Tag Archives: Mary Oliver

Sunrise

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It was so beautiful and comforting to see the sunrise this morning. I took a moment to give thanks to whoever/whatever is responsible for this day. I took time to sit in silence with my morning tea, for this day will not come again. The sun will still rise every day but the light and air will never be quite the same. Nor will the petunias and all the living things. I, too, will never see, hear or feel the same as I do in this very moement.

It is an astounding realization of how precious the present moment is. It brings to mind Mary Oliver’s poem The Summer Day. 

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

No More Sad Stories

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Another new day. Again I am in danger of being distracted and avoiding doing the most hard thing, the writing of this post. I’ve washed the breakfast dishes and chased the mop over the kitchen floor. Mary Oliver’s poem caught my eye this morning.

“You don’t want to hear the story
of my life, and anyway
I don’t want to tell it, I want to listen

to the enormous waterfalls of the sun.

And anyway it’s the same old story – – –
a few people just trying,
one way or another,
to survive.

Mostly, I want to be kind.
And nobody, of course, is kind,
or mean,
for a simple reason.

And nobody gets out of it, having to
swim through the fires to stay in
this world.

(from, Dogfish)”

It reminds me of Caroline Myss’ teaching of woundology. Here’s AI’s overview of what it is:

“Caroline Myss coined the term “woundology” to describe the phenomenon of individuals becoming overly identified with their emotional wounds, hindering their healing and growth. It’s the process where people create an identity based on their wounds, whether physical, emotional, or social, and become stuck in that state, unable to move beyond them.“

I am slowly learning. This hard task is finished. There’s more waiting in the wings. I suspect there always will be. Life!

Words and Pictures

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So I’ve been irregular and a little constipated with my words and posts. It happens. No need to explain. Eventually I do return. There are no better words than Mary Oliver’s. Here’s hers from 3 of her poems rolled in one. The Summer Day, Wild Geese and The Uses of Sorrow. And no better pictures than these of Sheba. They’re worth a thousand words. I haven’t seen her for awhile. They bring tears to my eyes.

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?’, ‘You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting – over and over announcing your place in the family of things.’, and ‘Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.” -Mary Oliver

My One Wild and Precious Life

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Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I am thinking of Mary Oliver’s poem The Summer Day. She asks good questions but I have to find my own answers. I looking around and around at the wonders of my world – the tulips, the raised garden beds, the green in the greenhouse, my messy table percolating with some many possibilities. And I have to say like Satchmo, What a wonderful world.

I’m wondering like the grasshopper what else I should be doing. Recognizing that life is finite, I do not want to squander my precious time on things of no importance and things that are not dear to me. Yes, everything die at last and too soon. I cannot fit everything in and I cannot ever get on top of everything. I’m pondering and choosing what to do with this one precious life that I have.

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean–
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

IN THE WORLD, OF THE WORLD

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So it is -34℃, feeling like -42℃ with the wind chill. I’m pretty warm and snug. It’s the supper hour. I’m just starting to tackle day 13 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I’m thinking it could be a struggle but Mary Oliver’s words are inspiring me . I’m starting right away. I am in the world. I am of the world. I belong.

In this moment, I’m finding life very sweet. There’s so many interesting things to learn, so many things to do, so many souls to know and befriend. I have to get right on it. I don’t have a moment to spare. I have to be like Keats – to be of purpose and focus.

I know, you never intended to be in this world.
But you’re in it all the same.
So why not get started immediately.
I mean, belonging to it.
There is so much to admire, to weep over.
And to write music or poems about.
Bless the feet that take you to and fro.
Bless the eyes and the listening ears.
Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.
Bless touching.
You could live a hundred years, it’s happened.
Or not.
I am speaking from the fortunate platform
of many years,
none of which, I think, I ever wasted.
Do you need a prod?
Do you need a little darkness to get you going?
Let me be as urgent as a knife, then,
and remind you of Keats,
so single of purpose and thinking, for a while,
he had a lifetime.
— Mary Oliver, Blue Horses

INVITATION TO CHANGE

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I’m suffering somewhat with this locked/shut down. Sometimes I feel as if I’m suffocating and can’t catch my breath. These times come with some tiny memories that drift in uninvited and unannouced of times before, of people lost and forever gone. They’re like mini panic attacks. I know now what it is meant by grasping at straws. Those times and people are gone and irretrievable. I feel such a loss, a hollow which cannot be filled. How callous I have been!

