Poor Man’s Shadow

Posted on December 5, 2013 by noellevignola Standard Reply

Life in Concrete: Photo by Noelle

She asks what I want. Such a loaded question. No exit. I want, I want many things but purse strings wrap at my knees and I feel myself falling into her question. I look up. She wants to please me. Her love a warm blanket, tattered but whole. That moneyless handbag dangles off her arm and it’s not the elephant in the room, but rather the herd. I don’t know why she’s asking when there is no way to fill my hunger. I want to tell her not to ask me anymore for my insides she can’t fill. Best not to ask and let me gnaw on my own wants as dog bones left on the floor.

Still, she waits and there’s the tension. The longing to be true and answer with my greatest heart’s desire, because her love deserves that much. Yet to answer is to darken her eyes with that poor man’s shadow. He lingers with his empty pockets in the hallway jingling keys to fool you it was money. I hear him louder sometimes than I hear her. Still, she’s waiting.

I want to love her with an answer she can meet, but all my small hopes are used up. I got nothing but big heart yearnings left and I feel like she can see them straight up, though I’ve worked hard to hide them in the wood pile. “What do you want,” she asks now exasperated. I shove my hands in my pockets, “Nothin’, mama. I’m good.”

I see her sorrow and I eat it whole, like her biscuits. It’s all that’s on the table.

Work in progress from “The Writer’s Church” writing group, Boulder, CO. Hosted by Marj Hahne

Grace and Gratitude

Posted on November 28, 2013 by noellevignola Standard 2

Path Through a Wood: Photo by Noelle at Roxborough State Park

I am richer for having begun to blog with all of you. Each post you make, whether I like that post or not, has taught me something. You have shown me the world with your essays, poetry, photographs, and paintings. Your support of my site has kept me inspired to keep going, too. I realize it is not Thanksgiving everywhere, but I send to you all from here in beautiful Colorado the deepest gratitude the holiday inspires for us.

I am moving my home this weekend so won’t be posting much in the next few days, but Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Masted Ship

Posted on November 22, 2013 by noellevignola Standard Reply

Bing free stock photos

Your mistakes are your discoverer’s map. The means upon which you travel all seas ahead. You are no yeoman peeling potatoes in the galley. You are the captain and master of your vessel. All captains must know the feeling of beaching their vessel, losing their north star, struggling against the sea to hold the rudder on course to truly know the art of navigation. You must be willing to stand with a spent sail, no wind and no discernible idea where you are to develop the talents for finding your way home. This is how you come to feel deeply your metal.

To flay your heart, a tuna on the deck for the mere miss of a red light, a promotion not received, a misspoke word, or the bus not caught is to spend your life little more than the tie man grabbing the lines of other’s ships pulling into your port. We treat our sacred selves as slaves captured on lone islands doomed to a life of servitude, our light little more than a flicker. See more broadly not merely the horizon you travel toward, but the very helm upon which you stand. Your spirit is not in the dinghy. Regardless what your mind deceives you with as you look in the mirror, be assured. Your divine light is on a great masted ship and your sails are full.

Communion

Posted on November 19, 2013 by noellevignola Standard Reply

Image re-posted from the Mind Unleashed Facebook page

Long lines winding up an aisle in incense fog to papery offerings. A feeding of our soul so sterile I am drifting out the door before my mouth opens to receive. Receive what, exactly? Paper, bread, body, blood of Christ. A distorted figure that makes no sense, as I furtively glance at red dripped cross hanging, hanging, hanging for centuries that is an eternal damnation to a heart stuck on butt-worn bench. Sinner ever waiting to be clean. Sit, stand, kneel, sit stand, kneel. Tongues curling round words spoken in mindless cadence that eyes glaze from the loss of meaning. Cold seeps from stone floors into my shoes and all the wiggling toes will not warm my feet. I cough hard to shake the religious congestion loose, purulent and thick with dust.

Doors swing wide. Light pours in. Air fills my lungs.

Communion is the hunger flowing from my spirit alive and green. Running in open fields and winding up forest trails; exploding like Niagara out of the great northern territories. Communion that permeates my skin with loving rain and grounds my feet in Spring mud, a crocus rising at the equinox. Communion that fills me with such wholeness I can no longer tell where I end and dandelion seed begins its journey on the wind of my billow’s breath. Communion flooding the senses with peach juice down a child’s chin and autumn’s smoke of leaf fed fires the incense that opens the nostrils. Communion so sweet my mouth is filled with its mystical wonder and I sing out, an early morning robin alerting all to a day’s break. Communion that is an opening of the heart into a river that floods the delta with endless meandering trails that follow no crafted, structured pattern or timely release. Communion with the unknown, unrehearsed, unpredictable wonder of spirit. Now, on every breath, bookless hands raised to a midnight moon. For that I am famished, parched and deliciously ready to devour.

