September is a pregnant month
Sifting hope from dying embers
Laying to rest old enigmas,
Where dreams had risen to limited vistas.
Splashing strange colours on the passing plethora,
But holding not that which is timed.
So much must fall before new sights rise
Taking away once clutched at ways,
And drawing a line for season change
Where the unseen can claim its ground.
We have not always wanted this passing,
For pain is too close to a dying.
But nature has hidden ways, gentle urgings,
Promptings of hidden callings
Unveiled and discovered
By the passing pilgrim.
By a practicing Quaker
Thanks go to Andi for sending in the poem. Much appreciated and please thank your friend.
When I look around at the people I am in contact with quite a number are dealing with cancer and all that comes with it. Somebody said to me today in an email that having the cancer diagnosis puts everyday announces in perspective resulting in a brighter outlook on life generally. I congratulate her. This is not merely looking on the bright side. It is transforming where life is viewed from.
In my recent post on the Field of Merit site titled Thought With Legs I look at what can be done when thoughts grow strong and active legs. Well, I actually suggested taking the thoughts for a walk. A merit walk you could call that.
Spare a thought for those known and unknown who are facing themselves as they face cancer.
This image was sent me by a reader who loves tiny living spaces as much as I do. You could call this a hut on water. This image of the same raft you will see what looks like a birds nest resting on a mast!
It must be about ten years since Jim retired from his stimulating job in a police department in America. This is what he wrote, at my suggestion, some time after he officially retired.
There I was with a new found opportunity to unfurl from the responsibilities of what felt like, and at times literally were, life and death decisions. What slowly emerged were impulses and thought patterns which, when allowed to just be, seemed to be sparks of habit energy left over from the need to “manage” the world of conditions and to protect myself. Rev. Master Mugo described me as being one who had recently returned from a ‘war zone’ with my boots still smoking! Boots Still Smoking.
Jim has been around in the sangha as long as history! He remembers me as a novice at Shasta in the 1980’s. It is always a pleasure to reconnect as we did this evening on Skype.
The author of Spitalfields Life blog set himself a task to write every day. He has been writing for three years now. The quality of the writing and the photographs too are remarkable. The tone coming through is gentleness and kindness. Here he talks about a quilt made up of pieces of his late mothers (I believe the author is male) tapestry work. There is a cat, a black one, in the picture. There always seems to be a cat….
After a few judicious repairs, the quilt was ready to serve me for another year, with its glowing woollen colours and satisfying weight, lying on top of the covers to provide emotional and thermal insulation when I lie in the dark listening to the rain. I have written before of how I made this quilt by sewing old tapestries together, in commemoration of my mother in the months after her death – but now it has an age of its own and this receptacle for memory has acquired its own memories too.
From post – Taking Cover.
Thank you to Walter for the link.
Practice Within The Order of Buddhist Contemplatives
