How to Age Gracefully
~ ~ ~
keep smelling, stay
interested in all the
messages that come alive
like signs,
there are sighs and songs
in every blade of grass and
shift of wind
keep moving, even
if only your eyes
look everywhere,
there is beauty and
movement to watch
like leaves that lift
and fly like birds
~ ~ ~
Maureen Shaughnessy
I will share this post with e.e.cummings, whose love poetry always seems fresh and relevant: here is an excerpt from his poem, "somewhere I have traveled gladly beyond"
your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
I fell in love with this dog. She was a classic beauty -- so graceful, elegant, coy yet fully engaged with me and not afraid to look directly at me. I am putting together a collaborative photo essay with my friend, Chris Lombardi, who works at NewWest Network in Missoula. Our photo essay is about the mushers and dogs who run the annual sled race in Montana, Race to the Sky.
Please check back for updates on the essay (it will be published next week) and for more photos and stories about the dogs and the race here on my blog. Thanks for looking.
Waiting
Curled in a warm cocoon,
protected
from the splintering cold
and brittle light outside
I hear a high pitched pulse,
hurled snow crystals, glass
shattered
against glass, enlivened by the play
of light and dancing dark
measured
against the rhythm of lilac branches
in their patient sleep straining
toward light or shadowed tracery.
I hear the winter-weakened sun
roll across a shortened sky,
silence fractured
by icicles clinking like chimes
cast on the frozen ground.
Copyright 2007 by Maureen Shaughnessy
There are two kinds of cats. Those who won't let you rub their bellies ... and those who love their bellys rubbed. Baggins is the second kind of cat: "Ohhhh, that just feels sooooo good. don't stop. don't stop now ..."
What fills the heart that has emptied in despair?
How can surrender change darkness into vision?
He who has seen everything empty itself is close to knowing what everything is filled with. -- Antonio Porchia
translated by W.S.Merwin, from Voices
O lovers
Love will lay a carpet of treasures under your feet.
Musicians
Love will fill your drums with gold.
Thirsty ones
Love will turn your scorched desert into a meadow of paradise.
Forsaken ones
Love will open the doors to the King's palace.
Alchemists
Love's alchemy will reshape gallows into altars.
Sinners
Love will change your apathy to faith.
Kings of the world
in love's hands you will melt like a candle.To the parched lips of those who are willing to surrender
Love will bring the wine
that changes darkness into vision,
cruelty into compassion and dust into precious incense.
Those who think the heart is only in the chest
take two or three steps and are content.
The rosary, the prayer rug and repentance
are paths that they mistake for the destination.
-- Translation by Azima Melita Kolin & Maryam Mafi
"Rumi: Hidden Music," 2001
Head over to Helen and Paola's excellent blog Year of Living Gorgeously, where they are holding a photo contest for January. The theme is (get ready for the surprise ...) "January!" There's a cool prize for the best January photo. Sooo... without further ado (as they say on those glamorous evenings in Hollywood .... here is my january photo:
Dedicated to every single one of my friends, especially to Tammy and Pam, whose courage in living their lives fully -- and with such heart -- with ALS, always astounds and inspires me ... here is a song by Ben Harper and The Blind Boys, I Shall Not Walk Alone ...
To play, click the left arrow below. Volume control is a slider on the right side of this button:
Click the player below to listen to Eva's sweet voice while you peruse these photos of Autumn in Montana:
I fell in love with this guy and it was partly because of his sense of humor. "The Look" ... well, you just have to get a look at the shape of those eyebrows ... and mouth (if you can see it there, under Tim's mustache). I'm hopelessly connected to him.
Tim sang this song to me at our wedding reception:
Here's another of my favorite Mark Knopfler songs to accompany these winter scenes:
