The Wine of My Own Poetry

Because the teacher comes along exactly when needed, 
these quotes came to me in the last two days:




The Wine of My Own Poetry

I didn't trust it for a moment

but I drank it anyway,

the wine of my own poetry.

It gave me the daring to take hold

of the darkness and tear it down

and cut it into little pieces.

-- Lala, a 14th century Persian poet

TAPPING INTO YOUR SOURCE

"There’s a reason that you can learn from everything: you have basic wisdom, basic intelligence, and basic goodness. Therefore, if the environment is supportive and encourages you to be brave and to open your heart and mind, you’ll find yourself opening to the wisdom and compassion that’s inherently there. It’s like tapping into your source, tapping into what you already have. It’s the willingness to open your eyes, your heart, and your mind, to allow situations in your life to become your teacher."

Pema Chodron

My Inspiration

And that's to say nothing of the collective wisdom of my friends in the blogoshere whom I treasure, whose words I find to be words to live by, who reminded me of what I had forgotten: We have enough, we are enough, we are perfect just the way we are and when we are true to ourselves, our very lives are poetic. My deepest gratitude.

Venice

Venice is a world apart. In Rome, when you step on the grounds of the Vatican, you leave Italy and
enter an entirely new state, the Vatican state. So too with Venice, but for a different reason, more like
entering a different state of mind.

For instance, did you know that Venice has no cars? I didn't. Four days in a city without cars is a
tranquil and relaxing experience quite different from other cities. Residents and visitors either walk or
take a water taxi, public or private, to get around. They run frequently and everywhere. And
"everywhere" in Venice is lovely with an old world beauty that is utterly unique and altogether
enchanting. I felt increasingly serene in my time there.

I hardly know where to begin to describe it. Venice consists of over a hundred islands. The water and
canals that separate them lend to the romance and mystery that make Venice magical. Add to that the
art, architecture, history, music and carnival that Venice is famous for and the magic happens. Venice
is a feast for the eyes so intense that it's hard to know where to look next and swooning is common.
When's the last time you swooned? Multiple times daily? Such that I intended to take some photos to
commemorate my visit but ended up with over 400 of them! I kept saying "oh, but this is so beautiful".

Something about the quality of the light as it reflects off the water, and the shimmer the water gives to
the buildings, the boats and the people next to it actually changes perception so that I could see in a
new way. It must be why art has flourished here for centuries. I had a glimpse of that feeling artists
must get when they see, really see, and want to capture their vision in art to communicate it to others.
The colors of the buildings, the grand architecture, the colors of the trees and flowers, the way water
and light enhanced them was thrilling. Being able to stop and appreciate anything that caught my eye
because I didn't have to be vigilant of motor vehicles or bothered by their noise was remarkably
freeing. It encourages slowing down, rewards it at every turn.

When the fellow who runs the B and B where we stayed was giving us hints of how to enjoy Venice,
he said: "Walk without a map, get lost, follow the twists and turns wherever they take you and then
appreciate wherever you are. It's perfectly safe to do this and a gift to give yourself." It was great
advice, a great way to see this bella cittá.

How about a city that rewards you for being present to what's around  and savoring small moments?
Remarkable. A world apart: Venice.

"News from Poems"

On the last day of National Poetry month:

It is difficult
to get the news from poems
   Yet men die miserably every day
        for lack
of what is found there.

William Carlos William







The wisdom of William Carlos William registers immediately when reading this.  We instinctively know this to be true and it drives me to read and, sometimes in gifted moments, to write poetry. I'm glad we have a month every year to celebrate this great art form and to share inspiration with one another. 


Two places, just in my limited blog world, that offer poetry to startle, delight, and expand are: Ruth at synch-ro-ni-zing and, through the wonders of blog sharing, Ruth introduced me to Terresa at The Chocolate Chip Waffle. Ruth featured Terresa's wonderful poem "Red Shoes" and Terresa featured Ruth's amazing poem, "I Dreamt You Were Eating Dirt" as well as poems of other bloggers. Give yourself a treat and check out these blogs. Then seek out favorites sites for yourself and continue to spread the news because: 
it is difficult

to get the news from poems

   Yet men die miserably every day

        for lack

of what is found there.

