,
Decorated with pictures of your hunger;

It has the dignity of the angelic
That knows you to your roots,
Always awaiting your deeper befriending
To take you beyond the threshold of want,
Where all your diverse strainings
Can come to wholesome ease.

~ John O'Donohue ~


(To Bless the Space Between Us)

third visit for NUCCA--adjustment is holding!

Today I had my third visit to Back N Balance, to see how my body is responding to having my atlas adjusted.

Last week (week 2) my atlas needed readjusting.

This week I stayed adjusted! That's thrilling to me.

Dr. Lorenzen watched as I stood on the two-leg scale and my weight would shift slightly from side to side, just from standing straight. Then she used the activator to give gentle taps to my knees, hip joints, sacrum, and some vertebrae.

I am noticing when walking, how dominance can shift from one leg to the other. After my first NUCCA adjustment, I noticed that my left leg was dominant when walking, a major change.

Now I'm noticed dominance can shift, seemingly on its own. After walking, say, 50 steps, dominance switches from left to right. Then it may shift back to the left.

And sometimes...I feel exactly even, like neither leg is dominant.

Maybe that's how normal people feel??? I don't know what normal is.

I am also recognizing with deep gratitude how much my work with Patrice has helped prepare me for this. Hanging upside down gave me the experience of being pulled by gravity the other way and giving me mental flexibility. It also helped stretch tight muscles.

The Z-health foot stretches she taught me have also been phenomenal in giving me strong, flexible feet and ankles. Patrice's acupuncture and her coaching on yoga, nutrition, and organ cleansing have all helped get me much healthier. Her recommendation (and my practice) of meditation has helped me be more aware of energy flows and openings in my own body.

If after two weeks, my body is holding a newly realigned atlas that had been off center for at least 45 years, I must give thanks for Patrice and the work we have done together.

poem: The Night House, by Billy Collins

The Night House

Every day the body works in the fields of the world
mending a stone wall
or swinging a sickle through the tall grass --
the grass of civics, the grass of money --
and every night the body curls around itself
and listens for the soft bells of sleep.

But the heart is restless and rises
from the body in the middle of the night,
and leaves the trapezoidal bedroom
with its thick, pictureless walls
to sit by herself at the kitchen table
and heat some milk in a pan.

And the mind gets up too, puts on a robe
and goes downstairs, lights a cigarette,
and opens a book on engineering.
Even the conscience awakens
and roams from room to room in the dark,
darting away from every mirror like a strange fish.

And the soul is up on the roof
in her nightdress, straddling the ridge,
singing a song about the wildness of the sea
until the first rip of pink appears in the sky.
Then, they all will return to the sleeping body
the way a flock of birds settles back into a tree,

resuming their daily colloquy,
talking to each other or themselves
even through the heat of the long afternoons.
Which is why the body -- that house of voices --
sometimes puts down its metal tongs, its needle, or its pen
to stare into the distance,

to listen to all its names being called
before bending again to its labor.

~ Billy Collins ~

(Sailing Around the Room)

poem: Starlings in Winter, by Mary Oliver

Starlings in Winter

Chunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly

they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings,

dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,

then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can’t imagine

how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.

Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,
even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard. I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays)

poem: Mind Wanting More, by Holly Hughes

Mind Wanting More

Only a beige slat of sun
above the horizon, like a shade pulled
not quite down. Otherwise,
clouds. Sea rippled here and
there. Birds reluctant to fly.
The mind wants a shaft of sun to
stir the grey porridge of clouds,
an osprey to stitch sea to sky
with its barred wings, some dramatic
music: a symphony, perhaps
a Chinese gong.

But the mind always
wants more than it has --
one more bright day of sun,
one more clear night in bed
with the moon; one more hour
to get the words right; one
more chance for the heart in hiding
to emerge from its thicket
in dried grasses -- as if this quiet day
with its tentative light weren't enough,
as if joy weren't strewn all around.

