THINGS THAT MIGHT MAKE YOU FEEL CALM, IN NO ORDER AT ALL

 

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, Lantana

THINGS THAT MIGHT YOU FEEL CALM RIGHT NOW, IN NO ORDER AT ALL 

Open your door to the morning Fall air, expansive and cool

Go to bed with windows open, covers under chin as the night air deepens

Listen to the bounty of sounds from the morning birds 

In the afternoon, Watch a butterfly (or two) enjoy Early Fall 

Have an easy supper, maybe leftovers or carry-out or sandwiches

Skip the news.  Tell yourself, "I won't miss a thing,  it will be there tomorrow/next week/forever."

Scroll only on something entertaining.

Don't scroll at all

Have lunch or coffee with a friend

Make a plan to keep up with your family 

pay a compliment

Start a brief conversation with a stranger

Cuddle your partner, Mom, child or pet

Feel love, share body warmth

hold someone's hand, give someone a gentle touch

Read, meditate or pray

go outside yourself and your own fears, give them to God or to the universe

don't believe everything you think

Ask for forgiveness and let something go

Be tender with yourself, breathe and let something go 

Do a few chores and enjoy a clean bedroom, house, patio, or porch

Arrange your things in a way that pleases you, admire what you've done

Sit outdoors and look around you, up at a tree, at the homes on your street; at the dogs, who are always excited to be alive

Be present, pay attention

Take a walk, take your time 

Feel a part of whatever is near you--other people, animals, trees and the moving air 

Follow the path of the sun, in your morning windows, across the sky as the shade moves from side-to-side, then as the sky lights up at sunset 

Watch for the rising moon.  Note it's stage.  Admire its steadfastness in being reliably there for us each night as the sun sets.

learn more about the night sky, let the stars open your mind to the vastness above

    This is a list without limit.  Other ways to feel calm?  Baking, exercising, jogging, journaling, creating. When we realize the many things that correct our equilibrium, we wonder, why aren't we more calm?  Calmness is such a wonderful feeling--not anxious, panicked, Topsy-turvy.  We should cultivate it, shouldn't we?  We know what the world is like.  We know the challenges we face.  In America we see or read them every day in the news.  how much easier it is to save ourselves and those around us if we can maintain some calm.  The ole British saying when the world as they knew it was crumbling from German bombs in WWII, is a good one:  "Keep Calm and Carry On."  Carrying on doesn't mean ignore the bombs and hang out the wash.  For us it probably means, "Hang out the wash and save our democracy."  

I know if I watch the moon tonight, cuddle with my husband, and wake up to the sun in my east-facing window and the birds welcoming the day, I will be calm enough to do what needs to be done.  So will you. 

We can do this.  Nina Naomi  

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"THE LIMITS OF YOUR LONGING," Rainer Maria Rilke

 

GO TO THE LIMITS OF YOUR LONGING

                                    by Rainer Maria Rilke

God speaks to each of us as he makes us, then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing.  Embody me.  

Flare up like a flame and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you:  beauty and terror.  Just keep going.  No feeling is final.

Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.  You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

                                                                            published 1905 

 

Not many poets take on the persona of God, but Rilke does.  German poet Rainer Maria Rilke assumes the divine voice of God as he imagines what is said to each of us when God launches us into being.  The poem is written in the imperative.  Do this, do that.  "Go to the limits of your longing."  "Flare up like a flame." "Let everything happen to you."  "[K]eep going."

Since God is speaking to us, we are invited to be listeners.  As readers, we are invited to wonder, is this the message I received as I moved into this world?  Is this the message my descendants will receive?  What does it mean?

We can see that this poem is not tricky.   Profound, hopeful, conversational, but not tricky.  Each reader of a poem makes their own picture.  What you receive from this poem is as valid as what I or anyone else receives.  

The picture I see is God sending someone--me or you, our child or grandchild, or someone years' hence, one of our descendants--out of the void and into the world.  Maybe the void is our mothers' wombs.  Maybe long before that, somewhere in the universe of galaxies.  God walks with us to where life begins (the country nearby "they call life") and tells we will know it by its seriousness.  Interesting, no? The poet's God sees Life as Serious and we can't go back.

But seriousness is not a bad thing.  Surely life is not frivolous.  All our thoughts, emotions, the love we give and receive, the losses we face.  Yes, life is serious.  Yes there is both beauty and terror and no feeling is final.  God tells us, "Embody me."  Not a casual thing at all.  To embody God is profound.  

At the same time, there is great feeling in life.  We soar sometimes, we reach heights we didn't envision.  God tells us to go to the limits of our longing, flare up like a flame.  This might sound exciting, or it might sound fearful.  How will we find the limits or our longing?  Might that take a lifetime?  Surely with God's help we can find what we long for.  We are told to keep God close, "Don't let yourself lose me."  If this frightens us, God offers to take our hand.  The last words we hear, dimly, are "Give me your hand." 

