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Just beyond the present moment

photo wcw 2021

JUST BEYOND THE MOMENT

“That other dimension where the words are waiting just beyond the moment you are witnessing”
WestCoastWoman 2020

I was sorting through bits and pieces of writing collected over the years and came upon a comment sent to another writer. I expressed how their writing took me to that “other dimension” the moment “just beyond” the witnessing. They suggested I try to form words around the dimension I was describing…..it felt ineffable.

In this same stack of papers I found a portion of an interview with Derek Walcott from the Paris Review, Winter 1986 I had copied from https://theuncarvedblog.com/2014/06/22/love-after-love-by-derek-walcott-resonates-deeply-when-you-first-acknowledge-yourself/ It comes as close to describing that ‘other dimension’ that I’ve ever read :

” But I do know that if one thinks a poem is coming on-in spite of the noise of the typewriter or the traffic outside the window, or whatever…..you do make a retreat, a withdrawal into some kind of silence that cuts out everything around you…I am not a monk, but if something does happen I say thanks because I feel that it is really a piece of luck, a kind of fleeting grace that has happened to one. Between the beginning and the ending and the actual composition that goes on, there is a kind of trance that you hope to enter where every aspect of your intellect is functioning simultaneously for the progress of the composition. But there is no way you can induce that trance.”
Derek Walcott

MONKS WITHOUT MONASTERIES

Monks without Monasteries
Withdraw to Silence
Sanctuary
Gestating
Words Born of
Fleeting Grace
Trance

Kneel
Hands cupped
Offer
Thanks.

wcw 2023

The Other Side

the force of the tide photo westcoastwoman 2021

“Summer was like your house: you knew
where each thing stood.
Now you must go out into your heart
as onto a vast plain. Now
the immense loneliness begins.
The days go numb, the wind
sucks the world from your senses like withered leaves.”
Rainer Maria Rilke

THE OTHER SIDE

This morning
forcing myself
to rise from
the Other Side of
the bed
the world
a sky where
rain fell
no bombs
not rising to
cram essentials
into small bags
before entering a corridor
of human strength and
misery

This morning on
the Other Side of
the world
the bed
first foot
met the floor with
“Thank”
the second
“You”
humanity rising
no Other Side to
Courage
Truth
Freedom

We rise
unstoppable tide
forcing
everything
everyone
Forward.

wcw 2022

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Now That Anything Could Happen……

*not a commercial operation. photo westcoastwoman*

Now That Anything Could Happen
by Joyce Sutphen

You now know that anything could happen;
things that never happened before, things that
only happened in movies and nightmares
are happening now, as if nothing could
stop them. You know now that you are not safe,
you know you live in fragile skin and bones,
that even steel and concrete can melt away,
and the earth itself can come unhinged,
shaken from its orbit around the sun.
You know, now that anything can happen,
it’s hard to know what will, and what will you
do now that you know? What words will you say
now that you could say anything? What hands
will you hold? Whose heart will beat inside you?

Joyce Sutphen, “Now That Anything Could Happen”
From Naming the Stars. 2004
_____________________________________________________

Not a Commercial Operation
“now that anything can happen, it’s hard to know what will“

The wind was picking up, whitecaps appeared as a small boat floated into sight. Trailing behind was a questionably seaworthy barge hauling a large propane truck, both were being buffeted by the growing swells. The boat was moving closer to shore appearing to zig zag in an attempt to jockey the barge into a less precarious position. I watched as the barge rocked back and forth, at times no longer visible, giving the illusion that the propane truck was making its own way across the water.

I called the Coast Guard, explained what I was witnessing and was put on hold. They came back and advised me that there were no commercial operations in the area. They did not need to convince me that this was not a professionally orchestrated commercial operation. Feeling their job was done they ended with “people do all kinds of things”.

I watched the boat and truck bob and weave it’s way out of sight, the thought that lingered was how familiar it felt each time a wave hit and the barge disappeared below the water line. I recognized it was the emotion we have been living with the past two years.

The truck is too big for the barge, the boat is too small to be pulling it and the wind and waves are never reliably consistent. We are living in a world now “that anything can happen” and as we are being reminded every day “people do all kinds of things”

So, I extend my hand to yours as we all jump forward into this New Year and ask the question ….