~ Holly Hughes ~
(American Zen A Gathering of Poets)

poem: This Love, by Katie Raver

my dear friend katie wrote this. i can feel the influence of the weekend spent at buescher state park in celebration of my birthday, and the influence of rumi, whom she read to us that weekend, and yet katie makes it completely her own, an original poem.


This love has made me crazy.
I keep forgetting to rise up, to worry,
and I’m dancing around in meadows,
silly and stupid with your ecstasy.

Where were all these meadows before?

Next to you in the car,
the discord of lights and smog
becomes Spring itself.
All of humanity is on the same path, at the same time,
red lights guiding the way.

I only bother to sleep to hold
your hand in those unconscious moments.
Butterflies and moths fly out of my eyes.
Two trees use me as their telephone line.
I try to tell the man watering red hibiscus plants.
He gives me a round stone.

How can I explain this insanity?
I just follow the owl flying overhead,
downtown, at midday. Your eyes glisten,
you hold me close. I’m late again
for another meeting.

family constellation workshop, july 18-19, 2009

FAMILY CONSTELLATION WORKSHOP with Judy Smith
July 18-19, 2009
Austin, TX (place and time TBA)
$375 ($100 nonrefundable deposit)

In this workshop we explore family generational patterns, hidden dynamics, and subconscious patterns, and heal the souls of our families, restoring the natural order of familial love. Family constellation work brings long-standing unresolved family issues to light and facilitates healthy resolutions, dissolves entanglements, and removes blocks.

Healing occurs on a deeply felt, energetic level, along with accessing a bigger picture of life situations. In this way, we positively enhance our own presence and that of future generations.

CEUs for MFTs, LPCs, and LCSWs available.

For information or to register, contact Mary Ann Reynolds at 512-507-4184 or email mareynolds@grandecom.net.

innovations to 12 states of attention

katie raver has broken new ground working with the 12 states of attention with two innovations:

first, she has differentiated kinesthetic into tactile, visceral, and proprioceptive.

second, she has replaced the internal/external distinction into sensed and constructed.

she asks if these extra distinctions are really worth it. i like them, but it's a little more complex to teach to beginners.

you can read her post here: http://katieraver.blogspot.com/2009/02/more-states-of-attention.html

blog posts now available on Facebook

if you are one of my Facebook friends, you can now read my blog posts on Facebook. they will appear as notes. there's a delay after posting on Blogspot before they appear on Facebook.

you can also continue reading posts here. good for those who wish to be anonymous or who don't want to get into Facebook. surprisingly, i have several friends like that. they think it's going to be really demanding. you can put as much or as little as you want into it. and, like lots of stuff online, Facebook can be a time suck, for sure.

i plan to delete the poems i post on Blogspot from my Facebook notes. i save a lot of poems to my blog because i can easily find my favorite poems in one place. it's like an archive. i'm just not sure about posting them on Facebook. not everyone has a taste for poetry, or my taste in poetry.

Facebook friends, if you like poetry, check out my blog and let me know if we share the same taste.

testing

testing to see if Facebook imports blog posts

Samantha's birthday

My cat turned 20 last week. We don't know when her actual birthday is since we got her from the animal shelter. They said she was about 7 months old, so Lela and I counted back and decided we'd celebrate Feb. 12th as her birthday. Since it's also Lincoln's birthday, we named her Samantha Lincoln.

It's fantastic to realize that Samantha has lived with me for 20 years. That's longer than my child lived with me, longer than I lived with my parents.

Samantha holds the record for living with me. Twenty years.

Hannah made her a "cake" out of catfood and cat treats, and we gave her her gifts: a cushy fleecy round cat bed with a collapsible half-dome hood and a zipper underneath in which to place a bag of catnip.

I put this in front of her favorite window, where she can bathe in sunbeams and also see outside. She seems to love it.

I also got her a cardboard cat scratcher and sprinkled it with catnip. She likes it.

She isn't interested in the fishing toy with a feathery doodad on the end of the line. She practically sniffed and turned up her nose at it. She's no silly kitten any more.