"Digging"

From an Irish Poet during National Poetry month:

A great and important Irish poet, Seamus Heaney, shows in this poem his sharp, accurate description of what he sees and hears that nonetheless brings us, his reader, to a whole other more universal meaning. It's the absolutely gorgeous, astounding delight of poetry that it can accomplish this time and again.

Digging

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound

When the spade sinks into the gravely ground:

My father, digging. I look down.

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds

Bends low, comes up twenty years away

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills

Where he was digging.

The course boot nestled on the lug, the shaft

Against the inside knee was levered firmly.

He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep

To scatter new potatoes that we picked

Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.

Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day

Than any other man on Toner's bog.

Once I carried him milk in a bottle

Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up

To drink it, then fell to right away

Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods

Over his shoulder, going down and down

For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap

Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge

Through living roots awaken in my head.

But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.

I'll dig with it.

Seamus Heaney

from: Selected Poems 1966-1987

My husband's cousins live in the west of Ireland, County Clare. Their home backs up to bog land and Aidan still digs turf for winter fires which fill the house with an ancient earthy scent. So this poem rings ancestral chimes for me on the one hand and accurately depicts the sight and sound (the sheer sound of this poem is a delight) of work that's still going on and that I've seen on the other.

But on a another level, I love his reference to his father's and his grandfather's digging "down for the good turf" and his own digging with his pen knowing that as a poet he must dig deep as well. And isn't that our challenge, too?

County Clare bog land and lake.

Turf drying.

"The Glass and the Bowl"

From a Native American writer during National Poetry month:

I love the writings of Louise Erdrich, a prolific author of novels, including Love Medicine and The Plague of Doves, children's books, including The Birchbark House  and poetry, including Baptism of Desire that contains this lovely poem.

Her poem captures that incomparable fullness of feeling that comes unbidden in precious moments of parenting when "nothing seems withheld" even in the "absence of refuge in the design". Those moments are sweet and we need them.


The Glass and the Bowl


The father pours the milk from his glass
into the cup of the child,
and as the child drinks
the whiteness, opening
her throat to the good taste
eagerly, the father is filled.
He closes the refrigerator
on its light, he walks out
under the bowl of frozen darkness
and nothing seems withheld from him.
Overhead, the burst ropes of stars,
the buckets of craters,
the chaos of heaven, absence
of refuge in the design.
Yet down here, his daughter
in her quilts, under patterns
of diamonds and novas,
full of rich milk,
sleeping.


Louise Erdrich

What sweet moments are you savoring?

Amazing Grace in Rome

This is a gorgeous version of Amazing Grace sung by four tenors in the Colosseum in Rome. Stay for the middle part which will knock your socks off! That's all- music for your enjoyment and inspiration.

Click here: AMAZING GRACE sang beautifully by four Tenors!

What inspires you these days? 

Sonnet 18

From a British Poet during National Poetry month:

William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 is perhaps the most famous of his 154 sonnets.  Reference to the first line pervades our literature and language. Some see this sonnet as a tribute to the power of art or as the appreciation of the transient nature of life and beauty. But the sonnet is also a beautiful tribute to love.

So I dedicate this sonnet to my love, John, to celebrate his birthday and his exquisite love for me, our daughter and our grandchildren. "As long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee." Those who know John know how true this is, his love for family and friends defines him, gives him life.

Give yourself a treat, read this with fresh eyes as if you had never heard it before. Let it delight you.


Sonnet 18


Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometimes declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest:
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

William Shakespeare
(1564 - 1616)

This is quintessential John: piled high with stuffed animals and dolls by our granddaughter for their photo together and he just said "sure".

p.s. Buona Pasqua (Happy Easter)!

"Answers"

From an American poet during National Poetry month:

Mary Oliver is a Pulitzer Prize winning poet whose poetry is both accessible and profound. She starts with the very specific in front of her and ends up talking in such a way that I'm swept up into her vision knowing it's about what I know too but challenging me to move a little further

Answers


If I envy anyone it must be
My grandmother in a long ago
Green summer, who hurried
Between kitchen and orchard on small
Uneducated feet, and took easily
All shining fruits into her eager hands.