So here I have sat for the last while. I don’t know how many days. Immobilized, devoid of ambition, desires. I have not hula hooped, done my qigong, sew or painted. I cannot use being busy and no time for an excuse.  If not for Sheba, I would not have gone for any walks. My shame and guilt have been overpowered by lethargy. I’ve been caught up reading murder mysteries to quell my anxieties of uncertainty. After a long while, I’m nauseated and disappointed in myself enough to make a change.

What if I could just do one hard thing a day? It would be a start to rise up and out of this self-induced coma. There’s a whole slew of things that I need/could do.

  • Filing my income tax. It’s due June 1 this year because of the Covid-19.
  • Cleaning and putting away winter boots and clothes.
  • Cleaning and putting away the humidifier.
  • Showing up here again as a daily practice. It was keeping me sane and functional. I must keep what works for me.

This is enough to wake me up a bit and get me on my feet. I must not let this opportunity go for naught. I came across Mary Oliver’s Invitation yesterday. Her simple words have stirred me to thought and hopefully action.

Oh do you have time
to linger
for just a little while
out of your busy

and very important day
for the goldfinches
that have gathered
in a field of thistles

for a musical battle,
to see who can sing
the highest note,
or the lowest,

or the most expressive of mirth,
or the most tender?
Their strong, blunt beaks
drink the air

as they strive
melodiously
not for your sake
and not for mine

and not for the sake of winning
but for sheer delight and gratitude –
believe us, they say,
it is a serious thing

just to be alive
on this fresh morning
in the broken world.
I beg of you,

do not walk by
without pausing
to attend to this
rather ridiculous performance.

It could mean something.
It could mean everything.
It could be what Rilke meant, when he wrote:
You must change your life.

 

MEANWHILE THE WORLD GOES ON

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Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on.

Mary Oliver sure can wrangle them words. Wish that they were mine! Meanwhile the wild geese fly. Meanwhile I’m tapping out my words, my distress. Yes, I have been listening to someone’s despair again. Not that they would have call it such. But what would you call it – the losing of one’s identity, job, home, life partner?

I have no need of telling mine. I tap it out here on the page. It does me more good here than recounting out aloud to someone. Then I would be just begging. Oh, please, feel sorry for me. I have suffer so!  I need no such sympathy or pity. It would only make me wallow deeper in my misery. I am listening to the tapping of my keyboard. The cadence is soothing on my frayed nerves. I’m comforting myself. I wonder if cutting or flagellating oneself have the same mechanism of relief.  It’s good that I don’t have to physically hurt myself to do so.

There! I’m almost myself again – soothed and smoothed.  I’ve listened to too much despair and sadness. I’m not willing to do so anymore. I will offer them Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese instead.

WILD GEESE

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

SOME INSTRUCTIONS ON WRITING AND LIFE

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I’m feeling the pain more than the gain.  Perhaps that’s how it is at first.  I’m exercising my stay-with-it muscle.  I’m taking my writing seriously for the first time.  First I take the writing.  Then I will tackle the art.  Who knows how far I can go.  If I don’t succeed, try and try again.  I am full of clichés this morning.

Image from google.ca

Image from google.ca

Perhaps I should not try to be so clever.  I feel I’m blocking myself in already.  It’s a good thing my own copy of Anne Lamott’s “Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and  Life” is on the way from Amazon.  I need help on both.

Her voice is one that you can’t help but hear.  It is an excellent reference and such a pleasure to read.  I tell everyone who is interested in writing about it.  I talk about Anne Lamott and her writing alot.

She came to mind again yesterday when I was digging through my cedar chests, looking for a cross-stitch of teddy bears I had done many years ago.  I found everything, mostly unfinished projects, except that.  Among the stuff these squares showed up:

They almost ended up in the trash.  I did throw out the little cutout pieces, thinking I will never have the time or patience to work on them again.  I had to rescue them when I opened these folded squares of cloth.  Their beauty took my breath away.  It was as if I’ve found parts of myself that I had misplaced.

Lamott is right.  There’s treasures hidden among our mess and clutter.  Use it and whatever angst that’s gnawing your butt.  They are fodder to fuel our creative souls.  If you’re lonely and have worries, don’t run away from those feelings.  Use them.  You could have written a song like Downtown.

Or penned a poem like Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it love
Tell me about your despair and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Who knows?  You could have – if you pick up that pen and start.  So go ahead, start.

Someone is calling me about breakfast and something about not enough clean plates.  He is supportive in my writing endeavours.  I have warned him that I might be a little distracted and absent minded in the next while. Sometimes the sandwiches will not have lettuce.  You have to tell the person you’re living with what you are planning and what to expect.

Today is a better day.  There will be spagetti with fresh homemade tomatoe meat sauce – a break and a reward for days of plain old sandwiches without lettuce.  But first Sheba needs her walk.