And now for something completely different.......

[image from vancouverisawesome.com - Vancouver is my big-city neighbour!]

............and utterly NON-peaceful. I am watching a documentary called Trinity and Beyond: the Atom Bomb Movie, which depicts the dropping of bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the subsequent  testing of atomic and hydrogen bombs by the USA through the 1950's. It is simply appalling to watch the absolute insanity, filmed as they  exploded these massive bombs on the deserts and in the oceans of the planet, unleashing whatever at-that-time-unknown cataclysmic repercussions, and unloading huge quantities of radioactive material into the air to settle over humans and all other life everywhere.

They showed some green rock still highly radioactive fifty years later. They did not know what they were dealing with - the footage shows men standing within sight of the blast, watching the detonation. And "testing the viability of boats to nuclear blasts" by positioning ships full of men within the blast zone, some of which sank to the bottom of the sea.

Why was there not a huge public outcry?

I remember nuclear war seemed a very real threat when I was a youngster in school. I grew up with that fear. The adults all believed (or were led to believe by the careful news releases of the governments of the day) that it was a very real possibility. There were drills at school. Some people dug bomb shelters in their back yards. I remember being terrified when Russian ships were heading towards the Bay of Pigs and Kennedy did not back down.

I was a young mom when Chernobyl happened, and I was rivetted to the tv, afraid that it might set off a domino effect, igniting other reactors across the world, and that my children would suffer - the world's children would suffer. I imagine many of the children of Chernobyl are still suffering the effects of that "accident".

This is a power that humans are foolish to mess with. And there isn't even a safe way to contain the material,  if we tried to eliminate them.

I have peace on my mind, as November 4th approaches and the huge and accelerating Blogblast for Peace project gets underway. People from all over the world will be taking part and it does give one hope that the vast majority of us simply want to live in a world at peace. There are enough challenges in life without people having to try to survive in war zones.

I will finish watching this........thing........as one needs to know, I suppose, just how foolish governments can be. The only "safe" nuclear weapon is a non-existent one. And any hugely destructive force,  at risk of being left in the hands of humans, who can be reactive, angry, unwell or downright psychotic, or even just distracted, sleepy or careless, is a recipe for certain disaster which, fortunately until now, we have avoided, don't ask me how.

To finish on an upbeat note: judging from the people in countries all over the world pledging to join this movement for peace on the 4th, peace is an idea whose time has come. It is trying to happen. Imagine, if it does.............

[image from peaceabbey.org]

A Celtic Blessing of Peace

[image from the Global Peace Project website at bhagavandharma.org]

Deep Peace, I breathe into you,
O weariness, here.
O ache, here!
Deep peace, a soft white dove to you,
Deep peace, a quiet rain to you,
Deep peace, an ebbing wave to you!
Deep peace, red wind of the east from you,
Deep peace, gray wind of the west to you,
Deep peace, dark wind of the north from you,
Deep peace, blue wind of the south to you!
Deep peace, pure red of the flame to you,
Deep peace, pure white of the moon to you,
Deep peace, pure green of the grass to you,
Deep peace, pure brown of the earth to you,
Deep peace, pure gray of the dew to you,
Deep peace, pure blue of the sky to you!
Deep peace of the running wave to you,
Deep peace of the flowing air to you,
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you,
Deep peace of the sleeping stones to you,
Deep peace of the Yellow Shepherd to you,
Deep peace of the Wandering Shepherdess to you,
Deep peace of the Flock of Stars to you,
Deep peace of the Son of Peace to you,
Deep peace from the heart of Mary to you,
And from Bridget of the Mantle,
Deep peace, deep peace!


A Celtic blessing of peace for all hearts tonight.......I havent been able to find a source, other than it being adapted from some Celtic runes long ago..........

In The Infinitely Possible Universe.....

Taking time out of time,
I can,
this morning,
without leaving home,
lift my heart out of life's
gobbling dailyness,
setting it free
amongst
the infinitely
possible
universe.........

I am sitting in an upper row
at the Imax,
and on the big screen
in front of me
spreads the Kalahari,
lions stretching and yawning
in the amber glow
of the African veld,
herds of wildebeeste
flowing across
the brown and endless land,
a wave of life
surging to a
common shore.

