A simple song, long, long overdue
Let this be a love song to my heart — no mere metaphor,
let my voice sing to the real thing, that perfect pump,
those cheery chambers that sustain the members
of my circulation system, keeping me in rhythm,
keeping me in rhyme all the time.
Life beat, life force, the miracle muscle in the center
of my chest, I take a deep breath, you do all the rest,
keeping blood flowing, keeping me going and knowing
it’s all going to be okay. I’m going to stay
around for a long time yet.
Let this be a love song to…
Jilted Java Jumble
We’ve been inseparable for nigh on forty years — what gives?
Where the hell have you been?
I’m waiting. But you’re no-showing. WTF?
Now I know you’re not through with us caffeinated types. You think I don’t know, but I’ve seen you sleeping around with that hussy, Ms.High, and Mighty Matcha Green Tea.
She thinks she’s God’s gift to the planet with her oxidants and her phytonutrients and her alkalinity. But heck, she tastes like grass, only worse!
No amount of Hazelnut Creamer can make up for that.
If you’re gonna go with tea, and say so long to me, at least pair up with some self-respecting Ceylon or Oolong. Whatever happened to Breakfast, huh? …
A teaching about timing and blessing for maximum results
Have you heard of ‘the space between?’
I had not. But when I read about it last night, I had a eureka moment.
No, I did not get up and run naked down the street. There’s a pandemic going on after all! But I got and still am excited.
What is the space between?
According to my new buddy, Greg Braden, in his book, Secrets of the Lost Mode of Prayer:
There’s a power that lives in the space ‘between,’ that subtle instant when something ends and what follows hasn’t yet begun. From the birth and death of galaxies to the beginning and ending of…
The darker our challenges, the more light and levity we need
We can’t always control what life brings us, but we can choose how to respond.
One of my life lessons has been to counter the heavy with light. In both meanings of the word — spiritual light and levity.
This week we’re blessed with stories covering all three bases. In some cases within the same story.
Trauma, caregiving, abuse, addiction, and illness are this week’s heavy topics.
The invasion of the skinny jean and the adoration of Queen Caffeine are this week’s levity.
And last, but not least, the rewards of caregiving and Debbie’s Handbook which includes armoring up with…
Thursday Prompt
I’m here to tell you from personal experience, this model works!
You’ve heard, hurt people, hurt people.
Meaning that people who have been hurt, perhaps deeply, may go on to hurt others. It’s not used predictively so much as diagnostically. Someone who bullies most likely has been bullied. Someone who’s abusive to children most likely was abused as a child.
A good example, though fictitious, is Billy Bob Thorton’s moving film, Sling Blade. His mentally challenged character, Karl Childers, is quite likable and gets attached to a single mom and her son.
During the course of the story, we find out he was tied up and kept in a dog house…
It can’t be as bad as say, meth, right?
No doubt about it, I am an addict.
And caffeine is my current drug of choice.
I wouldn’t even be telling you this except a few nights ago I had an incident of tacky tachycardia that scared me.
True story: I had funny, not ha-ha funny, but unusual sensations in my chest even before I went to bed. By the time you get to be my age, funny sensations in the body are not unusual.
Mostly it’s my tummy gurgling and churning and doing its best imitation of a one-man band. An old nerve injury on my right leg sometimes…
Wednesday Prompt
Cast a spell, set an intention, and light a candle for peace
Casting the Spell
Abracadabra, I will create with my words, and so the saying goes. I will indeed do more than create with my words, I will shape an incantation and cast a watery, wordy, wondrous spell.
Only the Best of Intentions
So you’re lying there in bed, wondering what that fluttering feeling in your chest is all about. Should you be concerned? Well, that’s a silly question, of course, you’re concerned. The question is, how concerned should you be?
Go to the ER concerned? Now? In the middle of the night? Nah, you say, but the thought doesn’t leave your mind. …
Is how we survive and thrive!
The headline is a play on words of an album title.
Who remembers Love Devotion Surrender? It featured Carlos Santana and John McLaughlin, with the backing of their respective bands, Santana and The Mahavishnu Orchestra.
This 1973 Gold record was created as a shining tribute to John Coltrane, containing two of his compositions including A Love Supreme.
This week’s stories also shine with the vibrance of life when love outshines jealousy, movement replaces sedentariness, and positivity replaces fear and discouragement.
These aren’t magical abilities. We all have the power to shine in these and other ways. Knowing that someone else…
Monday Prompt
Why I keep the door propped open to its random chaos
Chaos is the first step in the creative process. — Author: Jill Bolte Taylor
A messy desk is a sign of a creative mind.
If that’s true, I must be a creative genius! But maybe mess and chaos are not exactly the same thing.
Dictionary.com defines chaos as a state of utter confusion or disorder. Oh, goody, I’m back in the running.
But why is this?
Wouldn’t it be easier to create when things are neat and tidy?
Creativity is a complex process, influenced perhaps by the physical environment it takes place in, but it’s way bigger than that.
I believe it starts in the unconscious mind. What is that?
I…
Especially when life throws you some curveballs!
Most of the time, I’m pretty upbeat.
But I also have a melancholy side to me. Since making friends with her, she’s added a deeper dimension to my creativity.
For example, she’s the inspiration for my somatic clown persona, Duddles.
She also inspires my poetry and creative nonfiction writing. So I deeply appreciate her.
Her presence is one of the many undercurrents of my personality. She lives in and informs my psyche. I’m grateful for her gifts and our relationship.
However, what’s up for me today is dealing with scary stuff as I get older. …
Marilyn Flower
Writer, sacred fool, improviser, avid reader, writer, novel forthcoming, soul collage facilitator, prayer warrior and did I say writer?