“What words will you say now that you could say anything?”

wcw 2021

“It began when…”

It has been a while …. I recently joined a writing group that uses ‘jump off lines’ from poems to get us writing ‘wild writing’. I plan to post one of these ‘wild writings’ every week and see where it leads.

IT BEGAN WHEN……

It began when I spoke something, something that sounded like a promise,
that tasted both foreign and sincere on my tongue.

It began when there was no doubt your body was dying,
when that promise had to be unearthed, examined, acted upon.

It began when I held your hand and it came time to say goodbye,
the gifts and pain that flowed from that touch.

It began when I went to the shore sobbing,
as a scene played out between a man and his dog.

It was all ‘clothing optional’.

It began when there was no other option but to release, everything,
clothing being the least of it, that first layer easily removed.

It began when attempts to control anything moved forward like a tsunami,
spilling onto ground, exploding into air, inhaled by merciless waves.

It began when you asked me where I was going and I replied
“Wherever my feet take me.”

Yes, that was the moment it really began,
when feet carried me to the edge of a waterfall

Standing, waving to myself as I went over

It was all ‘clothing optional’ beyond that point

wcw october 2021

” I am Losing my Mother Words”

Hieroglyphic Stairway

It’s 3:23 in the morning

and I’m awake

because my great great grandchildren

won’t let me sleep

my great great grandchildren

ask me in dreams

what did you do while the planet was plundered?

what did you do when the earth was unraveling?

surely you did something

when the seasons started failing?

as the mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying?

did you fill the streets with protest

when democracy was stolen?

what did you do

once

you

knew?…

poem by Drew Dellinger

___________________________

“I Am Losing my Mother Words“

This statement reached my ears and I was unable to process the meaning, my deep heart had no such trouble.

“I am Losing my Mother Words”

These words were in response to a call from an adult son. A call to his mother, an attempt to make sense of the myriad of events tearing humanity apart. He was looking perhaps for ‘mother words’ of long ago, the ones that somehow put pieces back in order, that securely strapped you in even if it turned into a bumpy ride.

His question was one of bewilderment, how so many failed to see beauty, failed to choose peace over war, acceptance over hate.

I too am losing my ‘mother words’, my initial reaction was deep sadness but I soon realized that the ‘mother words’ of the present were of no use to either myself or any intended recipients. They were slowly being unmade, new words were forming, sent from the Ancestors for Future Generations. Words of transition and transmutation.

The speaker then described the beauty of apple blossoms in her garden and then the horror of bombs falling in another part of the world. What ‘mother words’ were being spoken by mothers and fathers huddled together holding children close as bombs exploded around them? What words will comfort in that reality?

Her next thought haunted me…

“Perhaps it is not,

never has been,

Either/Or

it is

Both/And

Apple Blossoms and Bombs.”

The Descent

*rapture or rupture* statue Denman Island photo westcoastwoman

A discussion on how ‘breaking down‘ is often a portal to ‘breaking through‘ prompted a friend to forward the attached poem to me.

We had been using the metaphor of snorkeling to describe the approach many of us take towards the bigger questions of life. If not forced by circumstance to confront something, we snorkel, safe on the surface just looking into the depths.

We toyed with the image of putting on tanks, diving down to interact with and perhaps touch what we find, or a diving suit, a submersible that allows a walk on the bottom of our unconscious. A few days later I had the image of “free diving” unencumbered by any sort of attachment to the surface except the air you captured in your lungs…. doing a deep dive…

Surrender……. not the ‘giving in to‘ but the ‘living in to‘ the “promiscuous” present moment.

wcw

The descent by Gina Puorro

There are things you can only learn
on your knees
or in a storm
or when the cracks in the foundation
of this modern world
open a chasm of uncertainty
beneath your feet.
Your discontent
with what has been named normal
is both grief and longing
for what your mind has forgotten
but your body remembers.

You can feel it
in the way a child’s laughter
disrupts your commitment
to what is appropriate
and makes space
for foolishness and magic.
You can feel it
broken open
at the altar of all you’ve lost
and how much you’ve loved.
Can we fall apart together?
Make a commitment to search for the truth
but promise
to never find it.
Let myths and stories
be the cartograph
for what is both
primordial and brand new
because the present moment
is promiscuous like that.
Compost ourselves down
into the dirt beneath the dirt
and tend the chthonic embers
that light the ancient fires in our bellies.