Now I'm siting
in a stone hut
in the Himalayas,
drinking butter tea.
In the glow of the fire,
warm brown faces
smile at me
with kind eyes,
their expressions radiant
with the peace
of their hearts'
simplicity.

Walk with me
along
the Great Wall of China,
then let's nip over to
see the rounded shapes
of the Mystic Mountains.

Or travel the Camino,
five hundred miles
a pilgrim,
sleeping on stone benches,
the trail one long thirst.

In Dharamsala,
I sit with red-robed monks,
in a silence so vast
the veil parts,
I am half in
and halfway out,
co-existing
between two worlds.

There are
no limits
here.

So now we travel space,
a vast blackness,
stars scudding past,
exploding and imploding,
the glow
of comet-dust
upon our seeing eyes.

Time to come home,
and I'm most happy to -
home to my tiny trailer,
with its barking dogs,
its clean, green
sweep of yard
full of marmalade-colored leaves,
cheerful with Tibetan prayer flags,
bamboo wind chimes,
waiting porch swing.

When I first wrote these words
my nearest neighbor
was a tender newborn foal,
small as a medium-sized dog,
who clung to life
with a sweet tenacity
and spooky pale-blue
and inquiring
eyes.

He left this world
fourteen months later,
was buried with his
favorite ball
in a green spot
where now an apple tree
blooms each spring.

There is a bench
there,
for sitting,
and remembering
Baby Leo,
his spirit
now running free
in some other
parallel
reality
in this
infinitely
possible
universe.

A Soliloquy on the Night

[I got thinking about how night time evolves during the course of a human life, and how it holds different degrees of emotion, depending on the time in one's life it corresponds to.]

Night.
When a small child falls asleep to the sound of the Big People drinking in the living room, waking later to empty silence, creeping out of bed and down the hall to wander through the empty rooms, finding herself alone, except for the monsters waiting for her under the bed.

Night.
When the twelve year old lies shaking with fear in bed, listening to the yells and curses, blows and crashes. Only now the fear is worse; now she knows who the monsters are. Now, when silence falls, she worries that one of her parents might be dead, and that the wrong one might be left alive.

Night.
When the young wife stares into the lonely dark, realizing her marriage is nothing like the marriage of her dreams, that she is, in fact, more alone now than she ever was.

Night.
When the baby wakes, and the young mother takes it to her breast, watching out the window, waiting for daybreak, cocooned in a warm, sweet world of two, her heart full with finally, finally having someone to really love.

Night.
When the husband furiously harrangues, night after night, into the early hours: her lacks, her faults, his needs not being met, what-is-it-that-you-want, what's wrong with you?

Night.
When he finally leaves,  she regains her freedom, and nights are silent once more.

Night.
When she discovers what love between a man and woman can be. Night of ecstasy.

Night.
When he leaves too, because she has children and he has to be free, and besides, he has two new girlfriends now. But thanks, and here's one tear, for remembering.

Night.
Of despair. Of despair. The long night of the heart, when it is frozen, asleep, refusing to be roused.

Night.
That one keeps waking from, because one must. And because, over time, the rosy sunrise keeps on winning, until she awakens to a new day of hope.

Many, many nights.
Till the heart comes home to a place of fullness where there is no pain. Aware that the world is full of weeping, hungry, frightened and abused children, angry, drunken adults, heartbreak, and danger in the night. But believes more in the way the world wakes fresh and brand new every morning, with the chance to do things better, and builds a life on that.

One of the kindest things that age does is take the night, once a time of fear and pain, loneliness and yearning, and turn it into a kind friend, who pulls the covers up over our shoulders and bids us rest.

HOT FLASHES

(Re-posted for the Poetry Pantry on Hallowe'en - time to unleash our Inner Witches!!)

[This poem was written in 1998. I am now well more than halfway through my life, and hot flashes are long gone.... However, today this poem still speaks to me - I remember when I wrote it, I was living in Tofino. Life is very different now. But that wild woman, though somewhat squelched down by fatigue, illness and circumstance, is still in there somewhere. Perhaps through this blog she is clawing her way back out :)]


I'm standing in the middle of my life:
looking back at the journey of becoming who I am,
through transformations wonderful and strange.
It's no wonder that they call this time The Change!


