SOME DAYS ARE STORMY (IN VERSE)

Verse #1 for Today

What do you need? God asked.

To be understood, valued and loved.

Yes, God said, anything else?

Not just by You (a plea).

That too, God replied.

But how? she wondered.

Trust yourself?

Trust your intuitions?

Protect yourself?

"Yes those, but more:  Keep Me beside you."

Verse #2 for Today

If there is a time for everything 

Then there is a time for letting go.

Thoughts into memories, memories into thoughts.

Some are treasures that turn the tide

Rushing to cut off my heart, my breath. 

Things I let go return to have their say, 

And deep without warning I need to write.

Not all, just this, these words.

Verse #3 for Today

She never needed perfect,

She only needed love. 

Verse #4 for Today

Immutable is the Word

Knowing what I cannot know.

Acting when I cannot act.

Giving when I cannot give.

 
 

"this is just to say"

Degas

You might comfort me. You might, thinking not of yourself but of me.

You could say, "I'm sorry you were reminded this week.  I know how it makes you feel.  I don't want you to feel that way." 

That's something you might say.  

You could bear that, couldn't you? To touch me with hand or word? 

Some things stay with us a long time.  We think that deep healing has come and IT HAS NOT.  

This week shocks for the soul.  

The pearl whom I never dreamed remembered what you called your "friendship" -- says it so clearly.  

How much you must have talked about your "friend"."

Did you hear what I said just now?    

We live with this.  Much to let go.  

The mind moves so rapidly that sometimes how one felt in the past becomes how one feels in the present.  

Something that took my breath once takes it again (and then again).  

For good or ill some memories-thoughts-facts do not go away.  For good or ill.  

Ill as in sad, needing God.  

Heart-held, mind-felled, cat-belled warnings please, no more right now, so much to dodge.  

Each of us carries a lot, sometimes mired in sand.  

Letting go is not a one-time event. 

It doesn't erase anything; that is not its job. 

Letting go can only change our relationship to what is.  We do it over and over.  

I let go of something long past.  I admit the reminders are not your fault.   

I do not know anything you do not know; that is probably true.    

So much is a dance.  Not all of life, but some.  

The parts we might want to sidestep, to leap beyond, to twist away from. 

So much of life is a dance. 

Look at the leaves, they're dancing.  

I can dance with you.  

MEMORY AND INTUITION

Memory and Intuition

 This is how memory works.  

If you want to forget you remember. 

If you want to remember you forget.  

One day your memory comforts. 

The next day it torments. 

A memory never finishes.   

 A picture incomplete, an angle out of view,

It travels side-to-side.  

We can or can't recall and that's its way. 

A broken mind with broken thoughts does not a memory find.  

Where there's a memory shadowless its shelter fills our heart,

My childhood home, my children young, so much that's kind and true. 

Or memory takes a hurt and rags it like a bone.

"Leave me alone," we say, yet it does not. 

What's over not our choice. 

But intuition quite apart,  

Itself a memory shadowless, on it we can depend. 

Our intuition holds our hand as we approach the wall. 

   Unready for the news we fear forever heart on hold.

It doesn't let us fail. 

With intuition there's no doubt, it's always on our side.  

With memory we can fall right through and land upright or not. 

But intuition could be God, His saving grace a balm. 

His wisdom greater than our own,

His insight only bliss.   

  

 

A BONFIRE DAY

A bonfire day, my prayers are gone.

The paper crackled, seared.

My words in flame, 

The pages curl,

And all my thoughts are charred. 

But still You hear them, give me peace,

Come by my side and stay. 

I feel Your touch.

You seek, console

And help me find my way. 

 

You hold my soul between Your palms.  

If palms You have, and slow

My breath with love.

I thank you, Lord

For calm when moonbeams glow. 

 

My new words will be few and slant, 

No one to wound but me.

So slight in heart 

And deed am I,

A kernel naught can see.  

 

I once was hurt, or twice or thrice.

Or more?  But who needs know? 

If words are kept 

From pen and ink

Are thoughts denied their flow? 

 

Will memories un-remembered be? 

Kept at a cost no more? 

Nor read at cost?

Nor burned at cost?  

No ruminations soar? 

Does anyone know more than I 

That words are not unpled?

Words take you to

A railroad track.

(But wait, no facts, I said.)

 

Forget it slant, nay live it slant.

Sand clean your mind; it's done.

Do not crush love, 

Do not soil love.

(This could be anyone.) 

        by nina naomi

 

 

 

A 17th CENTURY POEM by Nina Naomi

 

 A darkness falls upon her breast.

Her memories hence reprise.

How sweet when vanished from her view.

they fill her soul with sighs.

That flesh she treasures silent kept.

"There's nothing there," once said.

But love is there and that's enough. 

inside Her pierced heart bled. 

no haven left, time's weight at risk. 

her mind askew, she's sure.

It was her keenest earthly woe,

Their faith to be impure. 

now turns from her with words unkind

And little knows her fears,

That their one life should rend in two.

swift leaves her to her tears. 

She cries in secret crouched and sore

Till she can cry no more.

then lo! her instinct leads her to

A brave determined shore. 

Unmixed with caution or with doubt,

she will confront the sin,

To tell it so that eyes can see

That they can new begin. 

they have and now the years have passed

And yet she makes this plea:

"When memories like deep waves persist,

Dear God from these save me!"   

by nina naomi  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"GOD UNBOUNDED NET UNFURLED" BY NINA NAOMI

 

Faith is the water that buoys the soul. 

Rising, rocking

Heart-held, fear-felled. 

 

Faith is the thing with wings 

That lifts me from the mud and sets me loose. 

That lets us fly. 

No more this, no more that,

Just God unbounded net unfurled. 

 

Faith is the memory of all we believe.

All we trust. 

