Living, Perspective

A Voice Rises Above the Din

This past weekend, I stepped out onto my porch and heard the most glorious sound. The delicate yet undulating and overlapping squeaking of spring peepers.

Officially known as pseudacris crucifer, spring peepers are also defined as chorus frogs. And that is exactly what they were doing at my Saturday evening concert.

In this neck of the woods, we haven’t really had any sort of winter to speak of. The low spot in the sky the sun has hung from has affected me, of course, but it hasn’t been incredibly cold and we had but one (and a half?) snow event(s) all season.

Still, this harbinger of spring sets the wings of my soul aflutter.

Just as the little sparrows flitting from porch railing to the bush branches just below my dining room window do. Coming down the stairs in the early glow of dawn, their chirps sound almost as if they’ve entered the house to say hello.

In the rush of the bus stop, if I tune my ear between the hum of the engine melting the morning frost and the calls of my daughter, I can hear the scree of what must be a juvenile hawk hanging around its nest from last spring. And in the quiet rush of afternoon wind before the bus comes back, I can pinpoint chirrups high up in the tree tops.

Spring

Nature

Rebirth

Signs

The sigh of the universe

Our own intuition,

desires,

designs,

they’re all there

If we but step outside, still ourselves, and listen.

Images: Farmers Almanac, Wicked Local, Jonathan Eckerson respectively

Perspective, Poetry

The Word

Clerestory

comes to mind

from the white light

spilling down

onto my bed.

A canonical,

conical

shaft from above.

From its singular point of origin,

w i d e n i n g

to envelope me in its illumination.

Just sit

and

Be still.

Breathe in the light.

Living, Perspective, Spirituality

Soaring and Grounding

As a child, I looked to the towering clouds, capped with billows, and imagined walking atop them like I’d watched the Care Bears do. I imagined that’s what heaven would be like when I got there someday. As a teen, Jonathan Livingston Seagull brought me such joy, such heights to which to aspire, the tips of his wings touched with light as he soared to such transcendent levels. As an adult, I watched birds glide on the wind, effortlessly floating above the rest of the world and its worries. I dreamed my own body could fly and always felt great disappointment when my legs started to drift back toward the ground. I gathered images and ideas for tattoos with silhouettes of birds, wings spread, to serve as a physical reminder of opening up, letting go, and ascending.

There is a line, though, where metaphysical musings turn into depression and anxiety.

I began to feel a great sadness watching birds wheel through the sky, their wide open wings and swooping motions a freedom I would never have. Watching the clouds edged with light filled me with a longing that I would never have the peace I imagined lived among their water crystals. No amount or configuration of ink etched on my skin would seep that sense of freedom into my soul.

And then as I sat on a shaded deck this morning, forcing myself to focus on a wisp of cloud and nothing else, staring into the middle distance, forcing all thoughts from my head or repeating a prayed mantra – a pair of birds streaked across, running a parallel line with the shore in front of me. Their pointed wings reminded me of the swallows with which I’ve been obsessed. They darted and swooped and disappeared behind a house a few doors down.

It occurred to me then that I can continue to stay focused on the peace and quiet in front of me while noticing the promise of freedom. I can long to be truly free, but that doesn’t stop me from embracing the joys in the here and now while I wait. I will not be free until my soul flies up to heaven, but I can open my heart now to accept what this life has to offer. I can use this time between now and then to wait and lament and be miserable or live in each moment mindfully soaking up what is there instead of not seeing it because I’m so fixated on what I don’t have.

Photo by Jennifer Butler Basile

Living, Spirituality

Expectations

How many gentle moments do we poison each day when we cling to our expectations? When we are imagining breakfast while we rock the baby, we miss the joy of rocking, we lose a precious moment with the baby – and we still miss breakfast. When we simply rock when we are rocking, and then eat while we are eating, we become more open to the blessings available in the moment.