The view is kinder, gentler from here:
sometimes heat rises divinely
and a slow fog creeps over my glasses.
Life becomes a pleasant blur
at which I nod and smile benignly,
comprehending absolutely nothing
through the steam from my hot flashes!


When the steam clears,
I look into my mirror.
A strange lady is looking back at me.
I have been watching
a wildish woman growing there.
Beginning with her wild and frizzy hair,
I have seen her growing ever 
more determined to be free.


She sports a crooked grin and if I cover it,
the corners twitch, and her mouth opens wide.
Out pops a loud and wicked cackle!
Agh!
And when she speaks,
she speaks a truth I cannot hide.


She doesn't act like anyone I ever knew.
She is the one I have run from
and run home to.
I have to admit I'm starting to enjoy
never knowing what new adventure
she's going to take me through.


She lives on the Wild West Coast
and she wears funny clothes.
Out here she finds it easy to fit in.
She's feeling more at home inside her skin.
These days she's living in a world of kin.


She's taught me that
I'm not allowed to quit.
Instead of "oh poor me, this is way too hard!"
she's taught me to say things like
"Wow! What an INT-eresting curriculum about Challenge!"
and "Let 'er rip!"
"These are Power Surges, not Hot Flashes"
and (my very favorite), "What a trip!"


Wild horses gallop often through her heart.
Now she takes risks and leaps off shaky ledges,
trusting she will find a place to land,
because she finally seems to understand
that if she's ever going to learn to really fly,
it had better be now before it's way too late to try.


She is free now - she can never again be tamed.
She will not grow old gracefully
and refuses to be blamed.
She plans to laugh and sing,
to hope and dream until the end.
This wild woman is becoming
my best friend.


She has brought me through the fire and the rain
and to the Circle of Sisterhood we turn.
We find the gain has been well worth the pain,
and turn to help our younger sisters learn.


Standing on the brink of an ancient way of knowing,
I can feel Wild Woman singing through my bones,
and I know that I am standing at the doorway
of a special passage to the Age of Crones.

A Day Trip to Kashmir

This is Dal Lake, the "Jewel of Kashmir" ~ image from sankalpindia.net


My thoughts are in Kashmir right now, having newly "discovered" it through a poet friend. I have found some lovely photos on-line. It is described as Paradise on earth, and I can definitely see why. It is also said that Kashmir "sits in the lap of the gods".

I have pored through a few books of translated writings of the Bengali poet RabindrinathTagore, (1861 to 1941), looking for  poems or quotations to accompany these photos. Furthering my mini-education, I read that Tagore, the first non-European to win the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature, was already writing poems at the age of eight, and was published at age sixteen. He was a renaissance man, a musician, artist, novelist, poet, and playwright.

I am enjoying a cup of Bengal spice tea, while we journey, to get in a properly receptive mood. Please do join me in a cup:) Get ready - our boat is about to cast off.  I hope you enjoy our little day-trip of the imagination to another land!

image from sankalpindia.net

The Stars Look On

The day will come

when the sight of this earth will be lost

I will take my leave in silence

as the stars look on

I know the sun will rise again

The hours will still bring pleasure and pain

in heaving waves

When I think of the end, time crumbles

I see by the light of death

that the lowliest existence is rare

and the worst moments are precious

What I longed for will be set aside

The things I pursued in vain -

Let them pass

Let me turn

to things I overlooked

and carelessly threw away

to possess them truly until they are mine

As the stars look on.

image from sankalpindia.net

(Okay, I really want a ride in this boat!!)
Stray Birds 126

Not hammer-strokes, but dance of the water
sings the pebbles into perfection.

image from wanderingeducators.com

Stray Birds 77

Every child comes with the message
that God is not yet discouraged of man.

(Isn't that the truth!)

image from sankalpindia.net

Incarnation

I thought the journey was over

when my powers came to an end.

The path before me was closed,

the provisions were exhausted

and the time had come to take shelter

in some small dark corner.

But your will knows no end in me.

When the old song dies on the tongue,

a new one springs forth from the heart

and where the old tracks have been swept away

a new country is revealed in all its wonder.

Priceless

The coin of life is stamped with death

so that what we buy will be truly precious.

image from sankalpindia.net

Nostalgia

I was homesick today

for one sweet hour

across the sea of time.