What I have written is the explication of a poem. There is no magic in that.  Many can explicate poems.  The magic, or miracle, is that Rilke said all of this in 10 lines.  He spoke as the Divine, giving us hope about the terrors we might encounter, reminding us that God walks with us walk hand-in-hand from the moment He sends us into the world.  No need to read this explication ever again.  But the poem?  It's worth rereading, perhaps learning by heart.  That way we will remember to make big shadows for God to move in.  

Nina Naomi 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE SIMPLEST JOYS

 

The simplest joys are often our surroundings.   Our homes filled with things we love, our gardens, the views out our windows, the walks we take. If we can share with someone we love, we are even happier. This week I got to do some of that: share a beach week with a grandson)  Favorite people, favorite places.  

After he left, not to return till semester break, I sat on the deck telling the sky how I felt. It's said that we all have inner dialogues.  About a quarter of us also talk out loud to ourselves. How many talk to the sky or a tree I have no idea.  Certainly we talk to our pets. But this was a week to be drawn to the sky, the ever-present, ever-changing sky.  

As always, the big sky was telling the ocean what to do, "Change to blue now, now gray. . . . Waves, watch the moon."   Yesterday on the top deck listening to the waves, I saw the clouds on my left striated in long horizontal lines; on my right they were puckered.  Straight ahead they puffed up in irregular shapes along the horizon.  There can't be anything finer to look at.  And this is every day out of each of our back doors.  We can be anywhere and find the sky.

Unlike a museum or city, the sea or the mountains or a lake, we don't have to travel, plan ahead, or spend a cent.  We can always find a patch of blue. From a rooftop, on a plane trip, at the ocean, or just out the window between our curtains. It's one of those things we too often take for granted I suspect, the magnificent undulating dome above our heads as far as we can see or imagine. Wouldn't it be wonderful to be an astronomer or atmospheric scientist and give daily attention to the sky?

I know I often mention gratitude, or thankfulness, but even curiosity is enough.  All we need do is give ourselves to moments of observation.  Then more moments.  Then more.  The simplest of joys.  

                            In peace, Nina Naomi    

 

 

 

GRATITUDE FOR A GOOD WEEK

  The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song, I give thanks to him.  Psalm 28:7

 

Someone explained the difference between gratitude and thankfulness.  Gratitude is what you feel when you are sick and a friend brings you soup and straightens your house.  Thankfulness is a way of looking at the world and consciously noticing things that make you feel thankful, even in dark times.  The concepts are interlinked. 

Times are dark in America.  Our democracy, science, health and economy are all under threat.   For most of us, our eyes are wide open to this.  We spend time learning to navigate the darkness.  We wrestle with whether we're doing enough.  We decide how much time to give to activism, how much to the suffering of others, how much to our own well-being and families. And yet, I haven't met anyone who is broken, and not because they are ignoring the challenge we face.  

People keep rising up.  They, we, continue with an attitude of thankfulness; we are consistently grateful, sometimes for what others are doing, sometimes for small pluses in our own lives.  Speaking only for myself, the peace of God that I feel at this scary time in our country, really does pass all understanding.  It is beyond rhyme or reason that while knowing the risks to medical research, fairness, minorities, refugees and beyond from this administration, hope and trust don't falter and wonderful things happen everyday. 

Maybe the Lord is my strength and shield and maybe yours too.  Maybe there is only one God with different names and different traditions, giving us the strength to endure and fight injustice.  Maybe God is there for those who don't believe as well as those who do, because the love of God is there for all.  

Sometimes you have a really good week and this was one for me.  Nothing that special except that a grandson came to the beach where we are to spend some time with us before he heads off, back to university.  He will be far from North Carolina, in Scotland.  Like the rest of the family, we will miss him.  We're one of  millions of families who may not see their college-age kids 'till Thanksgiving or Christmas.  With all that's going on in the world, this is not a big thing, a first-world problem that doesn't involve starvation or deportation or any physical hardship at all.

Or, one might say, with all that's going on in the world, this is a big thing--to have a good week.  To have time with family anywhere, but especially this past week with Hurricane Erin offshore causing resoundingly loud waves and spray that settles in your hair and on your body. 

And if we were to guess, I bet all of us had some good happen this week.  Not that we ignore the plight of many in our country, but that we carry an attitude of thankfulness and look for and recognize for what we can be grateful.  I was grateful for a wild and majestic ocean and a hurricane that went back out to sea without touching down anywhere.   We were grateful to walk down to the sittum and join locals gathered to watch the waves, sharing their memories of other storms and hurricanes.  In this mostly red corner of our state there lives a beach community that is less divided than connected.  All are drawn to the sea, that very sea created on the Third Day according to Genesis. 

A red flag warns of danger and not just at sea.  We can be grateful for warnings, whether they prompt us to care for our democracy or for our safety on shore.  May the Lord be our strength and our shield, and that forever.  AMEN     

 Nina Naomi

 

 

THE TENDERNESS OF LISTENING

  

Are you sometimes doing too many things you don't want to do?  Too much time with the news, managing the household, doing errands, sitting in traffic?  Today I spent an hour sorting through a financial issue and I'm lucky it didn't take longer.  We've never been masters of our time.  And that doesn't even count work.  Or, to whine a bit more, it doesn't count the state of American politics or, even bigger, the health of our family and friends.  I wonder if you need help as often as I do.   

