Feb 03 2012
Mending
my daughter’s dresses
the needle swims a fine seam
a time seam.
Mother;
When did your hands
become my own?
When settled
like a fine warm mist
over my skin?
Your white hair
is moving in around my face.
I stitch a nod of head
a fragment of lifted eye brow
Another year of wear.
Feb 02 2012
Unfortunately, in my hurry to do the laundry last week, I didn’t see my little Sandisk player still nestled in the pocket of my workout pants, until I heard a clank against the side of the dryer, when I tossed in my wash.
Looking for the source of the sound, I saw… There it lay on the perforated metal with its little ear-buds, yanked off by the washer, a tangle of wire, winding between a pillow case and pant leg. Immediately I snatched it out of the dryer and pushed its on button. Nothing. I cursed my carelessness.
At dinner, I told my husband the sad fate of my mp3 player. “I’ve an Idea,” he said and returned a moment later holding a sandwich bag filled with silica packets from vitamin bottles, saved for storing his microphones. He plopped in the Sandisk player and closed the bag.
A week later, we fished the little mp3 player out of the baggy. I pushed the on button and watched amazed as its blue writing flashed on. Plugging in the ear-buds… Heaven! My sounds were back. And I could return to the gym with Sandisk, my favorite work out partner.
Jan 31 2012
I allowed myself to be goaded into loosing my temper at a friend when the more appropriate response would have been to brush off his remark and/or leave the room. Instead of rationalizing and denying my immature, behavior, I accepted my daughter’s criticism and apologized for blowing it.
Sometimes all I can do is to recognize when I’m wrong, admit to my imperfections and continue the difficult work of becoming conscious to free myself from the enslavement of conditioned and unconscious responses.
Jan 28 2012
On Passing Shasta
“Look”
Baby arms reaching
She exclaims
“Yogurt Mountain
Want some 
Want some”
Jan 25 2012
I am a great believer in the importance of the family sharing the dinner meal. Even if there may be occasional exceptions, if the family usually eats together at the table without the distraction of TV and other media including cell phones. Talking and sharing the evening meal can provide a way of bonding as a family and keeping in touch with each other’s needs and interests.
Also, whether or not one is religious, I think saying Grace or Giving Thanks before a meal is a nice way to focus and bring the energy of the family together. When everyone is seated and the dinner is on the table hold hands and say: ”Thank you earth, rain and sun for helping this good food to grow. Thank you farmer…. ” You can make this part of the Grace, shorter or longer and more or less specific inviting your child to add thanks as they get older… thanking cows for milk, truckers for driving food to store,
chickens for giving their lives… etc. Then add, ”Thank you family for being here to share this delicious meal.” Take a silent moment, pass a hand squeeze around the table, release hands and begin your meal.
Jan 24 2012
It’s a thrill to see my daughter and granddaughter perform together and the Ball is so much fun. there’s so much to see and do and so many amazing acts and costumes.
Jan 18 2012
PAINFUL EMOTIONS
PAINFUL EMOTIONS
When I find myself caught up, drowning in one of the difficult emotions, instead of running away, burying, or trying to ignore the feeling, I go deeper into it. I unwind it like a rope to see the individual threads or strands that make up the feeling. I ask, “What color is it? Is it prickly or soft? Is it a giant monster mouth dripping with blood or small and deadly like a coral snake? Does it suffocate or inflate me? What age, is it? What is the flavor? In what part (or parts) of my body do I experience it? Learning the answers to these questions helps me to engage in the process of healing the inner character of my feeling. By not wasting energy, trying to run away from or bury my feeling, it can be a source of creativity and growth.
Like many of my poems, “Again,” came as a direct result of such an investigation.
AGAIN
Fear’s soft pink baby fingers
Squeeze my heart
The red balloon pulses
Weakly pressing against them
Can’t move
Can’t breathe
It’s ok I say gently
It’s ok
Her white knuckled grip tightens
Wide-eyed terror gleams in her tears
She screams shakes her head
I’ll Die
Let me hide here
No
It’s ok
You’ll live
Come I say
I’m here
With you
Always here
I’ll help you
I pry her fingers loose
One by one
We take
A first small step
Again
Jan 17 2012
HANDLING NIGHTMARES
After my father died, I found myself night after night having the same nightmare. Death was always chasing me. I was always racing away in terror. One day I told myself, “This is not good. Nothing is changing.”
That night when I went to bed, I promised myself, “The next time Death chases me, rather than running away, I will do something different.”
I didn’t know what that “something different,” would be, but having given myself the suggestion, I trusted my sleeping brain would come up with a solution.
That night when the nightmare returned with Death in pursuit, I raced terrified through the haunted streets. Suddenly an inner awareness of my resolution to do something different broke through. I stopped. Turning to face Death, spontaneously grabbing for the crotch, I felt my hand come up hard against a smooth surface. Genderless as a Ken or Barbie Doll, Death had no energy… no vital force! I was no longer afraid and my nightmares ceased.
When my daughter was little and haunted by nightmares of a lion chasing her, I suggested that next time she could choose to turn and face the lion instead of running away. “See if it wants something,” I said.
Later she told me, when the nightmare returned she had thrown hamburgers at the lion and it became her friend.
Jan 10 2012
“THE BACHELOR,” What’s wrong with “Reality,” TV? And what are we teaching our children and saying about ourselves as a culture? All wordlessly summed up and critiqued by Lucianne Estes & Madeleine Sklar.
Jan 07 2012
We waste too much of our energy and crush so much of our joy in life being self critical especially where it concerns our ability to express ourselves artistically. Art comes forth from us as an expression of the soul. It is the result of the individual collaborating with Spirit, God, the Devine Creative, Becoming (however we individually define it). Art is an expression of the individual’s heart reaching out for expression and union. Thus when I ran across this in Reb Zalman’s book I wanted to share it with you.
“The basic origin of song is the sigh, either of pain or of joy. “I am so happy I could sing all day” means just that. We don’t have to please anyone with our singing. We can just allow what is bubbling up in our hearts to flow forth freely in song and rejoice in it.”
“From the Hasidic point of view, songs of joy open the gates of heaven. This joy is in the heart of the singer… ”
from the book
First Steps To A New Jewish Spirit: Reb Zalmann Schachter- Sholomi
