©J.J. Joyce – Serenity God(dess) grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change,courage to change the things we can,and wisdom to know the difference.— attributed to Dr. Rheinhold Niebuhr How do we begin to understand the difference? The idea of surrender and acceptance is difficult for most people in our culture. This … Read more
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and … Read more
Loneliness by Isatree Sai PodaengSo the sidewalk is crowded, the city goes byand I rush through another day;and a world full of strangers turn their eyes to mebut I just look the other way. They roll by just like waterand I guess we never learnGo through life parched and emptystandin’ knee deep in a riverand … Read more
It takes dynamite to get me upToo much of everything is just enoughOne more thing I just got to say —I need a miracle every day,I need a miracle every day. — Bob Weir/John Barlow Every year in August, I have been going on a week-long spiritual retreat to West Virginia. But last year, I … Read more
INEBRIATE OF AIRby Emily Dickinson I taste a liquor never brewed,From tankards scooped in pearl;Not all the vats upon the RhineYield such an alcohol! Inebriate of air am I,And debauchee of dew,Reeling, through endless summer days,From inns of molten blue. When landlords turn the drunken beeOut of the foxglove’s door,When butterflies renounce their drams,I shall … Read more
I am out of town on my annual retreat for the next ten days or so, and I won’t be able to update my blog pages. But — on my actual website, through a mystical, magical process, I will be updating every day, offering you a specially selected oasis of poetry. So I invite you … Read more
And now ‘tis dark, and going I shall fall.’‘In night,’ quoth she, ‘desire sees best of all.’— from Venus and Adonis by William Shakespeare On July 27, we entered a phase in which the planet Venus went retrograde, an event that occurs only once every eighteen months, and this year in conjunction with stern Saturn’s … Read more
What a wonderful life I’ve had! If only I’d realized it sooner! — Colette As Lughnassadh reminds us, the Wheel is turning, and while summer’s heat continues as if it will last forever, there is already a feverishness about it. The birds, the creatures of fields and forests, and even the Green Ones are now … Read more
Little Summer Poem Touching the Subject of Faithby Mary Oliver Every summerI listen and lookunder the sun’s brass and eveninto the moonlight, but I can’t hear anything, I can’t see anything —not the pale roots digging down, nor the green stalks muscling up,nor the leavesdeepening their damp pleats, nor the tassels making,nor the shucks, nor … Read more
When in still air and still in summertimeA leaf has had enough of this, it seemsTo make up its mind to go; fine as a sageIts drifting in detachment down the road. — Howard Nemerov, Threshold This is the eve of Lughnassadh, also called Lammas in the Christian revision of the Pagan rites. It is … Read more