One way to face hard times is to rely on our faith.  I mention that first because sometimes we may only remember to let God enfold us when all else has failed.  We forget that faith is not just for when one of us is at the hospice door.  I usually remember to give my fears to God somewhere later along the worry continuum than first.  To ask God to help, save, comfort and defend whoever I am worried about, including me. 

 I also have a book that teaches mindfulness-based compassionate living.  Its called A Book That Takes Its Time, An Unhurried Adventure in Creative Mindfulness (flowmagazine.com; Workman.com), but there are many.  Mine is the kind of mindfulness workbook you can dip into and it seems to respond to whatever mood you bring to it.  If you happen to be sad, as I have been from time to time lately, it tends to help.  Knowing why you're sad or anxious or whatever emotion needs your attention, can mitigate those feelings, let them pass as feelings always do.  

The last chapter in this thoughtful book is called "Time to be Kind."  Most of my marginalia is in this chapter, jottings and underlines.  Who can't learn more about when and how to be kinder?  One person who needs kindness is ourself.  Experts say that more compassion, both for self and others, makes us worry less and makes us happier.  Compassion isn't judgment; maybe it's the opposite.  But for sure it's listening.  If we're not sleeping well or can't concentrate, we might need an emotional rebalance.  We might need to make our world smaller (stay home, garden and cook, be tender . . . ) or larger (spend more time with others who also need help, tell a friend how we're feeling, be tender . . . ).  Only listening to our bodies will let us know which.  Most of us are strong enough not only to listen to ourselves, but also give this gift to someone else.

We know that life is a balance of highs and lows, joys and griefs.  We have ourselves and each-other.  We  have today.  We have a body to temporarily house our soul which is ever-lasting. We have God and our faith.  This isn't scarcity, this is abundance. 

There's a mantra that to me goes well with my faith (or yours or none).  I don't know if I read it or thought of it myself, but it seems to complement our quest to live with kindness and compassion.   Just words to bring us back from the anxiety that floats in, under and around us these days.  The mantra is Seek, Believe, Trust, Hope.  It's a reminder to do just that:  seek (breathe), believe (breathe), trust(breathe), hope (breathe). 

Thank you for listening.  

Nina Naomi 

 

 

 

 

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PLACE? WHERE IS YOUR JOY?

   

Pine Knoll Shores, NC

    We are at the beach again, which having been born and raised in the land-locked Midwest, might be our favorite place.  How does that work for you?  Is your favorite place where you were born and raised, or someplace else?  Maybe you live in your favorite place now.  How nice is that?  In a way I do too.  My home in the woods with the hawks and geese, lizards and frogs, deer and coyote, certainly could be the best place for me to wake up.  

    I read the most interesting article in my favorite magazine, The Simple Things, a UK publication.  In a feature called Rare and Magical Sights, the writer noted her joy in spying a lizard.  I love lizards too, and box turtles, but  especially this time of year lizards are almost as common as pairs of Cardinals, nothing rare about them.  On any deck, patio or rock lizards lie in any spot of sunshine, necks outstretched toward the warmth.  If they show up indoors, we gently catch them to relocate outside.  Blue-tailed lizards, anole lizards that change from vibrant green to brown, male broadhead skinks with orange-red heads.  We see these sunning or skittering every day as soon as the weather grows warm.  

    That so interests me about the UK:  I had no idea that lizards were rare there.  But then, our friends from Santa Barbara, California, were taken with our squirrels.  That's not a thing with us; there are far too many squirrels where we live.  Yes they're playful and fun, but they also dig up my pot plants looking for the hickory nut they just buried yesterday.  

Home

     

Still, I love it all, don't you?  Never ever would I have a complaint about living in a woods.  Trees fall, creeks flood and the morning sun in the bedroom windows is still a gift.  But here too, here at the coast.  

    The North Carolina beaches are not crowded.  Some days  in July the sand is hot as coals, but yet the water buoys and lifts, literally, with waves to ride and hollows to float in.  May through October, volunteers walk the early morning sand looking for sea turtle crawls that indicate a nest has been laid.  The nests are then marked with yellow tape to protect these endangered reptiles.  We are careful to turn off lights at dark so as not to confuse them.  Volunteers continue to keep watch over the nests in case the hatchlings need help to make their way to the water.  Most of our hatchlings are loggerheads.  

    This is what we must all do, isn't it--find joy.  Here in America there is all kinds of hell going on.  In response, my blue-collar town holds demonstrations, occupies bridges, cares for our immigrant community members, supports public television and National Public Radio.  Duke University is our biggest employer and we support free speech on campus and medical research.   And elsewhere in the world.  Maybe like me, you are grieved each day when Palestinians in Gaza are killed as they wait for their food donations to arrive.  Children there are starving, grown-ups too.  We've almost forgotten about Ukraine, which I do not want to do.  People suffering at least deserve to be seen.  The Ukrainians are fighting for all  of western civilization.  