That summer I hurried too, wakened
To books and music and circling philosophies.
I sat in the kitchen sorting through volumes of answers
That I could not solve the mystery of the trees.

My grandmother stood among her kettles and ladles.
Smiling, in faulty grammar,
She praised my fortune and urged my lofty career.
So, to please her I studied- But I will remember always
How she poured confusion out, how she cooled and labeled
All the wild sauces of the brimming year.

Mary Oliver
from: New and Selected Poems, Volume One




I love this tribute to the importance of grandmothers. How we can "pour confusion out" for our grands, "how we cool and label all the wild sauces of the brimming year." What a great description of the role we can play!

"Love After Love"

From a West Indian poet during National Poetry month:

Derek Walcott was born in St. Lucia and now lives in Trinidad where my daughter and her family lives. My favorite poem of his is one I've treasured for a long time. It gave me hope that I could be found when I felt lost and then it gave me back my heart when I was in need of that gift. I've loved it ever since and it means more to me each tine I read it. It's wise.


Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door,
in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread.
Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott
From Collected Poems 1948-1984

Has a poem ever helped you through a tough time?

" The Necessity for Irony"

From an Irish Poet during National Poetry Month:

Another of my favorite poets is Eavan Boland, an Irish poet who writes about myth, history but also her life and the experiences we all have. She writes in a fresh way that makes things, nonetheless, familiar.


The Necessity for Irony

On Sundays,
when the rain held off,
after lunch or later,
I would go with my twelve year old
daughter into town
and put down the time
at junk sales, antique fairs.

There I would
lean over tables,
absorbed by lace, wooden frames,
glass. My daughter stood
at the other end of the room,
her flame colored hair
obvious whenever-
which was not often-

I turned around.
I turned around.
She was gone.
Grown. No longer ready
to come with me, whenever
a dry Sunday
held out it's promises
of small histories. Endings.

When I was young
I studied styles: their use
and origin. Which age
was known for which
ornament: and was always drawn
to a lyric speech, a civil tone.
But never thought
I would have the need,
as I do now, for a darker one:

Spirit of irony,
my caustic author
of the past, of memory,-
and of it's pain, which returns
hurts, stings-reproach me now,
remind me
that I was in those rooms,
with my child,
with my back turned to her,
searching- oh irony!-
for beautiful things.

Eavan Boland
From The Lost Land


This reminds me to cherish each moment of now less I search for beautiful things and miss what's most important in my life.


Dedicated to my daughter.

"The Wild Iris"

From an American Poet during National Poetry Month:

Louise Gluck is one of my favorite poets. One I go to when I want to enter a new world, want to see things in a new way or to be amazed and delighted. My copy of one of her books, The Wild Iris, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1993, is worn by my many returns to it's pages. The signature poem of this remarkable series is entitled "The Wild Iris" and, like all the poems in the book, speaks in the voice of the flower.


The Wild Iris

At the end of my suffering
there was a door.

Here me out: that which you call death
I remember.

Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.

It is terrible to survive
as consciousness
buried in the dark earth.

Then it was over: that which you fear, being
a soul and unable
to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth
bending a little. And what I took to be
birds darting in low shrubs.

You who do not remember
passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice:

from the center of my life came
a great fountain, deep blue
shadows on azure seawater.

Louise Gluck


How remarkable to see the world through the eyes of an iris, to hear its descriptions of the world, to recognize its wisdom.

"I Said to Poetry"

From an African American author during National Poetry month:

I Said to Poetry

I said to Poetry: "I'm finished
with you."
Having to almost die
before some wierd light
comes creeping through
is no fun.
"No thank you, Creation,
no muse need apply.
Im out for good times--
at the very least,
some painless convention."
Poetry laid back
and played dead
until this morning.
I wasn't sad or anything,
only restless.

Poetry said: "You remember
the desert, and how glad you were
that you have an eye
to see it with? You remember
that, if ever so slightly?"
I said: "I didn't hear that.
Besides, it's five o'clock in the a.m.
I'm not getting up
in the dark
to talk to you."

Poetry said: "But think about the time
you saw the moon
over that small canyon
that you liked so much better
than the grand one--and how suprised you were
that the moonlight was green
and you still had
one good eye
to see it with

Think of that!"

