Tiny-little-practices-that-make-a-difference — Greeting the day . . .

Here is the first in a series of tiny-little-practices-that-make-a-difference.

The liminal space between sleep and waking is a fertile place for writers and artists, anyone engaged in creative endeavors, really. Here is a way to attend to the awakening you experience every day . . .

Pay close attention to the moment you become aware that you are coming awake. 

What is coming through from the dream time into the waking time? 

What sensations do you feel as you pick up your body? 

As the particulars of life come tumbling in, how are you feeling? 

How much of a ‘yes’ can you greet the day with this morning? 

Before you make that first big move of the day, before you put your feet on the floor and rise up out of bed. . . Place your hands gently on either side of your very own face. Tune into the miracle of touch as your fingers make contact with your cheeks. Holding your face in your hands as if you were an infant, whisper to yourself, “Good morning, glory.”

Note: If by chance there is a loved one beside you, turning to them and repeating some version of this gesture is a lovely addition to the practice. Finding your children, and adjusting the practice for age appropriateness is a great way to remind yourself and them of their glory. My experience is you that cannot avoid being an embarrassment to teenagers, but their take on direct gestures of appreciation will evolve over time . . .

And finally, here is a poem some dear friends shared with me the other day.

LIGHT
~ Bernadette Miller

I want to write of the light
but I do not know
whether words can illuminate
the way it hangs
upon branches and bird wings
and broken things
returning beings to beauty.
Can words spin substance
from sunshine and decay?
Can words cajole
celebration from night-weary
birds?
Can words warm surfaces
of stones and sorrows?
Can words reveal richness
in mundane
and battered
things?
I do not know.
But if we would write
a tomorrow
which is wider than wounds
we have worn,
we might wield words
like benedictions
and remember
blessings
within brokenness,
beginnings
within endings,
and beauty
within all things.

Finding the Star at the Center of the Apple - In Support of Science and Facts

Good morning,

My longing for the truth often finds fulfillment in the territory where art is incontrovertible, and where astronomy delivers an astonishing explanation for vast connectivity. As a student of the great mystery, I often cut my apples the "wrong way" just so that I can see the star that is revealed there in the core. Science and facts are most compelling and necessary — It is just so hard to believe that we have reached a point where we have to march in support of them! So, here are two offerings in solidarity with all those who are marching for science today.

1. As I sit writing here in my blue chair, the poet Jane Hirshfield is reading from the stage at the March for Science in Washington DC. Her poem is about Day 5 of Donald Trump's presidency and it is called On the Fifth Day. (Her most recent collection is entitled The Beauty)

On the fifth day
the scientists who studied the rivers
were forbidden to speak
or to study the rivers.

The scientists who studied the air
were told not to speak of the air,
and the ones who worked for the farmers
were silenced,
and the ones who worked for the bees.

Someone, from deep in the Badlands,
began posting facts.

The facts were told not to speak
and were taken away.
The facts, surprised to be taken, were silent.

Now it was only the rivers
that spoke of the rivers,
and only the wind that spoke of its bees,
while the unpausing factual buds of the fruit trees
continued to move toward their fruit.

The silence spoke loudly of silence,
and the rivers kept speaking,
of rivers, of boulders and air.

Bound to gravity, earless and tongueless,
the untested rivers kept speaking.

Bus drivers, shelf stockers,
code writers, machinists, accountants,
lab techs, cellists kept speaking.

They spoke, the fifth day,
of silence.

2. Click here to be inspired by Neil DeGrasse Tyson delivering an astonishing explanation for the vast connectivity we experience when we gaze heavenward.  (The Most Astounding Fact from Neil DeGrasse Tyson)

Why Poetry is a Necessary Luxury

Good morning,

Lyedie here again from my blue chair.

The crocuses are bursting forth here in New England, and it has been about a year now since I launched The Longings Project. The irony of having chosen this year to dedicate myself to fulfillment of the personal and professional longings of women is not lost on me — I have to admit, there have been times when I heard a booming voice saying, "How dare you put the longings of women at the forefront!" 

Here is the thing I have to say to that booming voice. We can't have true fulfillment without longings. Longings are Point One on the trek to fulfillment. Point One is where we set our direction. When we skip over Point One, we easily set off on rudderless adventures, driven by the winds of necessity and other people's worn itineraries. That is why I dare.

Longings give us access to living life with the heart of the Lover. (One of four members of the archetypal Wisdom Council that I offered you a few weeks back in the Daily Activist's Log) Lover is the one who feels and who loves life. She gives us access to our emotional intelligence and to our playful nature. When the Lover isn't firmly in her seat at your council, life starts to lose color and texture.  Your feeling life recedes and the dry winds of 'shoulds' and 'what ifs' begin to pervade.  Some people report feeling as if they are just going through the motions, or that they feel lifeless, even dead inside — dreams remain untapped.