    All of this makes finding joy in our day-to-day more important.  We know the terms lifespan and time-span, but joy-span is a concept too, the concept of living your life, however long or short, with joy.  It's not something to put on your To-Do list, but it is something to recognize and accept when it comes our way.  City parks, forest-bathing, vacations at the beach or in the mountains, staycations, reading a book or taking a trip, calling a friend, rescuing a turtle or lizard or friend-in-need or stranger-at-risk . . . .   

    It's all God-pleasing I think.  To take care of endangered loggerhead turtles, to help our fellow humans who are without homes or even country.   I'd like to be able to answer the question "What are you doing?" with, "I'm doing the best that I can." 

                                     In peace and joy, Nina Naomi

 

 

 

MORE ORDINARY DAYS PLEASE

    Just when I was thinking about glimmers and planning a swim, Tropical Storm Chantal hit North Carolina.  With no warning, the afternoon sky turned black and rain poured down in sheets, all evening, all night and all the next day.  Power went out and we could barely see the creek in our side yard turning into a river as it does when it floods.  Since we live in the woods, trees began tossing their dead branches here and there.  One live branch cracked just over our boardwalk and now (still) blocks access to the front door and, more importantly for the birds, their feeder. No tragedies at our house, just darkness, close air and mud rolling down the hill onto every surface.  Water sloshed against the patio doors and the old '70s pool overflowed its coping and turned brown from debris.  

    We sweltered for two days, which given what has happened elsewhere, is nothing to complain about.  As our well runs by an electric pump we had not a drop of water to flush or brush.  Just two hot sweaty days worrying about what was spoiling in our refrigerator.  It made me think about people with less and what it's like to summer without air-conditioning or fresh water.  

    I remember as a child in the Midwest relying on fans and sprinklers.  My mom would pull the shades against the afternoon sun and make cold suppers.  We didn't use the stove or oven for weeks on end.  We had a below-ground basement that must have been 10 degrees cooler and we would move games and chores down there with the skimpiest of clothes on.  The unforgiving concrete floor left bruises, but we played away.  My father hung a swing from the floor joists and made me a foldable walk-in playhouse with real glass windows.  He set up a plywood table on a couple of sawhorses for our Lincoln Logs and toy cars.  My mother would hose down the floor which made it slippery as well as hard, but never mind.  Anything to cool off.

    Now the power is back and yard cleanup has begun.  Collections are being taken at church for the parishioners whose houses flooded and cars floated away down the Eno River.  A lot of Durham is low-lying.  The sun is out and my outdoor plants seem happy.  Yesterday a deer came right up on the back patio not 2 feet from the glass and I couldn't figure out why; there's plenty to eat in the forest and meadow.  Just now a lizard was pumping and peeking in, but that's no problem.  Someone took advantage of the chaos and robbed a neighbor's car, she just called and told me.  They had forgotten to lock it.  But otherwise, back to normal.

    I love ordinary days, don't you?   Just days when you do what needs to be done without working in the shadow of tragedy.   That may be setting the bar low, but I think not.  In Texas the flooding killed hundreds, including girls at a riverside camp.  Everywhere someone is at death's door waiting for news.  If it's not us this time, that's a blessing to be counted.  

So this sunny afternoon with power and nothing on my schedule counts as good news and a day to be savored.   I hope you have one of these, if not today, in your near future.  A time to reminisce--as I've been doing about those sweltering St. Louis childhood summers--to read or write or play, a time for one of those glimmers I wrote about the other day.            

From me to you in peace, Nina Naomi

 

 

 

 

    

     

 

   

A VERY GOOD DAY

  

Farmers' Market Bounty

I wish everyone who reads this would tell me about their good summer day.  This week my stats show readers in Brazil, Argentina, Vietnam, the US and Ecuador.   I have no idea what a summer day in Brazil is like.  My only experience is that my niece and her mom went to Rio for a Taylor Swift concert.  Two New Jersey residents of Chinese-American-Hawaiian heritage had the time of their lives. Now my niece begins her sophomore year at NC State.  She will be only 20 minutes down the road.  How wonderful life is.  She and my North Carolina granddaughter are besties.  

    Argentina I know because one of my good friends is from there; some years ago she decided that I would be her "auntie."  I've been loving that role.  It means, she says, that I am always glad to see her.  Well, how easy is that?  I love her.  Vietnam is another story.  I lived through the Vietnam war.  My daughter's best friend, a Vietnamese refugee, was Miss Teen South Carolina.  It's a small world.  

     So if you are reading this and are from the US, where most readers are, please tell us about your summer day.  If from somewhere else, please tell us too.  My day was both ordinary and extraordinary.  Ordinary because we went to the Farmer's Market and got beautiful tomatoes for gazpacho.  Then went swimming.  Extraordinary because how good everything felt.  I've been so worried about our country.  But I've also decided that the felon at it's helm will not ruin my year.  I will do what I can, contribute, march, recruit.  But my mind remains my own.  It is free to roam and enjoy all there that makes life good.  A summer promise to myself.  

