Untitled

By: Gregory Orr

Weighed down with the weight
Of the world. What can lift you?
And how did it become so heavy?
Is it because the beloved left?

How dark those rocks seem now.
That tree shadow more solid
Than the tree itself.

Help,
Help is on the way. The beloved
Is coming. A cloud over the sun
Doesn't mean there is no sun.

Blessing in Chaos

By: Jan Richardson on her blog at The Painted Prayerbook on January 24, 2012


To all that is chaotic
in you,
let there come silence.




Let there be
a calming
of the clamoring,
a stilling
of the voices that
have laid their claim
on you,
that have made their
home in you,




that go with you
even to the
holy places
but will not
let you rest,
will not let you
hear your life
with wholeness
or feel the grace
that fashioned you.




Let what distracts you
cease.
Let what divides you
cease.
Let there come an end
to what diminishes
and demeans,
and let depart
all that keeps you
in its cage.




Let there be
an opening
into the quiet
that lies beneath
the chaos,
where you find
the peace
you did not think
possible
and see what shimmers
within the storm.






The human heart continues to dream of a state of wholeness, a place where everything comes together, where loss will be made good, where blindness will transform into vision, where damage will be made whole, where the clenched question will open in the house of surprise, where the travails of a life’s journey will enjoy a homecoming. To invoke a blessing is to call some of that wholeness upon a person now.

Prison

By: Rumi

Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?

Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like somebody suddenly born into color.
Do it now.

Window

By: Kyle Elden

There is a window to the self
that is the window to the Beloved

This sadness, this sad story
all grime, all residue
dust fallen and heavy
on the window sill
on the ledges
a darkness thin as sheer curtains
that separates you from yourself
that is in between you and the Beloved

It is this simple:
Push the curtain aside
wipe away the grime
and there is a whole world
out there, moving and alive
reflected in your eyes with joy
extravagant and shining
through the window to the self
which is the window to the Beloved

Words to be avoided: "Someday", "may be", "I will try", and "if"”
~ Paulo Coelho

Fire

By: Kyle Elden

The sun leaves this day behind
No regrets, don’t look back
Slips down the edge of the lake
Sky catching fire
Pink flames, pink tendrils of smoke fading
Into the dark, dark blue of night closing in
Tossing up sparks of stars
She knows how to move through this cycle
Knows there’s no other choice but to orbit
Onward through light and dark
Through life and death
Knows there is nothing tangible we can hold forever
Not inhale, not exhale
Not this moment, or that one
Not the body
Not anybody or anything
So let go
Move through the setting
Burn through the fire
Ash and dust of what was
To rise
To resurrect
To shine

The Gift

By: Kyle Elden

When people leave us
they are never really gone.

You are the dark oiled mark of a fingerprint,
love forever in my blood
in my thoughts when all else is quiet
no one is around, the distance could not
be greater
you are near
you never fully left
your spirit touched mine
rearranged, reconstructed, chipped away
helped form who I am today.

In your leaving
I am not a ghost town
vacant, broken down, void of life
I am a museum of flesh touched
and touching one another
floor boards worn differently because
of the way you walked across to greet me,
to hold me, to love me
our time together, the good
the imperfect,
a gift I carry forward
golden and glowing
around the edges of my life
in the way your beautiful light
will always stay.