This January day in Georgia started with sheets of sideways rain and rolls of thunder, but ended with gentle, clear sunlight.
Now:
Trees crowd the sky like silent judges in the pale orange and blue dusk. The moon, waxing gibbous.
I pause a moment at the curb before taking the mail from the box and notice the soft, damp air on my face.
On the walk back down the driveway I see the white lights dotting the Norfolk pine in the window.
Mindfulness Writing, Small Stones #11,
Writing Our Way Home.
Yesterday, Elizabeth started yoga class with a meditation. She asked us to think about our “feeling-tone” and to notice how it felt to be us at that particular moment. She said she was referring to lessons she learned from her teacher, Erich Schiffmann, who writes about levels of stillness in his book, Yoga, The Spirit and Practice of Moving into Stillness.
In this book Schiffmann advises the yoga practitioner: Immerse your conscious awareness into your own unique feeling-tone, the feeling-tone of the Universe expressing Itself as you are. Do this deliberately in order to experience the truth of who you are. (7)
Elizabeth put her instructions to us within the context of the New Year and the Western tradition of making New Year’s resolutions. She suggested that we learn to accept our current feeling-tone, to even celebrate it, while being open to the potential for change. This is a much different way of looking at goal setting and resolutions. A gentle, self-accepting approach.
In yoga we often refer to sankalpa, a sanskrit term that is roughly translated as a resolve or an intention. During a state of deep relaxation, the yogini forms an intention, and then keeps that intention alive in her heart until she realizes it.
At the end of class Elizabeth recalled us to our initial feeling-tone, and again asked us to think about our potential for change. She asked us to think about an intention for the coming year that would involve our feeling-tone, and then she offered us a talisman to keep as a physical reminder of our sankalpa.
She had drawn symbols on smooth glass stones of different colors–the OM symbol, flowers, a peace sign, a cross, etc…, and she then had us choose a stone from her selection.
I chose a clear stone with the OM symbol. My sankalpa is to cultivate a clear mind, clear speech, and a clear heart/body. I intend to meditate every day to tune into pure, clear awareness, to dive beneath the waves of mind chatter and to listen for the deep hum of primordial sound.
Peaceful mind, peaceful heart, peaceful speech, peaceful actions.
Mindful Writing Day 10, Writing Your Way Home.
Poplars sway in the wind against the day’s final sheet of blue sky.
The sun makes orange streaks on the uppermost branches.
The wind whooshes, a hushed, surging sound, almost lonely.
Or maybe it’s the sound of cars on the main road, commuters rushing home from work.
The poplars turn to ash as the sun sets.
Small Stone, Day 6, Writing Our Way Home
A hawk lifts from the pines and flies toward me across the lake.
It lands on the grassy slope next to where I’m sitting on a blanket.
The hawk grows in size, becoming bigger than I am.
Its eye dominates my field of vision.
I ask the hawk a question about how I should proceed,
and in answer it flies away, back toward the pines.
I try to follow it, but as I reach the middle of the lake,
the hawk dissolves into the sunlight.
My drawing of the hawk from my visualization.
Day four, five-minute mindful writing, a small stone for Writing Our Way Home.
Driving home after teaching yoga, the sky was a reach-less blue, and I felt the same expanse inside my chest, in the heart space, that seat of consciousness Buddhists call the root mind. Clear, cloudless, light.
Coming around a curve in my neighborhood I caught sight of a small man in a black parka, a fluffy coat that inflated his presence. He wore a black knit cap that accentuated his bushy, steel gray mustache.
He stared at me intently as I rounded the curve, and I felt a sudden tightening of my heart, like I had been pierced with a poison arrow dart.
The feeling passed, but I was left wondering what was true about that fleeting encounter. I had met that man briefly many years ago, and I have been wary of him ever since.
Am I sensing his energy, or am I projecting my negative expectations of him? For now, I will continue to steer clear of him. Sometimes the best way to avoid harm is the path of least resistance.
Day 3 of Mindful Writing Challenge, Small Stones, Writing Our Way Home.
And I am trapped among the ice
Floes, flapping my useless wings.
Radical guru drops his beats
Between my heart’s thumps.
My sons listen to music
With open lids, organs pumping
Strains into the icy air.
The island is white, the books
Stepping stones that lead
To terra firma. Water is my element
Of choice, but here it’s too cold.
The panic of flying toward land.
Necessary choice in lieu of drowning.
Day 2, Five-minute, mindful writing, small stones, Writing Our Way Home.
The river swells in its bed.
Gray-brown petal-shaped swirls
blossom like lips on the surface
as the river churns its massive bulk
downstream. Leafless trees branch
from the cliffs like bones in the pale
afternoon. The sun is too feeble
to break through the sheen of clouds.
A mother with pale hair leads
her teenage daughter by the hand
toward the marsh. The girl’s eyes
are glazed. She follows her mother
quietly, almost reverently, toward the woods.
Five-minute mindfulness writing, small stone day 1, for Writing Your Way Home.
Pale sunlight through the Norfolk pine at the window casts dappled shadows on the woven rug.
Red and Duffy spar in this arena, wisps of dog hair flying from their coats in the shafts of light.
Duffy yelps like a quacking duck, either from exertion or joy.
Red takes a fold of the carpet in his teeth and tugs.
They rest a moment, shoring up energy like warriors from an episode of Dragonball Z. And then the games begin again.
Visions of Pasaquan is the first poetry reading to be held during the Artists for Pasaquan festival on the grounds of St. Eom’s Pasaquan, the home of the late Eddie Owens Martin, St. Eom. Along with many other poets, I will be reading a few of my poems. I’m looking forward to seeing the art, listening to good music, and experiencing Pasaquan. Of course, the day won’t be complete without tasting a cosmic pickle!
I’m going to read my poem “Woman Buys Soul on eBay,” which is currently up at the pop culture edition of Hobble Creek Review, courtesy of guest editor, Collin Kelley.
Last Sunday I read some poems at the Pine Lake Poetry Festival, organized by poet Lynn Alexander. Pine Lake is a neighborhood in metro Atlanta with a small lake (more of a pond, really). Funky, artistic houses circle the lake, and along a side street vendors set up their arts and crafts and funnel cakes. The poetry reading took place at the gazebo. Lots of love and friendship was generated.
Thanks to the Tampa Review for including my poem “Perimeter Shopping Trip” in their latest issue, number 45/46. It’s a gorgeous, hardbound book filled with lovely poems and artwork, and I’m very happy to have my poem alongside such gems.
Although the poem stands on its own, I’m posting the painting I wrote to, Au bonheur des dames by Remedios Varo. She in turn was writing to the novel by the same title by Emile Zola. A labyrinth of inspirations.
Balanced On the Edge 