When the fault lines open
and your mind is grasping
and you don’t know
in the way that water
has taught you
how to be a vessel
and how to spill.
Can you trace your lineage
all the way back to salt?
the same that now stains your face
with both sadness and laughter
excites your tongue
and protects your prayers.
You are diasporic. Ecological. Holon.
A vast territory
of many wild bodies
melting into each other
dressed up as human.
Simultaneously living and dying
shaping and dismantling
filling up and boiling over.

Ashes to ashes
stardust to bone.
What language do you grieve in?
What is the mother tongue for that
which twists and contorts your body
wringing oceans from your skin?
The gravity that pulls you
down to your knees
forehead to ground
where to go from here;
prostrate
trade rapture for rupture
let yourself spill
and descend.

-Gina Puorro

THE ONLY TWO DIRECTIONS

Wandering on the ‘misty isle‘ I happened upon reflections in a dark pond, the message of the photograph became the two directions, up and down, towards and away, only revealed when the image was turned sideways.

Yesterday a friend introduced me to this poem by Quinn Bailey.

When our internal or external worlds are turned sideways, that can sometimes be
“when the boulder in front of the cave begins to shift”

THE ONLY TWO DIRECTIONS BY QUINN BAILEY

This world has only two true directions:
Towards and away.

The big fear, in the end, is to awake and find that
You chose away.

That the hand
Which held you down
Was none other
Than your own.

Remember

The pursuit
Of that which is not truly us
Renders even the most
Powerful vision useless

Recognize

When the boulder in front of the cave begins to shift

When that first illuminating shaft
Pierces the dark

Do not hesitate long

Do not waste time
Anticipating the griefs
Yet to come

They cannot be helped and perhaps are necessary

On that long
And awkward walk
Towards yourself.

Quinn Bailey
The Currents of the World
2020 Homebound Publications

photos westcoastwoman

Featured

The Way It Is

This poem by William Stafford speaks of a thread, I feel it also speaks to the times.

“You don’t ever let go of the thread.“

THE WAY IT IS by William Stafford

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you can do to stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

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The Lion in the Moonlight

unknown photographer

The Lion in the Moonlight

We wait,
like the lion in the moonlight,
not in expectation but
Surrender, Grace,
longing for the gifts that hover
just beyond our grasp
hoping for an invitation,
the magic hour begins
the veil briefly lifted.

Darkness defines Light,
dew, the momentary threshold
releases our trembling fragility
“the shimmering of the web”
this alchemy of dawn,
dimensions where words wait
just beyond
the moment being witnessed.

remove the shoes of the past
the door was always open

Enter.

unknown photographer

westcoastwoman 2020

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Settling

photos westcoastwoman 2020

“Know then that the body is merely a garment. Go seek the wearer not the cloak“. Rumi

Settling

Eyes that can navigate
the tears of others
back to their headwaters,
spoke to mine.

“Settle”

Her hands cupped, filter
words, pain, bewilderment,
spilling from mouths
unable to contain the flow.

“You need to settle“

Those hands deliver
to the waiting current,
grief, loss, prayers,
power, control.

“Settle. You need to settle”

Palms open, eyes open,
reach upwards, release,
lower with grace, reverence,
touch and comfort the earth.

“Settle”

westcoastwoman 2020

photo westcoastwoman 2020

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VARANASI

photo westcoastwoman 2020. the ghats at sunrise Varanasi

“Last night, on the banks of the Ganges, I finally learned how to pray.” Michael Allen

VARANASI by Mary Oliver

Early in the morning we crossed the ghat,

where fires were still smoldering,

and gazed, with our Western minds, into the Ganges.

A woman was standing in the river up to her waist;

she was lifting handfuls of water and spilling it

over her body, slowly and many times,

as if until there came some moment

of inner satisfaction between her own life and the river’s.

Then she dipped a vessel she had brought with her

and carried it filled with water back across the ghat,

no doubt to refresh some shrine near where she lives,

for this is the holy city of Shiva, maker

of the world, and this is his river.