    Sending everyone good wishes.  Nina Naomi  

 

 

GLIMMER TIME

   

     I wrote about glimmers before, back in November of 2023.  But the thought came back today, when I was swimming laps.  Glimmers are those wonderful things that are the opposite of triggers.  Triggers bring up bad thoughts, glimmers bring up good thoughts. Swimming on these hot July days does that for me, floating on my back looking at the treetops and clouds, oh my, I'm thinking how good this day is.  I'm feeling both energized and calm, the best combination ever.  Another glimmer for me is a bike ride, smooth sailing on level streets at our North Carolina beach, sea level, no hills for miles.  Not all beaches are like that, but ours is.  I can coast and peddle a bit and think about how much I am enjoying a lovely warm day.  These are my go-to summer glimmers.

     The idea with glimmers is that once we recognize them, we need to cultivate them, to seek them out.  We can't avoid our triggers, our intrusive thoughts that come without our bidding.  I had one today when I saw a photo.  It took me in a spiral that I must admit, is hanging on even now.  But the glimmers--they are a wonder.  What are yours?  What always makes you feel good?  What's your therapy?  Reading, cooking, kayaking, goat yoga, snapping nature photos?  Many people's glimmers happen outdoors.  Most of mine do.  Forest bathing, a term somewhat new to me.  But lesser things--a phone call with a friend always lifts my spirits.  My collage journal the same.  Anything creative.  

    Here's my advice, not special, but sincere:  look for your glimmers.  They could be anything, anywhere.  Keep them sacred.  Do them over and again.  Be attuned to what might buoy you.  Pile them up.  And if there aren't enough, create some.  Take a pottery class, listen to music or play an instrument, check on the moon before retiring, be kind to yourself.  

    My glimmer for tonight is good food and a movie.  A movie is too sedentary to be a regular glimmer, but I think it will do for tonight; I do like film noirs.  But tomorrow another swim.  

    Wishing us all a wonderful 4th of July with a glimmer or two.  Thinking of you, Nina Naomi 

 

 

TIDBITS TO HELP US THROUGH HARD TIMES

 

Storm Clouds over Derwenter Lake, UK

SOME TIDBITS TO HELP US THROUGH HARD TIMES

"There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm."  Willa Cather, Pulitzer Prize winning American writer (1873-1947)  Cather wrote about pioneers who were often European immigrants traveling west in this new land under hardship.  We can each do our own extrapolation from this quotation.  But it speaks to me of these days when we're learning how much we love our country and our democracy as it is under threat. We've had threats before but never has our president been against us, against We the People.  Never before has the congressional majority robbed this much and this blatantly from the poor to give to the rich.  We are in a storm and learning, learning what to value, what to fight for and how to protest peacefully.  Voting rights mean more to us than ever before.  We are learning not to normalize cruelty or sane-wash irrationality, and we are learning not to give up.  We are learning in a storm.  

Trust your relationship with the natural world.  Summer heat or not, these are go-outside days, stand in the rain, sit in the shade, mow the grass and water the flowers days.  Hit some golf balls, go to the pool, putter in the garden, pick a tomato or two days.  Tall trees, deep lakes, sand dunes, rocky shores all take us out of ourselves and our problems and give us perspective.  We are learning too how much we value the planet during the storm of climate change.  With us as its stewards, the world abides.

To unite and speak up is the only choice we have now.  If hate is rising, then love must rise higher.  Love is stronger than hate, it lasts longer, carries more power and is not self-destructive.  Love has the strength of God behind it; hate does not. Instead of acting out of hate for the opposition, we can act out of love for our country, or love for the refugee, or love for creation.  We do not need to hate anyone or anything.  Think about how constricted hate makes us feel, how open love.

In my life, and maybe yours, many people are in danger, danger of having to live an experience to the end.  Friends, even young ones, spend time with their oncologists.  Couples, especially old ones, walk side-by-side in fear for the other.  There are times when one can go no further, times of divorce or death or loss or betrayal.  No forward available, only a backward trek to begin anew.  

Funny how we get do-overs every day.  You felt hate but stopped it with love. Repentance intervened, and forgiveness, mine or theirs.  You forgot to do good yesterday, but remembered today. We shared our food with someone, had guests for dinner, worked in the food pantry, donated our coins and dollars. I dreaded the nursing home but went anyway.  Daily we are forgiven, and Sunday forgiven formally.  

July is the month we celebrate our freedom and Independence.  NO KINGS the protestors said.  I worry everyday about our country.  I didn't used to.  But we are learning in this storm, loving in this storm, trusting God and nature in this storm, uniting and speaking up in this storm, surviving and not giving up in this storm.  Thanks be to God.  

Nina Naomi 

WE THE PEOPLE

Lady Liberty

All night I watch the rain,

 I Wake and still it's falling.

Too wet for me but not the cardinals,

A pair of lovers search the ground beneath the feeder.

There must be something left.

All day we see our love unspool,

for country, future, freedom.

We fear but do not tremble.

Do not appease, Remember that, 

Appeasement feeds the PIG. 

 

There's so much danger in our land and all from one benighted man

power without stature, words without soul. 

Others, vacant from unknown causes,

Shorn of  bravery, confidence and heart,

They lie and preen and call it truth--

If truth be subterfuge with hollows where its eyes should be.