"I'll join the church!" I said,
huffily, turning my face to the wall.
"I'll learn how to pray again!"

"Let me ask you," said Poetry.
"When you pray, what do you think
you'll see?"

Poetry had me.

"There's no paper
in this room," I said.
"And that new pen I bought
makes a funny noise."

"Bullshit," said Poetry.
"Bullshit," said I.

Written by Alice Walker

Alice Walker is a wise woman and a poet/ writer who understands the world around and within her. You know what she's saying, don't you? But, April is the month that celebrates the taking of pen to paper (or cursor to screen) so that poetry can say to us: "think about the time…" and we do and we capture it.

Do you write poetry?

Lucky Chicken

I want to share a wonderful story. It's a true story of a lucky chicken and her new friends. It's a story of redemption, hope and survival. It's an important story right now.

The story starts with my friend, Sheila, taking her trash to a receptacle near her home on the way to a luncheon with her friend. She was dressed in a white linen dress for the occasion. As Sheila threw in her trash, she heard a noise that she couldn't identify. She alerted her friend, who also didn't know what she was hearing. "But, we're all dressed up and going to a luncheon" pleaded her friend.

Sheila, animal lover that she is, couldn't give up once she heard that faint sound. "I'm going to see what's in there" Trash receptacles in Italy are big and tall and loaded from the top. This one was full. Sheila is maybe 5'3" (160cm). Undeterred, she started taking trash out bag by bag and item by item, determined to find what was making that sound. She had to go to the bottom, her dress ruined by then, only to find a white plastic bag tied at the top with a weak sound coming from it. 

She opened it to find a small chicken of indeterminate age with its head lolling off to the side and emitting the pitiful sound.  After she got over the shock, she could see that the chicken was dying and her heart went out to the poor creature. Sheila told her friend that she wanted to take it to her house so it could die in the open looking at the sky (and so she could change her clothes).

So, home they went, where Sheila found an old dog crate to put the chicken in to protect it while it died.  To her surprise when she came home from the luncheon, Sheila found the chicken standing up on wobbly legs and not dead at all. Unsure what to feed it, Sheila went to the local hardware store and asked. She bought what they recommended and brought it home to see if the chicken would eat. It did. And it ate daily for the next four days looking stronger and healthier each day.

On the fourth day, an amazing thing happened. The chicken, now named Hattie, laid an egg. She has laid an egg every day since, much to Sheila's delight. She moved Hattie's crate into her dogs' enclosure and they've all become fast friends. 

Hattie has filled out and grown handsome rust red feathers. She struts around the yard, follows Sheila everywhere, plays with the dogs, bosses everyone and loves her new life. 

Like I said, it's a wonderful story.

Hattie

Hattie and her friends.

A Hopi Elder Speaks

Things to Do from a wise elder:

A HOPI ELDER SPEAKS

"You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour. Now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered . . .

Where are you living?

What are you doing?

What are your relationships?

Are you in right relation?

Where is your water?

Know your garden.

It is time to speak your Truth.

Create your community.

Be good to each other.

And do not look outside yourself for the leader."

Then he clasped his hands together, smiled, and said, "This could be a good time!"

"There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are torn apart and will suffer greatly.

Know the river has its destination. The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above water. And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, Least of all ourselves. For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.

The time for the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word struggle from your attitude and your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration."

"We are the ones we've been waiting for."

-- attributed to an unnamed Hopi elder, Hopi Nation, Oraibi, Arizona

Things To Do While I'm Alive

In my birthday post on 26 January, I mentioned a self-discovery art journal inspired by my good friend, Annee. When the mood strikes me (usually 3-4 times a year), I take a few blank pages of this spiral notebook journal and pick out whatever magazine pictures or words catch my eye and put them in a current moment snapshot collage. It visually represents what's up for me. It has been a meaningful process for me for the ten or more years I've been doing it and I like to review the pages and see how they portend or document personal shifts or changes in my life. It's satisfying and fulfills my yearning to find other ways to express myself, this way through art.

