Spring arrives
And the flowers begin
Their annual procession
Something within us
Also feels the pull to growth
It is the same intelligence
That grows everything.
Tag: creativity
ENTRUSTED WITH THE SPARK
We have each been entrusted
With the divine spark of life
Love, compassion and joy
Are encoded into our dna
Yet we forget, beguiled by
Survivalism and conditioning
Mesmerized by desire and fear
And in our amnesia
We walk the earth
Searching for something
That makes us feel whole
We are already whole
And each of us
Has been entrusted
With the divine spark of life
Remembering this
Allows the spark
To become a fire.
Image by Lenka Sevcikova from Pixabay
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The Joy That Follows the Rain
Yesterday I wept for my brokenness
For the wounds I carried through life
For the fear of abandonment
That drove me for so many years
To seek shelter in another’s arms
My how the tears burned and hurt
Today I am cleansed and softened
Those same wounds have become blessings
And all fear and vulnerability
Has transformed to tenderness
Today the past is a beautiful and sad story
For the heart welcomes everything home
I had forgotten the sweet joy
That follows the rain.
– Image by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay
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I May Be Leaving WordPress – What Do You Think?
I am not quite sure yet as I have been very fond of WordPress over the years, and I appreciate everyone who likes and has liked my poetry.
But I am considering leaving WordPress and consolidating my focus and outpouring on substack.
I already have a presence there, and it works very well for me. I like the style and simplicity very much, and I cannot go on spreading myself out too thin and doubling up where I post. I am less and less on facebook as I actually dislike it intensely and they control who sees what poems depending on how much I pay, and I refuse to play that game. There is, as yet, no money in this poetry at all. I do it because I do it and it works and people get something from it. That’s it.
If I could be rewarded for what I do that would be wonderful, but I have tried Patreon in the past as a musician and it didn’t work. There is an option to be supported on substack but I’m not really looking to that…as yet (maybe in the future who knows, but I will always do most of my stuff for free).
So, I want to know what you think about all this, both for me and for you and generally. Do you have any thoughts? Feel free to tell me, or tell everyone, what you reckon?
Thanks for reading, and DO feel free to sign up and join me on substack.
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COAT PLEASE
These coats we wear
Bought in childhood
Bright and shiny in youth
Slightly ill fitting in middle age
Worn out and frayed in maturity
Why not just throw them off
And go naked and free
Because when we try to take them off
We find they are stuck to us
And we are strangely attached to them
We want to be free
But the coat is familiar and safe
We want to be naked and open
But the coat hides our shame
It covers us in our vulnerability
And we don’t have to face the world
The coat is our investment
And we are reluctant to give that up
Eventually we may come to a great palace
Where to enter is our greatest longing
A longing beyond all other earthly longings
At the entrance we are met by a doorman
Who says ‘May I have your coat please?’
Photo by Velizar Ivanov on Unsplash
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Dive Deep and Fly High
If you cannot reach deep into your soul
You will not be able to soar into the heavens
And we were made for both
To try and live in the middle world
Imagining it is safe is illusory
For its safety is a kind of death
Death by limitation and ignorance
We were born to dive into the deepest
And fly into the highest
And do not believe those
Who try and persuade you otherwise.
Image by Pexels from Pixabay
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Speak Goodness Into the World
The tears of grief we cry
That come from the depth of us
Are themselves the source
Of the goodness we speak into the world
The spring water that is so fresh to taste
Comes from within the deepest earth
The deeper we are able to go into existence
The richer are the gifts we can offer
And when the world is hurting so much
And most cannot find that spring water
Maybe you and I can say
‘Here, come over here and drink a little
You must be weary on the road.’
All we can really offer is an open heart.
Image by Jaesung An from Pixabay
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Praise Not Punishment
There is a secret that only the wisest shamans know
It is that praise is what keeps beauty alive
But this praise is not superficial or of the self
It is true, heart pouring out praise of what is truly valued
Praise says ‘You are in the world and you mean something
You are beautiful and I see that beauty and honor it,’
This simple but openly joyous action
Is like pouring water on a parched garden
It brings everything to life
And allows it to shine
It can be praise of a human being
Or a flower or dog or a tree
Or nature itself
Everything will respond in the same way
Because everything is animated by the divine
My poetry is a celebration of this praise
It is the only way I know
To keep the beauty of things alive.
Image by Bruno /Germany from Pixabay
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Court Beauty
The beauty I point to
Is not superficial, not a surface thing
Nothing the mind can grasp or interfere with
It cannot be bought or sold
Forced or manipulated
The beauty I speak of
Is only discovered through
A kind of courtship with the beloved
We may say it reveals itself
In surrender, in tenderness,
In our embracing of grief
Or as we fall into the unknown
And let go
As the tears flow into the world
The invisible intelligence
That lives inside everything
Is fed by those tears
And offers itself back to us as beauty
This is the true joy.
Image by kangbch from Pixabay
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Listen to the Voice Within Everything
Friend, that is it, that whisper in the noise
That nudge, that birdsong in the early morning
The gentle breeze in the trees
The lapping of the waves on the shore
The cloud, the thunder, the rain
All of them pointing to the beauty
Don’t keep turning away
You are feeding the wrong garden
Listen to the voice within everything
Hear what is really being said
There is a secret language being spoken
Even human beings use it
Listen inside the words of your lover
Or your friend or enemy
When you learn to hear deeper
The whole world whispers to you
And you start to know the truth of things.