All in all, a very good day in our life, and I was glad Hannah, who is animal-crazy, got to help me celebrate this milestone.

NUCCA 2

I had my second NUCCA treatment today. Dr. Lorenzen weighed me on the anetometer, which weighs each foot separately to see if one's weight is distributed evenly and also has calipers to measure each hip's height.

Last week, at first I was 10 pounds heavier on the left. When I finished, I was one pound to the left.

Today when I came in, I was 4 pounds heavier on the left, and .1 when we finished. Very very close to being perfectly symmetrical by weight. My pelvis was level both times.

She pressed on my atlas some more, and I heard some big clicks. I got an affirmation to say, while touching right atlas with right middle finger and left atlas with left index finger: "My atlas stays strong and stable."

She also recommended Valor essential oil from Young Living, which I will get.

I practiced walking at work today with putting attention on weight being evenly distributed between left foot and right foot. It seems I can direct this with my intent.

A young woman I know slightly was in the waiting room when I left. I asked if this was her first visit. Yes. She seemed a bit apprehensive. I told her that before treatment, because of my atlas being displaced, not all the messages between my brain and body were getting through, and now they are. She visibly seemed relieved.

I felt new sensations in my legs today. Meridians are opening up. It's all good, even if my neck is a bit sore now. I go back in one week.

NUCCA

i had my initial exam and adjustment yesterday. NUCCA is a type of chiropractic care that focuses only on balancing the head on top of the spine. there is one office in texas, back n balance here in austin, with 4 NUCCA chiropractors. click title to go to their website.

dr. lorenzen (very young, cute, and well-trained) did an intake about health problems, concerns, and medical history.

she had me stand on a machine with calipers for measuring whether my pelvis was level. it wasn't. the machine also measured how much weight i carried on each foot. i was carrying 10% more weight on my left foot than right!

then 3 x-rays of my head and neck from different angles.

then dr. lorenzen read the x-rays and showed them to me. she had drawn lines with pencil to show where my center was and where it should be. my atlas (C1, the top vertebrae on which the cranium rests, next to brain stem) was 5 degrees to the left and 1 degree back.

then adjustments. lying on my right side, dr. lorenzen pressed on the atlas, which is accessible between the jaw and mastoid (bone behind the ear).

probably because it's been out of alignment for so long, she worked up a sweat! she pressed maybe 60 times total, and at least half the time i could hear a tiny click. she'd get up and have me walk and then measure again.

then two more x-rays, then resting in a recliner with a blanket over me. i fell asleep for i don't know how long.

it's considered out of network health care, so the $351 applies to my $500 deductible, and it's eligible for reimbursement from my medical flex spending account.

i'll do a followup visit in a week and continue until they're sure the new alignment is holding.

meanwhile, i am delighted. my neck and back feel freer of tension than ever. i'll be detoxing for awhile as my body releases toxins from the stress of being misaligned.

i'll keep posting on my blog as i continue to integrate this big change.

poem: Any Chance Meeting, by Rumi

mahalo to katie for sharing this poem. (katie knows i spend time looking for the shine)


In every gathering, in any chance meeting
on the street, there is a shine,
an elegance rising up.

Today I recognized that that jewel-like beauty
is the presence, our loving confusion,
the glow in which watery clay
gets brighter than fire,
the one we call the Friend.

poem: In the Beginning, by David Whyte

mahalo to keith for sharing this, who knows of my return from exile.