 

There are enough of us. you know

Who clearly see and won't appease.  

remember how it feeds the PIG? 

We are the lovers who search the ground for country, future, freedom

Who search the sky, the by-roads, towns and squares  

Who protest peacefully

 

More of us than anyone has counted yet, five million? Ten? One-hundred? 

So don't succumb, there's more than something left. 

It's all there, our country, future, freedom,

In our hands, no one else's. 

WE THE PEOPLE 

God bless the fight  

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE ART OF BEING HAPPY ON THE SUMMER SOLSTICE

“The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things.” ~ Rev Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887)

 

North Carolina shore  

    The longest day is a lovely time to think about finding happiness in common things.  I say that after a morning where I got to walk on the beach, not an ordinary day for me by any means.  Many in the world live on or closer to water than I.   Having begun the day like that--the beach wider than usual, the breeze sultry of course in mid-June, but not over-heated--I may be more prone to recognize happiness than I would be on other days.
    Everything seems easier when our mood is one of appreciation.  It's interesting that Beecher talks about "extracting" happiness from common things.  Extracting is active, it's a bit of work, isn't it.  But that's OK. These days we don't expect to be wooed.  We're willing to say, isn't it nice that I woke up by my husband today to the hum of the ceiling fan?  Isn't it nice that I packed the Grape Nuts and milk for breakfast?  Can you believe there's a line of pelicans out the window, and that the walk to the water is not far at all?  
    And that even though we live in the southern United States, we will still have a long day with the sun rising at 5:50 am and not setting here in Atlantic Beach until 8:23 pm. So that we can sit on the windy deck after a supper of local fish I bought at the market today and some luscious heirloom tomatoes that are almost bronze in color. All these pleasures are common to someone, if not always me.  But summer tomatoes?  Who doesn't have memories of those dripping down our chins? My dad grew tomatoes in a small garden behind our first house in north St. Louis.  Strawberries too.  My mother tried her hand at peonies.  They definitely extracted happiness from common things.  Friends over for cards.  A beer.  
    My grandparents too.  They fished in the rivers of the Missouri Ozarks and fried up the catch.  They stayed in $5/night cabins and swatted the mosquitoes.  We kids stayed with them and fended for ourselves in dangerous currents during fishing season.  
    Well, it looks like we can extract happiness from memories too.  What are you thinking about today?  Do you live where the light lasts far longer than a mere 8:23 pm? Are there sheep grazing in the twilight where you live, or cattle lowing?  Or is there nightlife, songs and dancing? One year 9 years ago we were in Fairbanks, Alaska for the longest day and went to a midnight baseball game, sans lights.  That was fun! 
     I'm almost sorry that days get shorter from now on.  We want long summers don't we?  We want moments of happiness to bank for times of sorrow or worry.  And we're willing to work for this, to cook for friends, to put on clean sheets for guests, to clean up before and after.  That's the Art of Being Happy.  
Nina Naomi

JOY IN YOUR OWN BACKYARD

    I know, summer is different for everyone, some people traveling, but these few weeks we're doing nothing but opening the doors and windows to this fragrant midsummer in North Carolina.  I'm feeling 100% blessed.  The solstice is almost here, June 20, the longest day will be upon us and I'm trying to think what to do special.  Before retirement I never had time to care, but now . . . .  I love both winter and summer, every day and every time of year.  It is an exuberant feeling.

    Our neighbors have a farm and this weekend we had all homegrown veggies and fruits on their cabin porch sitting in rockers.  They promised us figs later in the season. Sometimes it's good to let the world pass us by long enough to savor all that is on our doorstep. 

    We've had so many nature adventures this week.  First the Canada geese. Handsome heads balanced on tall necks in our high-grass meadow, they have been blocking our path daily, using the cartilage along their beaks and even on their tongues to forage for seeds.  And they don't do it quietly.   My husband caught a pair waddling nonchalantly down our driveway after keeping watch from our roof all morning.

 

Next a lovely box turtle, all gold and brown, treading water in our small pool, neck outstretched, looking for help.  We gently grasped her with her legs waving and took her carefully into the leaves. away from the tree roots that seem to tip her over as she struggles to climb over them.

tadpole haven

    Then, the most surprising of all, a knot of tadpoles (I had to look that up--knot) dashing about our small pool after several nights of a deafening chorus of tree frogs and bullfrogs.  Apparently we had let the chlorine run low and the frogs had left their eggs and with their strong legs, escaped the pool.  That was a job liberating all those tadpoles.  

    And of course, the dried flower arrangement I put by the back entry is now home to a mossy nest of the tiniest eggs we have seen ever, and the tiniest mom keeping them warm.  Doesn't that happen to you too, in your hanging plants and wreaths? We put up a sign to reroute friends and neighbors to the garage entry.   

Then yesterday our local No Kings Day march was a great success.  So heartening.  If the opposite of fear is hope, many of us felt less fear and more hope for our country yesterday, with over 5 million people participating in peaceful protest around the country and world.  If you want to see the pictures, just search on Substack or The Dworkin Report or the Guardian online.