For you, for us.  

Our lovers perhaps, ourselves, our God.  

Faith makes a nest for love. 

 

Faith can be borrowed when all is ruined,

Until your own returns.  

Faith can sleep and then awaken like a moth.   

It will take hold of you, gently, and say in your ear 

"I am here.  I am here."  

 

 

FIND COMFORT HERE

Quote by Jane Austen

 These are thoughts I have that comfort me.  May they comfort you as well.    Nina Naomi

     There will be better days ahead. 

    When we look for the light, we find it.

Faith is the water that buoys the soul. 

    Everyone has their fair share of bad days.  I have no more nor less than anyone else.  

Faith is the thing with wings that lets you fly.  

    Hard thoughts, prayers and petitions, thankful hearts:  these can be a good day's work.  

Faith is the memory of all we believe.  

    To live in the moment is to be unaware of the hours. 

    There is goodness in setting your face to the sun. 

Faith makes a nest for love. 

    It's possible to grieve and live fully at the same time.  

    We are called upon to care.  

    Anyone who has knelt in desperation knows that they have not reached the end.

Faith can be borrowed until you find your own.  

    No one regrets an hour spent with a thankful heart. 

    There is room to breathe for all of us.  

Faith can sleep and then awaken.   It will take hold of your shoulders and whisper in your ear,  "I am here.  I am here."  

 

 

 

 

  

A MYSTERY AT WATER'S EDGE

A Mystery

At the water's edge on the deck of a dream clinging to space

The woman felt depression lift, perhaps only by a centimeter, but lift it did. 

She knew the past made love precarious for all that had happened here.

Her presence could smother remains of the pain that was birthed in this place

Where looking and seeing and saving began.

An exorcism if you will, of what (or who) did not belong.

And now?  Love is not so precarious as it was, please God.

Not at all.   

LIVING BETTER

Hellebore or Winter Rose

It's been muddy here where I live.  We've had so many damp warm days that the daffodils have popped up too early.  The Hellebores, though, are right on time.  Also known as the Lenten rose, the Christmas rose and the winter rose, but they only resemble a rose, they aren't one.  Last Spring my brother transplanted some for me from our woods where they couldn't be seen without traipsing over rotting logs and dodging the stickery overgrowth.  Leaves, stem, flowers, sap and roots--the whole plant is so toxic that the deer leave them alone.  Last weekend my husband brought a few more closer to the house.  The main erosion prevention where we live is rock.  Rocks partly buried, rocks under the earth, rocks wherever we place our spade.  So we got a little rock pile out of the holes he dug.  Since I've loved playing in the dirt since childhood, it was a happy day for me.  If you're a gardener too, don't you just love kneeling on the wet earth? 

January has brought loads of suggestions for living better.  Gadgets, technology, energy savers, mood boosters . . . .  but I'm thinking that being outdoors trumps them all.  Bundled up or stripped down--whatever the weather demands.  I read about rates of depression climbing among teenagers and young adults, women, veterans and just about everybody else.  So anything we can do for ourselves or for others, deserves our attention, don't you think?   Otherwise health or family issues, job or money issues, or plain old unhelpful thoughts can push us toward our limit. 

These ideas are ones that bear repeating--I can't remind myself too much.


1.  Take more time for ourselves.  Not so easy I know.  I remember when I had no time for anything but putting a meal on the table, supervising homework and getting ready for tomorrow.  Feeling like I couldn't carve out a minute. But that wasn't so healthy.  Experts say that time alone helps us regulate our emotions so we can better deal.  A sort of Time Out I guess. And where better to have this Time Out than outdoors. There's actually measurable evidence that solitude can be restorative, build confidence, help us set boundaries and boost our creativity and productivity. Solitude isn't loneliness. It's time to enjoy our own company, to please no one but ourselves.  Have you noticed how you're not lonely when you're on a walk, taking a hike, by a waterfall, rowing a boat, whatever it is you like best in nature to do?  Some days for me that might be just reading on a bench or sitting by the fire pit.  

2.  When something is good, enjoy it! Wholeheartedly.  Sometimes when I'm enjoying the outdoors my mind goes to what I should be accomplishing.  As if nourishing our bodies and souls in nature weren't enough of an accomplishment!  Or I might wait for the other shoe to drop. This day or hour is too nice; what's going to happen to spoil it?  Or try to anticipate some future hypothetical disappointment so I won't be taken off guard.  Sometimes I do that right while I'm in the midst of having a good time!  Negative expectations they're called.  And what a waste those are!  When something negative does happen it's never what I was preparing for anyway.  In fact the worst things that have happened to me so far I could not have anticipated, not with all the foresight in the world. So, why not savor the good without worrying so much about what will come next?  Why not give ourselves a break?  Cradle our joy.  

Illustration by Lori Roberts

3.  Give mistakes their due but no more than that, our own or those of others who may have hurt us. 

Remorse - is Memory - awake -

Her Parties all astir -

A Presence of Departed Acts -

At window - and at Door

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

 

Remorse and regret are pretty much the same.  Not happy feelings.  One way to manage bad feelings is to accept them, knowing they won't last forever.  Just like our thoughts, our feelings come and go.   The more choices we have the more likely we are, apparently, to fear we've made the wrong one. And maybe we have, or someone else did and it's affected us.  Better to find a middle ground between avoiding something we wish hadn't happened and obsessing over it, whether it's something we did or that was done to us.  I've been working on this a while now.  Last night was the first of eight weekly classes on "Loving Kindness Meditation" at Duke Integrative Medicine.  That is a part of this effort.  And today I'll be outside again doing the quarterly maintenance on the mossy path I've made winding in the woods beneath the trees.  In other words staying with the present which is not where obsessions live.  

With much hope and expectation for living better this year.  Nina Naomi