Stray Birds 116

The earth hums to me today in the sun,

like a woman at her spinning,

some ballad of the ancient time

in a forgotten tongue.

Stray Birds 272

I came to your shore a stranger,

I lived in your house as a guest,

I leave your door as a friend, my earth.

Giving

Life is given to us

then we earn it

by giving it back.

Blossom

Tears are no shame.

It is the tears of the earth

that keep her flowers blooming.

Hari Parbat at night image from koausa.org


If you weep because the sun has gone out
Your tears may blind you to the stars.

Stray Birds 10

Sorrow is hushed into peace in my heart
like the evening among the silent trees.

No trip to Kashmir would be complete without visiting a few of its temples:

This is Avantipur Temple ~ image from koausa.org


What Will You Give?

What will you give
when death knocks at your door?

The fullness of my life -
the sweet wine of autumn days
and summer nights,
my little hoard
gleaned through the years,
and hours rich with living.

These will be my gift
when death knocks at my door.

Immortality

The stars are not afraid
to flicker out like fireflies.
And you?

Konark Temple ~ image from wikipedia.org


Troubadour

My songs did it all.
They made me seek you
from door to door
and with them I felt my way
searching and touching
this world.

They taught me
all the lessons I ever learned
They showed me secret paths
and faint stars on the horizon
of my heart.

Every day they took me
into the mysteries
of pleasure and pain
until they got me here
in the evening of my journey
to the gates of the unknown palace.

Pandrethan Temple ~ image from indianetzone.com


Gift

Whatever gifts are
in my power to give you,
be they flowers,
be they gems for your neck,
how can they please you
if in time they must surely wither,
crack,
lose lustre?
All that my hands
can place in yours
will slip through your fingers
and fall forgotten to the dust
to turn into dust.

Rather, when you have leisure,
wander idly through my garden
in spring
and let an unknown
hidden flower's scent startle you
into sudden wondering -
Let that displaced moment
be my gift.
Or if, as you peer your way
down a shady avenue,
suddenly, spilled
from the thick gathered tresses
of evening
a single shivering fleck
of sunset-light stops you,
turns your daydreams to gold,
let that light be an innocent
Gift.

Truest treasure is fleeting;
it sparkles for a moment, then goes.
It does not tell its name; its tune
stops us in our tracks,
its dance disappears
at the toss of an anklet.
I know no way to it -
no hand, nor word can reach it.
Friend, whatever you take of it,
on your own
without asking, without knowing, 
let that
be yours.
Anything I can
give you is trifling-
be it a flower, or a song.

Okay, kids, time to hop out of the boat and return to Boring Old Home, wherever it may be! Sigh. But wasn't it a lovely day?

In The Valley of Kashmir

Chinar tree image from frontiertreksindia.com

A poet
tells me
there are chinar trees
on the landscapes
of Kashmir
just like
the tall old maple
out my door.

This thought

tinkles

through my mind

enticingly

as if

I had never

fully

grasped

this truth

before.

I gaze

upon

my newly

significant

tree,

as if

I could

somehow

look outside

and see

those ancient temples

in another land

shining

in our shared

celestial canopy,

reflected

in its skyscape

back to me.

In the valleys

of Kashmir

a  poet walks,

eyes bedazzled

and wondering

in the glow

of the place

he calls

a Paradise

on earth.

The pictures show

a landscape

that I know:

a winding river,

a lake,

hills

soft and rounded

in the setting sun,

willow trees,

tall  poplars

one by one -

that mirrored valley

ten thousand miles

away

looking

just like

this valley

encircling me

today.

image of Kashmir Lake from trifter.com

Kashmir,

"where nature

sits

in the lap

of the gods,"

its pathways

where

a gentle poet

trods,

where rivers wind

through valleys

sweet and mild,

and a lake lies

ringed by

round low hills

exactly

like those

around

my lakeside

orchard valley

as a child.

image by Wajid Drabu at betterphoto.com

              

Two valleys

where apple trees

will bloom

again;

in this mirrored

world,

somewhere

it's always

spring -

their buds

will be

peacefully

unfurled,

and poets' hearts

will lift

again

and sing

at the

unexpected

beauty

of

this

most

amazing

dual

offering.