    At the same time, our brave military was doing its best to celebrate their history of 250 years in Washington DC.  All-in-all it felt like a day and week of buoyancy.  I hope your week was good.  We all know not to take those weeks for granted. 

Posted in peace and love from Nina Naomi

    

"TEAR DOWN THE WALLS OF INDIFFERENCE AND HATRED," POPE LEO XIV

 

Iona, Scotland

I've been thinking.  Christianity is a cross-shaped faith.  The vertical beam could be our relationship with our God.  We mortals made of dust reach to the heavens.    The first and great commandment is, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your mind," Matthew 22:37.  Christians strive to love the Lord with heart, soul and mind so that He shall abide in us and we in Him, John 15:4. That striving to reach God is bound to the horizontal beam, which could be the side-to-side relationship with our neighbors, whom we are to love as we love ourselves. 

Cruelty toward a neighbor is no more Christian than hating Christ would be.  Cruelty and hate are not Christian virtues.  They are not virtues at all.  A vertical relationship with God (Jesus loves me, I love the Lord), creates horizontal obligations (I will befriend the poor, the widow and orphan, the fellow Christian, the Jew, the Palestinian neighbor, whether next door or across the sea). 

I wrote before about an evangelical turn against empathy ("A Word About The Stranger," April 17, 2025 post).  Empathy is a virtue.  It allows any of us to place ourselves in another's shoes and see what we would want or need if we were in their place. What does a trans or gay person need to be safe in this world?  How does it feel to be bullied for one's gender or religion or status?  How does it feel to be without status, or to be hungry or homeless?   

There are Christians (which we might put in quotes) who have chosen power over principle.  I think we have to admit that these are mostly MAGA Republican "Christians."  Those who approve the the cutting of AIDS and vaccine research, the firing of 6,000 veterans who are Federal employees, the waste of $92 million on a military parade that is without history in our country, the end of Supplemental Nutrition for our poorer school children, and so on.  

Many speak out against this, but no one, I think, with more authority than Pope Leo XIV who in Sunday's Mass in St. Peter's Square asked that the Holy Spirit   

“break down barriers and tear down the walls of indifference and hatred. . . ."

 "Where there is love, there is no room for prejudice, for ‘security’ zones separating us from our neighbors, for the exclusionary mindset that, tragically, we now see emerging also in political nationalisms,”

 the first American Pontiff said.  He did not name a specific country or leader, but it's hard to deny that the shoe fits us.

In our church on Sundays we say the creed. "We believe in one holy catholic (small c) and apostolic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the Life of the world to come."  The leader of the Catholic (large C) church, has told the world in this statement that there is no room for prejudice or political nationalism.  In our country today this is called Christian nationalism or perhaps, again, white supremacy. 

If we are being tested by the times we live in, we might say that many are failing.  But many are not.  Many are doing much to protect the weak, the sick, the old, veterans, children, refugees, the air we breathe, the principles we live by, our democracy. Opportunities abound.  Common Cause, Indivisible, MoveOn, The No Kings Team, the Contrarian, Lawyers Defending American Democracy, the Dworkin Report (a favorite), the Watchdog Coalition, Civil Discourse, all found on-line supporting community activism.  Plus opportunities for churches, non-profits, individual actions, community protests, voting, prayer, financial contributions and contacting Congress. What have I missed? One such opportunity is this Saturday, 1800 peaceful protests and counting across America on our first ever NO KINGS DAY.     

Christianity is a cross-shaped faith.  As a gift to us, there are calls to action everywhere and much for which to be thankful.  Let us rejoice and be glad.   

                                        Nina Naomi     

 

WISHES AND DREAMS ARE NOT WASTED

Wishes and dreams don't have to come true to have value. I'm taking this thought from the nature writer Sydney Michalski on Substack.  Maybe you know her.  Wishes and dreams are hopes and hope is good on its own.  It is never wasted.  As Emily Dickinson says, 

Our hopes may be dashed, this is not unusual.  But then the hope changes and continues to live.  Hope sustains us, whether the hopes are large or small.  Today I hoped my dermatology biopsy would turn out negative, and it did.  A hope fulfilled.  My husband's turned out to be a basal cell carcinoma and so we hoped they would get clean margins and they did.  Another hope fulfilled.  Last summer a spot turned out to be melanoma, so I hoped it was early stage and it was.  It needed no treatment beyond removal.  One hope disappointed but the second one fulfilled.  Were any of these hopes wasted?  Not at all.  

There is always something to hope for.  We each ultimately hope for a long life and a peaceful death.  But in the interim we might hope to get into college and then to graduate, to find a partner or be happy single, to find a job or be brave enough to leave one, to have enough to survive or enough to share.  Each hope today is for something tomorrow.  

A dream or wish looks to the future.  I hope I get to go Florence, Italy again.  I want to see the ancient chapel where Dante met Beatrice, the Duomo, Michelangelo's David. This may or may not happen.  But the wish itself is lovely.  It sets to mind these beautiful places, my memories of them and the feelings that seeing them again would bring to my heart.  My breath enlarges, a bit of the awe returns.  Every time this wish surfaces something good happens to me.   The wish itself brings joy. 

