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©March 2021 Available on Kindle
In my latest book, I consider experiencing, hearing the silent voices, realizing the feelings, and sensing the wholeness of nature in contrast to fragmented life in the city, where we are more or less separated from the natural world of trees, flowing water, animal and bird life. This lifestyle, I believe, is a cause for much of our mental and social illnesses, reactivity, and separation from others.
LANGUAGES
I’ve perfected so well
my language of words,
yet I find in the plant world
a different expanded awareness
of language
beyond just my language of words.
ATTENTIONAL WALK
-A haiku poem-
attentional walk,
opening my senses, now
eco-time a-ware
©July 2020 Available in Paperback
This was a book of poetry inspired and created with the help of a young artist friend in Indiana who did the cover. It was a time in the middle of the pandemic and when the George Floyd protests were occurring not only in the park behind my building but worldwide. This environment was the stuff out of which I created these poems and several others that I didn’t include. I was learning to live a more sequestered life, less mobile, and had to learn to communicate on Zoom and not in person. I guess I felt more like a plant than a mobile human being. I was also learning more about plants through an online class taught by Tigrilla Gardenia, ReConnect with the Plant Kingdom. I believe all individuals, cultures, plants and animals are interconnected to the Earth, to Gaia; we are existing on a living planet.
RESPONSES
Listening to the voices of nature,
magnificent trees circling
and reflecting in the pond,
in a mirage like greenness,
the birds diving in a comforting wind,
drawing herringbone wave patterns on the water.
Somewhere nearby, within my soul,
I feel the closeness
of some good poet and artist friends:
Rilke, Van Gogh, Frost, Thoreau, and others;
I am not alone here.
SILENT PRAYERS
Days of protests
around, behind, and in front of
my building downtown.
I pray here by the poolside,
with the wind lightly
soothing rippling waves.
©Feb 2020 Available on Kindle
This is the first of a set of three books that I put together and published at Amazon KDP, during the time of the pandemic, 2020. The book contains some poetry that has facilitated a catharsis on my journey, some insightful images, and some wistful memories of experiences in my life.
I found ways to be more interiorly aware and pro-active in how emotions affect my life. Journaling is one way I have become more aware. I also learned to express myself in poetry, art, and song. Not necessarily to find specific answers, it seems, but to articulate states of my experience and questions on the journey on which I have found myself.
In terms of emotional well being, there is always a choice one makes between ignoring emotions by stuffing, and distracting, facing them with increased understanding, and expressing them in positive and not dysfunctional ways.
THE STRANGER IN THE DOORWAY
I come into the lodge;
I’m startled,
seeing the reflection
in one of the glass panes
of the front door
This stranger coming toward me,
looking at me,
looking like me.
©Jan 2020 Available on Kindle
We think of the environment through the filter of our own limited conscious perceptions. What if there is much more to the Earth than is obvious. Thinking that’s all there is, what if there is more to all the plant and animal life than we see at casual glance?
With beauty may I walk.
With beauty before me may I walk
With beauty behind me may I walk.
With beauty above me may I walk
With beauty all around me may I walk.
Navajo Night Chant
“Our challenge is to create a new language, even a new sense of what it is to be human. It is to transcend not only national limitations, but even our species isolation, to enter into the larger community of living species. This brings about a completely new sense of reality and value.”
(Thomas Berry, “The Ecological Age,” in The Dream of the Earth, P. 42)
A JOURNEY OF AWAKENMENT
Since witnessing the photo of the Earthrise in the late 1960’s, I slowly awoke to the realization in my spiritual awareness, in my learnings, in my work, in my relationships with other cultures, and with being in a Naturally Conscious Community, that we all have to transcend our ancient prejudices and collaborate with all life on this amazing planet Earth.
This is the only workable future for coming generations. This is where I see the Interior Spirit and the Divine in my life. This journey remains a work/play in process for me and I hope for many of us. Where is your life touched by this gift?
EARTHDAY WHAT IFS
What if my individual
being is only one puzzle piece
in my choices of connection,
and expansiveness or contraction.
What if a Dream of
Earth harmony is
effected by my thoughts,
actions, and love.
©Sept 2016 Available in Paperback
PREFACE-THE VOICE OF THE POET
The voice of my poetry is an internal perhaps more introspective voice. Writing, crafting my poetry, journaling, doing art as well as creating music compositions has helped me traverse through difficult times. It has been my solitary meditation and guide, I suppose, connecting me to my deeper self and to Spirit in my life, and I am gratefully open to sharing it with others. This is a book illuminating that journey of creation. It is available at Amazon right now, but not in a kindle version.
HEART’S SPIRIT
(Knowing Your Interior Spirit)
There’s this spirit inside –
I can’t always find.
The will to be.
There’s this center of
things where all seems
perfect and secure and
at rest.
Out of which
my life flows and
matures and flowers.
HOME IS WHERE MY BEING IS
There’s dialogue with others
There’s hope midst despair
There’s love in my living
Not getting stuck in repair.
©March 2016 Available in Paperback
The first of my published books of poetry at Amazon. Influenced by living in New Mexico, “The Land of Enchantment”, and the Native American understanding of life, the richly creative atmosphere, and the many practitioners of alternative health care. It was a first work in sensing my poetic wisdom and sharing it on a wider scale. In terms of navigating my life, I found my creative journaling, art, and writing to be a rootage and germinating of Spirit in my life. The book is only available in hard copy edition.
PASTEL SHADES OF BLUE
(My Introducing to “The Land of Enchantment
Pastel shades of blue
painted on the panorama ‘fore my eyes
Oh, Magenta, red, and aqua rainbows
filling the sky just like some rhyme.
SILHOUETTES OF THE MIRACLE
(Walking in the park)
The theatre of the heart
is here for my contemplation
posing now silhouetted in silence
for my photographs.
©July 2022 Available in Paperback and Ebook
“Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.”