Sometimes simplicity rises
like a blossom of fire
from the white silk of your own skin.
You were there in the beginning
you heard the story, you heard the merciless
and tender words telling you where you had to go.
Exile is never easy and the journey
itself leaves a bitter taste. But then,
when you heard that voice, you had to go.
You couldn't sit by the fire, you couldn't live
so close to the flame of that compassion.
You had to go out in the world and make it your own
so you could come back with
that flame in your voice, saying listen...
this warmth, this unbearable light, this fearful love...
It is all here, it is all here.

happy birthday to me, to you, and the world

i'm getting my february blog posts started off right, with poetry. i've had in mind for days to post the two poems i just posted, and finally have a few moments to do just that...

this past weekend i celebrated my 56th birthday with friends. we stayed in cabins at buescher state park. linda decorated our cabin beautifully with colorful pareos, an altar, a lamp brought from home. she brought her new macbook. i gave her CDs to expand her music and spoken poetry collection with; we had a lot of fun with the built-in camera and photo software, making some cool photos of ourselves, such as the four goddesses, janus, holding the earth in her hands, burning man, etc. thank you linda!

katie made me a gluten-free birthday cake! this is the first time in years that i've had birthday cake. it's not quite the texture of wheat flour cake, but still very appreciated. katie gave me a gift of a new way of practicing states of attention, with an expansion of kinesthetic states. she gave me a card with bamboo on the cover and a rumi poem inside, which i'll post separately. she also brought a rumi book and read aloud from it. we passed the book around, taking turns reading aloud. when rumi comes to your birthday party, you know it's gonna be wonderful! also when katie comes, because she brought rumi. thank you katie!

keith brought both his accordion and his pennywhistle. we played together on our pennywhistles. he's much more experienced than i, and he's such a good teacher. i feel inspired to learn more, especially the plaintive songs that i love. keith also gave me the most exquisite card of a doorway, an apocheta as we call it, an opening, with a david whyte poem inside. i will post that poem separately. it deserves its own space. keith is a wonderful storyteller. he brought a book of native american stories and read one aloud from the native hawaiians, apt since so many of us have been to maui together. thank you keith!

kathleen came out saturday evening, surprising me, because i thought she wasn't coming. she regaled us with stories of pursuing her path and shared her clear presence with us. she and i laid on the deck on sleeping bags sunday morning and caught up with each other. thank you kathleen!

these paragraphs and my thanks can hardly convey the depths of my experience of sharing the weekend with these friends in a setting of trees, lake, sky, bare branches, as we talked story, laughed, cooked, ate, walked, hugged.

i am blessed.

poem: Rebus, by Jane Hirshfield

You work with what you are given,
the red clay of grief,
the black clay of stubbornness going on after.
Clay that tastes of care or carelessness,
clay that smells of the bottoms of rivers or dust.

Each thought is a life you have lived or failed to live,
each word is a dish you have eaten or left on the table.
There are honeys so bitter
no one would willingly choose to take them.
The clay takes them: honey of weariness, honey of vanity,
honey of cruelty, fear.

This rebus - slip and stubbornness,
bottom of river, my own consumed life -
when will I learn to read it
plainly, slowly, uncolored by hope or desire?
Not to understand it, only to see.

As water given sugar sweetens, given salt grows salty,
we become our choices.
Each yes, each no continues,
this one a ladder, that one an anvil or cup.

The ladder leans into its darkness.
The anvil leans into its silence.
The cup sits empty.

How can I enter this question the clay has asked?


~ Jane Hirshfield ~

(Given Sugar, Given Salt)

(Rebus -- "A representation of words in the form of pictures or symbols, often presented as a puzzle.")

poem: Boundaries, by Lynn Ungar

The universe does not
revolve around you.
The stars and planets spinning
through the ballroom of space
dance with one another
quite outside of your small life.
You cannot hold gravity
or seasons; even air and water
inevitably evade your grasp.
Why not, then, let go?

You could move through time
like a shark through water,
neither restless or ceasing,
absorbed in and absorbing
the native element.
Why pretend you can do otherwise?
The world comes in at every pore,
mixes in your blood before
breath releases you into
the world again. Did you think
the fragile boundary of your skin
could build a wall?

Listen. Every molecule is humming
its particular pitch.
Of course you are a symphony.
Whose tune do you think
the planets are singing
as they dance?

~ Lynn Ungar ~

(Blessing the Bread)

as usual with poems from panhala, click the title to see it online, with a beautiful photo and music