I can’t say much more, except that it all happened

in silence and peaceful simplicity, and something that felt

like that bliss of a certainty and a life lived

in accordance with that certainty.

I must remember this, I thought, as we fly back

to America.

Pray God I remember this.

Mary Oliver
A Thousand Mornings
(Penguin, 2012)

Acknowledgment to Ken Chawkin of The Uncarved Blog for bringing this poem to my attention after reading my last piece “Hotel on the Edge of the World” I am a huge admirer of Mary Oliver but had never before come across this poem.

https://womenofacertainagedotca.com

Dreamtime

“We are all visitors to this time, this place. We are just passing through. Our purpose here is to observe, to learn, to grow, to love…and then we return home”

Australian Aboriginal Proverb

Dreamtime

Moon

Light crosses pillows

Wake from your dreams

Rise to capture

Ice crystals and moonset,

Creep into darkness

Still the moment.

Life moves in phases

‘sets’ morph to ‘rises’,

Dreamtime

inbetweentime

wake and sleep

time marked not

by day and night

but new, full,

waning,

secrets revealed

so many moons ago…..

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Old Maps

Clothing optional Hollyhock, Cortes Island, B.C.

“It is a strange and wonderful fact to be here, walking around in a body, to have a whole world within you and at your fingertips outside you. It is an immense privilege, and it is incredible that humans manage to forget the miracle of being here.
Rilke said, ‘Being here is so much,’ and it is uncanny how social reality can deaden and numb us so that the mystical wonder of our lives goes totally unnoticed.
We are here. We are wildly and dangerously free.”

John O’Donohue quote from Anam Cara

Old Maps

Just over a year ago I posted one of my favorite Joyce Rupp poems “Old Maps No Longer Work” on this site.

For reasons that are still a mystery to me, the link ended up at the top of the search list on Google for that poem. Every day since, at least one person somewhere in the world read it on the site. The constant attention given to the piece prompted me to reread it many times over the last year. Each reading took me deeper into understanding what it meant to be ‘off map’ or ‘mapless’.

As the decade comes to a close I feel compelled to let go of some of my “well travelled paths” with gratitude to where the twists and turns of life have led me but
now “It is time for the pilgrim in me to travel in the dark” and “wait for the stars.”

For the next year when I find myself at the inevitable crossroads we all have to face in life, I will repeat the following lines:

“The Map is not the Territory. When Map and Terrain differ, follow the Terrain.”

Wishes for a New Year of Peace and Understanding.

“We are here. We are wildly and dangerously free“

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THE GUEST HOUSE by Rumi

“sometimes you reread a teaching and hear it differently, this….today”

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
Some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows
Who violently sweep your house empty of it’s furniture.

Still, treat each guest honourably,
He may be cleaning you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
Because each has been sent
As a guide from beyond.

Rumi

Shields

“Something inside me has reached to the place where the world is breathing”
Kabir

Shields

Crisis,
birthing canal
to our Deep heart,
no stopping
the slippery movement
forward that demands
splitting open

Barriers of Reality,
Illusions of Safety,
clinging with tentacles
mired so deep that
Shields became prisons,
Seek wholeness
Not Perfection.

You are too much.
You have never been enough.
Pain liberating Truth
Reject, Embrace
Don’t waste your suffering,
A faint beat is detected
Light and Dark start their Dance.

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We are being Lived

.
Banafsheh photographer unknown

“You are an ocean in a drop of dew, all the universes in a thin sack of blood.

What are these pleasures then, these joys, these worlds that you keep reaching for, hoping they will make you more alive?”

Rumi

WE ARE BEING LIVED

Eyes closed
Touch the quiet
Embrace
Drum beat, matching heartbeat
Turning…..
Music becoming flesh
We are being danced.

Eyes open
Hear the sounds
Listen
Earth beat, touching heartbeat
Turning…..
Sounds becoming words
We are being written.

Dance
Words
Longing and desire
Turning…..
Watch
Love becoming life
We are being lived.

Tag: poetry

Just beyond the present moment

The Other Side

Now That Anything Could Happen……

“It began when…”

” I am Losing my Mother Words”

The Descent

THE ONLY TWO DIRECTIONS

The Way It Is