Some expectations are extremely difficult to relinquish. Some of us still expect our parents, friends, or spouses to finally become the loving people we always wanted them to be. We think of how it might have been if only the right person or career had come along. Some of us are still so attached to these hopes that we have not yet really begun our lives in earnest. We are still patiently waiting for the world to match our perfect picture before we start. How much longer can we wait?

from Legacy of the Heart: The Spiritual Advantages of a Painful Childhood

by Wayne Muller

Weekend Write-Off

Belonging

We may begin to feel our belonging in the breath – here we may take sanctuary, here we begin to feel our place in creation. Taking refuge in each breath of our life, in each beat of our heart, we find a quiet place of belonging. This refuge, this sanctuary, is neither given nor taken away by the chaotic demands of an unpredictable world. This place belongs to us, and we to it. It is where we make our home.

Wayne Muller in
Legacy of the Heart: The Spiritual Advantages of a Painful Childhood

Mental Health Month 2017, motherhood

On This Day

11 months, 2 weeks ago, I was trudging through the day-to-day like an elephant on two legs in an animated film. I was full with pregnancy, with baby, aches and pains, in bladder, daily chaos, and exhaustion. I was in some sort of suspended stasis; neither did I want to be pregnant any longer nor did I want the onslaught of labor and care of a newborn.

Thanks to the equally annoying, nostalgic, and awe-inspiring features of technological devices and their applications, I can see last week, this week, today in tidy little boxes of unasked-for updates. That me has tired eyes, a wan smile, the ruddy mask of pregnancy fingering its way across my face. Except for the dropped weight, that me hasn’t changed much in the last near year.

And yet, looking at that me, it seems like another life.

Looking at this other life in my arms, I feel like she’s just arrived and yet, that other, older me in the photos is saying she’s been here for eons.

For the growing she’s done, I’ve done. For the countless hours of lost sleep, the endless ribbon of days and nights spooled out and folded in and around each other.

It’s time to celebrate her first year of life, but she still feels brand new to me. How has this time elapsed without my say so? For all the holding and staring and loving, I couldn’t hold her trapped in time with my gaze.

But if I stay focused on her in this day, all the others, past and present, will fall away.

Faith, Identity, Living, Spirituality

The Music of the Morning

The distant beep beep beep of a backing-up garbage truck
Residual rivulets of rain on the roof
Ringing in my ears

A Benedictine monk was told to repeat a Psalm over and over in his head
When it was all he could hear, he asked his superior what then.
Repeat it until you become it.

Without the outside distractions of beeping and running water,
the ringing becomes all consuming.
How can I turn down the dissonance and resonate with the truth?

thegospelcoalition

Living

The Simple Things ARE the Things

A toasty bagel oozing cream cheese

A crinkly wrapper compressed solidly in your fist

Sun light streaming

Fears, panic, stress receding

From a simple soul baring followed by an authentic affirmation

Jennifer Butler Basile

The joy and light of crisp fall leaves all around me

Radiance enters my soul and sings

Poetry, Spirituality

Grace

The bounce in the step
the joy bubbling up and over
through words, demeanor, joie de vivre

The hearty laugh
blossoming at the core, rolling out in waves
infectious, contagious, sanctifying – us

The conscious breath
undulating and growing with each notice
the physical embodiment of our existence

It fills us –
if we watch for it
if we train our eyes with a gentle gaze
if we open our heart to the gifts around us

It imbues us with a calming peace
and a loving embrace

We can all glide through life with a little grace

Living, Spirituality

Smash the Taskmaster

I will not feel guilty for doing what the Spirit moves me to at any given time.
I will revel in the mindless work of plucking pine needles from fingers of moss.
I will lose myself in the monotony.
I will let my mind drift along meandering paths –

not to the should’ve, could’ve, would’ves.

I will write for the pleasure of it,

not the drudgery.

I will not let unfinished business ruin the relish of the deal on the table.

There is no sense in feeding our souls if we are constantly counting calories.

Chopping Potatoes

and other metaphors for motherhood

Tag Archives: mindfulness