Tag Archives: Writing

Lonely Haiku

Posted on by Standard 10
Free Bing Photos: 100 images of solitude

Free Bing Photos: 100 images of solitude

The piece below was written by my Insight Timer friend, Roy Mason in New York. I had been working on a poem related to loneliness that just wasn’t coming together. I sent it to Roy and he flipped it, most lovelingly, on its head and produced this beautiful layered haiku. Far better than my original piece. It is an honor to post it here.

Lonely Haiku

Magazines read twice,
Fridge food contains emptiness;
My heart: comfortless.

Mind wheels are spinning,
Sleep is sought but elusive.
The hours go on…

I ask: who am I?
The deafening loneliness!
Waiting for the light.

Outcast and apart,
I hear the chimes of the clock;
Then tick tock, tick tock.

I, disconsolate,
Endless pacing with worry.
Five O’clock: birds sing.

Beautiful Cocoon

Posted on by Standard 2
Free Bing Photos: From lovelifedrawing.com

Free Bing Photos: From lovelifedrawing.com

Before the beetles find me
Or the fire licks my bones
I will forsake this body
That has so lovingly carried me
Long upon roads
Of hot days and cool nights
Deepening forests
And fine ground sands

For in the end it is but a
Beautiful cocoon
And comes a point when this spirit
Must break free
To fly

Eking it Out

Posted on by Standard 10
Sierra Nevada Mountains: Photo by Noelle

Sierra Nevada Mountains: Photo by Noelle

It’s curious how we go about eking out a life. Not the financial part, but the creative life. The part of us expressed, even privately, that makes it all seem interesting. Aspects of us that transcend rush hour commutes, deadlines and scrubbing the kitchen floor. We plant bits of ourselves in between jobs, school plays, and the church pot luck. Oasises of fertile land amidst the rocky terrain of daily existence. Music, photography, haiku crafting, a curious penchant for coin collecting or beading seem small when looked at in the scope of our whole life. Yet, those small pieces are what feed everything about us. Our engagement with them gives us the sense we’ve climbed off the conveyor belt and left widget-land, if but for awhile. A few moments with a favored album or doodling with your child are as water to arid land. A creative nitrate for the mind that enlivens the dullest spirit and grows a beautiful life.

Little Gem

Posted on by Standard 2
Arial view of The Rockies in Colorado: Photo by Noelle

Arial view of The Rockies in Colorado: Photo by Noelle

To the quiet mind all things are possible. What is a quiet mind? A quiet mind is one which nothing weighs on, nothing worries, which, free from ties and from all self-seeking, is wholly merged into the will of God and dead to its own.

Meister Eckhart

If Every Journey…

Posted on by Standard 10
Bridge over Bear Creek: Photo by Noelle

Bridge over Bear Creek: Photo by Noelle

If every journey started with a bridge we would know the moment we crossed over into something new. We’d know when we’d left the familiar and wandered into an unknown land. If every journey began with a bridge, midway across we could ponder which of the two sides looked better and which we would prefer. We could stand over the chasm or the river or the valley and consider calmly our progress and feel the distance we’d come. If every journey started with a bridge, there’d be that moment, before we stepped upon the first planks, where we could decide if we even wanted to cross. If every journey started with a bridge it is likely there are many paths we would never have taken and many journeys we would have missed. If every journey started with a bridge our cautious, logical mind very likely would have stayed home, more often then hiked onward.

Sometimes tripping off a blind ridge or down a dank rabbit hole is the best thing that can happen to us. No time to ponder or decide. No chance to consider all of the ramifications. We might discover that we are not these prescribed lives with planned goals and agendas. Going in through the out door or slipping on a banana peel, might open our eyes that we are so much more than habits and due dates. That we are magic and light and a creative tour de force that would’ve left Da Vinci weeping.

Falling into the unknown is what we were meant for. Not to organize it all, but to just live. Right now, with nothing but our wits.

Dying Grace: Photo Poem 45

Posted on by Standard 16
Last years art, waiting on new spring: Photo by Noelle

Last years art, waiting on new spring: Photo by Noelle

For my fortieth birthday my colleagues at work gave me a party with black balloons and a wheelchair. I’m normally a person with a sense of humor, but I had watched this parade with colleagues before me. I work with mostly women. We have a habit of telling each other stories of how our time is past as we age. The best years behind us. We’re used up and lost our sex appeal. Men don’t do this to us and they don’t do it to each other. We do it to ourselves. I smiled and thanked everyone, but I knew in that moment, that I would live differently. That I would not see aging as a cross to bear, but an immense opportunity.

I look at this leaf dead, fragile, used up and am filled with its beauty and grace. Even dead, passed its season and it’s still showing the world what it can do. What it has to give. Aging isn’t about years, it’s about perspective. It’s seeing beauty where no one else would think to look. That isn’t weakness, that’s power. In that power is the possibility to transform. To embrace death when it comes and know you are about to pull out your best work yet.

Squatter’s House: Photo Poem 43

Posted on by Standard Reply
Abandoned Factory in Hearldsberg, CA. This is the view from a squatter's bed: Photo by Noelle

Abandoned Factory in Healdsberg, CA. This is the view from a someone’s make-shift bed on the factory dock: Photo by Noelle

I sat next to the bed of a someone who is living in this abandoned factory, to take this photo. It is curious to see what another sees as they come to rest at the end of their day. In every life there is beauty and drifts of light. We each see the world from our own perspective and sometimes even in dire corners are unexpected views.

Sacredness of Cacti

Posted on by Standard 2
Hedgehog cacti on Green Mountain: Photo by Noelle

Hedgehog cacti on Green Mountain: Photo by Noelle

The further on my path I travel, the more captivated I am with the patterns that appear in the mist. There is a sacredness to everything from leaf to the milking of cows.

“There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres.” Pythagoras