A pair of wrens -
one inspects  tree of heaven
one scouts balcony.

Wind -  lashing downpours;
dark night filled with eerie sounds
turning season's change.

Summer is ending,
get out the long pants and socks,
put away the shorts.

Clara: In the Post Office

 

I keep telling you, I’m not a feminist

 I grew up an only child on a ranch,

so I drove tractors, learned to ride.
When the truck wouldn’t start, I went to town
for parts. The man behind the counter
told me I couldn’t rebuild a carburetor.
I could: every carburetor on the place. That’s
necessity, not feminism.
I learned to do the books
after my husband left me and the debts
and the children. I shoveled snow and pitched hay
when the hired man didn’t come to work.
I learned how to pull a calf
when the vet was too busy. As I thought,
the cow did most of it herself; they’ve been
birthing alone for ten thousand years. Does
that make them feminists?
It’s not
that I don’t like men; I love them—when I can.
But I’ve stopped counting on them
to change my flats or open my doors.
That’s not feminism; that’s just good sense.

by Linda Hasselstrom 

Sunday Mandala

Balance

Three Songs at the End of Summer

A second crop of hay lies cut
and turned. Five gleaming crows
search and peck between the rows.
They make a low, companionable squawk,
and like midwives and undertakers
possess a weird authority.
Crickets leap from the stubble,
parting before me like the Red Sea.
The garden sprawls and spoils.
Across the lake the campers have learned
to water ski. They have, or they haven’t.
Sounds of the instructor’s megaphone
suffuse the hazy air. “Relax! Relax!”
Cloud shadows rush over drying hay,
fences, dusty lane, and railroad ravine.
The first yellowing fronds of goldenrod
brighten the margins of the woods.
Schoolbooks, carpools, pleated skirts;
water, silver-still, and a vee of geese.
*
The cicada’s dry monotony breaks
over me. The days are bright
and free, bright and free.
Then why did I cry today
for an hour, with my whole
body, the way babies cry?
*
A white, indifferent morning sky,
and a crow, hectoring from its nest
high in the hemlock, a nest as big
as a laundry basket…
In my childhood
I stood under a dripping oak,
while autumnal fog eddied around my feet,
waiting for the school bus
with a dread that took my breath away.
The damp dirt road gave off
this same complex organic scent.
I had the new books—words, numbers,
and operations with numbers I did not
comprehend—and crayons, unspoiled
by use, in a blue canvas satchel
with red leather straps.
Spruce, inadequate, and alien
I stood at the side of the road.
It was the only life I had.

by Jane Kenyon

Gray, foggy morning,
This year is winding down.
First geese cries passing.

Change is the Law of The Universe

“What you have taken, Has been from here
What you gave has been given here
What belongs to you today
belonged to someone yesterday
and will be someone else’s tomorrow
Change is the Law of The Universe”

"In the Christian contemplative tradition, we are invited to rest more deeply in the Great Mystery, to lay aside our images and symbols, and let the divine current carry us deeper, without knowing where, only to trust the impulse within to follow a longing. As autumn tilts us toward the season of growing darkness, consider this an invitation to yield to the mystery of your own heart's desires."

--- Christine Valters Paintner, PhD The Self-Study Online Class ~ Sacred Seasons: A Yearlong Journey through the Celtic Wheel of the Year

I am too alone in this world,

and not alone enough to make

every moment holy.

I am too tiny in this world,

and not tiny enough,

just to lie before you like a thing,

shrewd and secretive.

I want my own will,

and I want simply to be with my will

as it goes towards action.

And in the silent,

sometimes hardly moving times

when something is coming near,

I want to be with those who know

secret things, or else alone.

                 – Rainer Maria Rilke

My Heart Leaps Up

 

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
      Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

by William Wordsworth 

Let us remember
leaf's rustle, cricket's chorus,
mid-September's song.

Waxing crescent rests
right of great triangle -
Saturn, Mars, Antares.

Awaking slowly
the silken air enfolds me
gently parting dreams.

 Early evenings
tree limbs liberally gilded
equinox grows near.

Sitting, minding breath -
morning meditation ends
with crow's "caw, caw, caw."

Meditating - when -
ratcheting of cicadas
bursts into being.

Rose-gold setting sun,
I lie abed, windows wide -
sweet cricket's chirping.

Afternoon at the lake

As you got up to leave
the oak leaves rose up too,
like a tailwind behind you,
as the breeze flowed up the hill
and the heat waves shimmered
above the grass
and the cicadas buzzed
lazily from the trees.

"Edge places fascinate us, because at heart we too are seeking the edges, the places of risk and unknowing.  We long to embrace our own wildness.  We feel alive when we live from our wild hearts, breaking out of the boxes of convention and expectation, and growing in trust of ourselves and the deep wisdom that emerges from our bodies and the world around us."

--- Christine Valters Paintner, PhD