Working piece from Front Range Writer’s Group on reclamation of words. Marj Hahne facilitator.

Girls of Autumn: Photo Poem

Posted on November 15, 2013 by noellevignola Standard Reply

Light Trails: Photo by Noelle

A recent study demonstrated that light-emitting photons continue to emit light for up to twenty-eight days, AFTER, the photon had been removed. That is, the light the photon gave off when it was at a given point in space and time would still exist in that space and time even after the photon had moved on. They found the average degradation of that light was approximately twenty-eight days. Give this some real thought. Imagine as you move through your day that you are quite literally walking through light trails everywhere you go. Not discernible to your naked eye, but there, nonetheless. Look at these little girls running, dancing amongst cattail particles on a sunny day. They are not merely dancing in cattail dust, but dancing in light that is refracted off of every surface that autumn sun hits. And even after the photon hits and leaves, its light gift remains floating there for you to touch. The negative of this picture captures this idea for me, as each little girl appears to be leaving a light shadow.

Psychiatric and therapeutic circles spend a great deal of time discussing what Carl Jung referred to as our “shadow”. The side of us we don’t want to see or confront. Our ‘darker’ aspects. But what if the real story isn’t in our darker side, per se, but in our light shadow? What if, by confronting our darkness what we really find is a light trail we are leaving everywhere we go? What if the trail isn’t a dark shadow at all, but like those light-emiting photons we are leaving light wherever we go?

My favorite Thomas Merton quote goes:
“There is no way to tell people they are walking around shining like the sun.”

Hard to get people to believe, but I will tell you all the same. You are walking around shining like the sun and as in the photograph, you are leaving a light shadow everywhere you go. Embrace that today. Namaste

Thank You

Posted on November 15, 2013 by noellevignola Standard 2

Ideafill.me nominated my blog for the Semper Fidelis award. This whole year has been a curious journey for me, so your kindness is keenly felt. Blessings to you, ideafill.me

Little Gem: Joy and Sorrow

Posted on November 8, 2013 by noellevignola Standard Reply

From flood to drought: Photo by Noelle

“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”

― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Balance of Off: Photo poem 13

Posted on November 1, 2013 by noellevignola Standard Reply

Run Off: Photo montage by Noelle

This is a composite piece from a photo I took of sprinkler run off, layered with spliced sections of two poster paintings. One from The Mind Unleashed Facebook page and the other from Hippie Peace Freaks Facebook page completing the collage.

It is clear I long for balance, as each piece has a composition that embraces balance and harmony. Balance, proportion and color bring a sense of forward motion and ignite a creative hunger.

Yet, there is also a need for bits of asymmetry. Pieces that are slightly off center that bring the piece into a different kind of harmony and nurture creative innovation. An expansion that moves beyond yourself into larger views. I call it the balance of “off”. A tension that comes from being at a harmonious odd with the world around you. It is the threads in the tapestry intentionally mis-woven. The grace that comes with imperfection and the uniqueness that can only be found in what is slightly off the beaten trail.

Each person needs to find their way and I will merely pose here that the “Balance of Off” is a potent and surprisingly harmonious path to take. The Chinese understood this as yin-yang and sought it out in the balancing of their homes and lives. Apparently, I seek this too, both without and within.

Spiritual Practice: Little Gem

Posted on October 30, 2013 by noellevignola Standard 2

Mystical autumn: Photography by Noelle

“The spiritual practice of love builds community, as do kindness and gratitude, and prayer. Try saying this silently to everyone and everything you see for thirty days and see what happens to your own soul: “I wish you happiness now and whatever will bring happiness to you in the future.” If we said it to the sky, we would have to stop polluting; if we said it when we see the ponds and lakes and streams, we would have to stop using them as garbage dumps and sewers; if we said it to small children we would have to stop abusing them, even in the name of training; if we said it to people, we would have to stop stoking the fires of enmity around us. Beauty and human warmth would take root in us like a clear, hot June day. We would change.”

Joan Chittister Taken from Spiritual Literacy, Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life by Frederick and Mary Ann Brussat

Beowulf

Posted on October 17, 2013 by noellevignola Standard Reply

Photo re-posted from Enchanted Nature Facebook page

Only Beowulf would risk his life in that lake; Unferth was afraid, gave up that chance to work wonders, win glory and a hero’s fame. But Beowulf and fear were strangers; he stood ready to dive into battle. -From Beowulf