Here's the cover page:

And here's a combination I put together some years ago as a self portrait. It's a combination of a Klee painting and a stone circle in Ireland. This, for some reason, speaks to places deep within me and is still accurate:

I did one in Trinidad on my birthday and then arranged it on the picnic table since I didn't have my journal with me. Now that I'm home I put the pictures into the journal today but tweaked them a bit by adding in some tickets from recent places I'd seen in Rome.

Pages 1 and 2:

Pages 3 and 4:

I'm not sure all that they indicate but they're partly to do with designing a new dream, re-innovating myself and getting back to simple things in a place that's simply spectacular. It is what's on my mind for quite awhile now come to think about it.

As I reviewed the past journal pages, here are the things listed in my illustated discovery journal over the years as things I want to do while I'm alive:


Defy

Dream

Imagine

Chime in

Have taste

Be flexible

Become quiet

Get innovative

Create sacred space

Give art the run of the house

Have a second career goal of changing society

Say "arriverderci" to average

Create domestic bliss

Serve up well being

Forge a new view

Work for legacy

Dream globally

Stay fascinated

Re-innovate

Worship

Share


They're values I resonate with, goals I think are worthy, challenges important to me to work on. And I like having a place to play with them, make art about them, keep them before my eyes and heart.

What inspires you these days?

Fiercely Grateful

I used to Keep a gratitude journal. Each day I made myself write 5 specific, concrete things I was grateful for that day. It helped me through a dark time, kept me grounded in goodness, and saved my emotional life until I could know again that the world is a friendly place.

Every year at Thanksgiving, I go back to this practice to remind myself of great grace in my life, The gifts I've been given and all that I am grateful for. This year my list is long. Not just longer but bigger in it's scope from living internationally and all the blessings that have come from that. It's like the world has offered itself to me.

I'm grateful for my family, for the love and constancy that we offer one another, the deepening friendships happening among us, and the laughter and fun we have together. Especially John. How can I express the awe I feel that after 37 years together, he is my best friend, favorite companion, and makes me laugh out loud more than ever.

I'm grateful for my friends, old friends who hold the memories of a lifetime in precious hands even while we make new ones with them, with their kids, with their grand kids. What wealth we share. And new friends who bring the fresh possibilities of new ways of looking at things that stretch me, enrich me and keep me fresh, too. My blog friends are in this group. I'm pleased to have sojourners and seekers to share this journey with.

I'm grateful for meaningful work which provides me a way to give back, to help those taking tentative steps toward health, to lend my knowledge, experience and love to those who need it, who bask in it or grab it hungrily and then go forward and do likewise. It's a glorious spiral, a sacred dance.

I'm grateful for books, my passion for them, my ability to get lost in them, my abiding affection for the characters I come to know and treasure. They shake me up and let me into worlds I'd have no other way of knowing. They excite me every time.

I'm grateful for nature and the physicalness of being out in it. The walking, hiking, running- using my body, having it respond, stay healthy, feel good and discover the rush. The sea and the mountains that call me and keep me interacting with them,  that intoxicate me, that teach me the connectedness of all life, the spiritual essence of what I have come to believe.

For all this, for all you, I am fiercely grateful.

My Neighbor's Field

It really needs no introduction, I don't know the story behind it or quite how he did it, but this HUGE heart greeted our whole neighborhood and stayed for weeks as we drove down the hill:

It had everyone buzzing, speculating and smiling. It's amazing how we influence each other.

Celebrating Crones

This year marked our family's 7th annual woman's gathering of my daughter and 8 nieces with my sister-in-law and me, for a yearly circle of sharing and support. A bit about the wonderful history of this gathering is on my 11/07/09 post entitled: "The Gathering, 2009".

Each year we select a theme and this year's was "Celebrating Crones" (that would be us above!). For the first time the young women of our next generation did all the planning and carrying out of the day's agenda. It was a lovely "croning" ritual, a day of affirmation and honoring for me and my sister-in-law. I felt very special on the receiving end of their ministrations and deeply touched by their thoughtful words and beautiful ceremony.The 4 little ones of the 3rd generation even made our "crowns" to be a part of it all. A great symbol since Jean Shinoda Bolen in her book: "Crones Don't Whine" says that becoming a crone is the crowning inner achievement of the third phase of a woman's life.