A daydream is a happy thought.  Living in the woods, winning the chili cook-off, taking a dream vacation, remodeling the kitchen, being debt free, learning an instrument. . . .  These are all worth thinking about, each a dream that might become a plan.  

Michalski writes, "To look ahead to what is possible in the future, and fashion a thoughtful vessel to contain its potential, and offer it into the sweeping current of the present, could never be a waste of time." In nature that vessel might be an acorn, or a seedling from the Rose O' Sharon that jumped the fence and might bloom this year, or another forsythia plant emerging through the pine straw as a shoot from the root of my giant spreading shrub.  

In our lives that vessel is our heart.  As vulnerable as we are, as fragile as our hope may be, we set it afloat before our eyes and rest upon it.  And if it becomes a plan, we work to make it happen.  But in the meantime, if it brings some relief, or respite, or even joy, let's continue to wish and dream and thank that faithful thing with feathers that perches in our souls.  

Nina Naomi

THREE QUATRAINS AND A COUPLET

 I found some light verse I composed, just little chats with my Journal that I wrote on a day I needed to backtrack to a time when I was worried.  Goodness, I may have written these 4 years ago.  And even then it was a backtrack.  Do you ever do that?  Have a need to re-process something, not a present worry but something that intrudes less over the years, yet still intrudes?  There's a cost to this, it's said.  But writing an emotion gives you some distance from it.  You're not there if you can write about it, I've found.  Anyway . . . 

Me:  I tell you secrets.

Journal:  You can.

Me:  How can I be sure?

Journal:  Heart of my heart, we are one.

Me:  Sometimes I'm embarrassed.

Journal:  Oh no, please.

Me:  Please what?

Journal:  Please know that I welcome every word. 

Me:  You know why I started writing.  I was betrayed. 

Journal:  They betrayed themself too.

Me:  I should have forgotten by now.

Journal:  It doesn't matter if you forget.  It was repented.  You forgave. 

Me:  You can't change the past.

Journal:  No, it changes you.  

 

"WHAT DOES THE LORD REQUIRE OF YOU BUT TO DO JUSTICE?"

 Every morning I begin the day with a look at my phone--the New York Times, the Guardian and Substack.  Some of my Substack favorites are about nature, poems, watercolors, attention to the minute like a salamander or frog that lives happily on someone's front porch or daisies in a meadow (like mine).  

But I also get stuck in the news:  the wanton destruction of Ukraine and Gaza, the cruelty of cutting food for the hungry, medical research for the chronically ill, educational budgets for our school children, Medicaid for the deserving poor . . . the list is long.  When I think it can't get worse, it does.  Like the $4 million jet from Qatar or the attempt to exclude international students from Harvard.  (full disclosure:  My grandson is an international student at St. Andrews, Scotland.)  Or maybe the worst, some movie-inspired parade of military might on Trump's birthday. We've all seen those in old black and white Nazi propaganda clips. 

Many are saying that America isn't immune from cruelty, recalling Indigenous genocide (full disclosure again:  we just visited the Taos Pueblo, what remains of the sovereign nation of the Tiwa of New Mexico); the cruelty of slave holders; the internment of Americans of Japanese descent during the second World War.   Three groups that looked different from the whites with the guns or whips and power.  But it does seem simplistic to conclude that this administration loves cruelty for its own sake, as sadists do.  After all, what our president seems to love more than anything is gold and wealth, for himself and his friends.  Think of the golden escalator at Trump Tower (more disclosure:  we've ridden that thing) leading inexorably to the glorified new Air Force One from Qatar (no doubt embedded with golden listening devices).  

No, as analysts are noting, the demonization of immigrants, gay adults, trans youth, women who need abortions, Medicaid recipients, international students who might support Palestine, protesters, grant recipients, NPR and PBS (I loved Downton Abbey!), scientists, the judiciary, is not for its own sake but rather the playbook for fascism, dictatorship and white supremacy.  We live in a hard time.  

As a Christian, many wonder, what can we expect from our churches? In a different time, Martin Luther King Jr said, "The church must be reminded once again that it is not to be the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state." Surely this is true.  There is no conscience in this administration and its supporters.  No empathy.  No kindness.  To speak up is a duty; to waffle or remain silent, a sin. 

After the new Pope Leo XIV (Chicago native) appeared on the balcony of St. Peter's in Rome, a writer for the New York Times (David French, an evangelical from the rural South) noted:  Trump is no longer the most important American in the world.  We have an American of malice and an American of love and compassion.  French said, "Christianity is an ancient faith, one that has endured through rulers and regimes far more ignorant and brutal than anything we've ever confronted in the United States."

I find hope in this, that our faith will help us endure--not passively but in active protest--and that long after Trump is gone from public life, Pope Leo will be preaching the Gospel that has sustained us for over 2,000 years.  

We have two visions and only one is sustainable.  The Bible says in Micah 6-8, "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your god?" 

There will be protests all over America on June 14, easy to find under No Kings, Mass Protest, June 14, 2025.  I signed up for our local one.  It is something we can do, a showing of conscience.  For what is required of us but to do justice.  

                   In peace, Nina Naomi