Longings are the sparks and tugs of the Lover.  Glimpses of the future breaking through into the present, calling us into the next chapter of our lives. Longings speak through our felt sense, the little details of life, the exquisite swelling of our heart, the tears welling up in our eyes. There are times that we can barely feel the spark and the tug of longing, and other times that unrequited longing is burning holes through our lives . . .

One of the languages of longing is poetry. We are living in a moment in time when our very language defends against matters of the heart. Poetry, as David Whyte suggests, is language that melts through this defense and gives us access to the territory of the heart. Often we are quick to jump to instruction manual language that tells how to do it faster, more efficiently, more effectively and we skip right past the poetry that makes it all worth while.

Poets re-acquaint us with the language of longing, inviting us to live closer to ourselves, to our loved ones, and to the mystery that gives rise to a meaningful life. Nayyirah Waheed whispers about the courage it takes to put longing first in a tiny poem that resounds in my heart.

flower work
is
not easy.
remaining
soft in fire
takes
time.
 

The poet Brooke MacNamara offers us an intimate glimpse into her response to the jug breaking political event of 2016 in her poem Upon Learning Donald Trump Has Been Elected POTUS, I Clean the House

Mold in the toilets must be scrubbed,
and my toddler’s spills demand my supplication.
I always hate the beginning of cleaning,
and the mess gets bigger
before what’s under begins to shine.
Some things must be discarded
but the little gifted sailboat mug
will be glued back together for my boy.
Now, head bowed
and crowned with earned beads of sweat,
I’m humming along and my husband
joins my effort. The bad news is:
unearthing, we don’t know what we’ll find.
The good news is: we don’t know what we’ll find.
My love, help me lift the weight
of the bed we’ve been sleeping in
so we can face what’s been collecting
under it in the dark. In the corner back there,
I see my lost heirloom ring - ring of my lineage -
has been resting against a dead fly

Mary Oliver slyly invites us to kneel down in the grass, even invites us to be idle and blessed, before she flings a heart-of-the-matter question right at us in her 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?

One thing my life has taught me is that the greatest acts of courage are the small ones.  Like remaining soft in fire — Like saying 'no' to the news on occasion, and then saying 'yes' to poetry. Carving out time to spend with poetry has become a necessary luxury for me. Reading poetry invites the Lover to take her seat more firmly at the table of my Wisdom Council. It helps me to stay connected to not just what I care about, but to the full bodied felt sense of caring itself. 

Lately, I've been keeping a pile of poetry books beside my blue chair. Yesterday, in the quiet of the morning, I read an old favorite over again out loud to myself. Hearing Rilke's words become my own, and then reverberate in my kitchen gave strength to my resolve to hold fast to dreams, my own and yours.

You see, I want a lot.
Perhaps I want everything:
the darkness that comes with every infinite fall
and the shivering blaze of every step up.

So many live on and want nothing
and are raised to the rank of prince
by the slippery ease of their light judgments.

But what you love to see are faces
that so work and feel thirst....

You have not grown old, and it is not too late
to dive into your increasing depths
where life calmly gives out its own secret.

 Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. by Robert Bly

I urge you to make a place for Lover on your Wisdom Council, and to keep your favorite poets by your side.  Feel free to contact me if you'd like learn more about how I can assist you on your trek to fulfillment. 

Thank you for taking a little of your precious time to read this today. May we all have the courage to be open to the mystery in our every day, to put our strength in service of the good, and to celebrate the joys of fulfillment.

Dare to have your longings, and thanks again!

Lyedie

Artistry

Working the creative process—getting to know it better and use that knowledge effectively—is at the heart of the work I do with artists and creative entrepreneurs. Finding and forging new ways to place work in the marketplace and promote it successfully—taking the work to the next level of recognition—is a critical part of the challenge that artists generally bring to our work together. Here are some examples that might also be relevant for you:

• Responding to the call of the work

• Opening more fully and consistently to “the muse”

• Being guided by inspiration and grounded in practicality

• Managing time in a way that supports creativity

• Developing the capacity for discipline that is required to manifest anything

• Cultivating a devoted following and finding powerful representation

• Wrestling earnestly with issues of sustainability and emergence

At the outset, I ask simply that you begin to see your self as an instrument of creativity, an instrument that is somehow longing to fulfill an essential promise. Everything we take up in our work together—from the practical, to the sublime, to the seemingly ridiculous—flows from that.