This croning ceremony is a wonderful way to celebrate reaching this phase and I recommend it as a way to acknowledge our age  and wisdom and claim our unique place in the circle of our families and life.

I formerly posted a wonderful quote about crones from Frank MacEowen's book "The Spiral of Memory and Belonging" that bears repeating: "In contrast to these modern usages, the words 'crone' and 'cailleach' were traditionally associated with healing, wisdom, initiation into the ways of the Otherworld, and the stirring mysteries of the earth. The crone, sometimes appearing as the dark goddess, is the keeper of hidden knowledge and is considered a guardian."

Healing, wisdom, initiation, mysteries of the earth, keeper and guardian! Doesn't that sound luscious? We older women have become separated from this powerful place of ancient knowledge and energy. A ceremony can  inspire us to seek ways to reclaim this role which our culture sorely needs but is afraid of. Initiatory energy is about the importance of finding ways to mentor younger women that happens when we gather together to grow individually and collectively and support one another.


Crones are elder women, wise and powerful. Bolen in her yummy little book describes crones as "juicy"- full of zest and deeply involved in life! And Margaret Meade described this stage as women with "pmz" - post menopausal zest!  All the authors encourage finding new ways to be, become and benefit community as we listen to our inner wisdom. As we change ourselves and give ourselves, we change the world.

Bolen ammends the fourth prescription for how we change the world from:
1. Show up.
2. Pay attention.
3. Speak your truth.
4. Let go of the outcome. to: Pray for the best outcome.

These 4 simple, powerful goals have always seemed reassuringly doable to me and keeping it that simple has gotten me through some tough times when I felt paralyzed. My friend, Annee, taught me these when I was in such a time. I posted them on my refrigerator to read them each day to remind myself that that's all I had to do. She (and they) saved my life then and here they are again to re-inspire me in this new phase.

Bolen also says: "As spiritual beings on a human path, what we do at a soul level in the third phase will likely turn out to be the most important." This yearly family woman's gathering is part of what I do at this soul level. It matters deeply to me. It brings me joy. And I love each one of these amazing women! I savor my time with them. I'm grateful for my relationship with them.

What's getting you excited these days?

"One tiny spot of beauty..."

Friends, we are traveling together.

Throw off your tiredness. Let me show you

one tiny spot of the beauty that cannot be spoken.

I am like an ant that has gotten into the granary,

ludicrously happy, and trying to lug out

a grain that is way too big.
(Rumi)

I follow Ruth's blog, Rumi Days, which posts a Rumi poem each day. I've come to look forward to the inspiration I find there. I had taken some photos today about the small pleasures gathered on my balcony and this part of a Rumi poem seemed perfect as the lead in.

My balcony is a tiny spot of beauty. I feel happy there. Here's what I'm grateful for today:


Roses from my rose bush. It was a gift from my neighbor. It continues to give beauty and lovely scent.



Geraniums and begonias in pink, red, coral,
blooming boldly in the warm Italian sun.

Strawberries,

sweet and red,

delicious

on my cereal.








Tomatoes growing on the plant that was barely 6 inches high when I planted it. I went away for a week and they were just marble sized beginners. When I watered them today, I was surprised how they've grown and how many there are.


If you can't tell, growing my own veggies is entirely new and such a kick for me!





The soft evening light on my current favorite view from the balcony.

It's an ancient stone house on a hill surrounded by fields, vineyards, olive groves.

This vista fills me with peace.




Thanks for letting me show you my tiny spot of beauty. I hope it brings you happiness as well.

Acts Of Kindness

Reading the post by Lou (Lou ) made me think about all the generous acts of kindness I've received and how they've touched my heart. One of the great outcomes is that we tell each other these stories and everyone has a happier heart. They're the alternative but real news of the day.

My husband was telling me that when a person does an act of kindness, it raises their immunity level and the levels of the one to whom they are kind and any onlookers as well! I wonder if that stretches to those who hear the story of that kindness? I bet it does. Maybe that's why our heart feels warm when we read them.

I received a "thanks" from American Airlines and it's surprisingly good. I'm sharing it here because it made me feel good watching it. It actually contains profound messages that are pertinent to this post: "There's joy to be found in the moment".

The American Airlines message is below.