I had the pleasure and good fortune to experience Jann Arden and accompanying musicians in concert this week. It was wonderful. For this post, I offer four lines of lyrics from her song, Good Mother—lyrics that stayed with me after the show (among others). Reflecting, I thought of life; of the journeying humans do; of various people I have met; and of you, too, readers.
I will also post below a video Jann has shared of a live-streamed performance of this song, which you can find on her youtube channel.
If you have the opportunity to see her on tour, I whole-heartedly recommend doing so.
Today during the winter solstice, I had the pleasure of witnessing a symphony of trumpeter swans and geese creating music together. Their music echoed into the stillness of the surrounding landscape while the sun lowered and set beyond the horizon. It was magical.
Also today, a poem by John Welwood came to mind. Some lines from the poem include
“We have to open ourselves up to receive what wants to shine back.” — Jessica Dore.
I came across this line recently in the book, Tarot for Change, by Jessica Dore (2021, p. 17). It’s a sentence that has lingered.
There are questions and curiosities that might naturally follow from a sentence like this. Among them are curiosities such as: in any given moment, am I opening or closing right now? In what ways? (And is this opening or closing wise, helpful? Is it helpful in some ways and not in others?)
Whatever you are experiencing in this particular moment, may you feel with you the good company of a kindness or loving energy, and/or the strengthening energy of an expansive sky.
“You expand and then you meet your own resistance. In the human body and experience, as in nature, there is a continuous play between these forces. We reach to expand and are held back by constriction.”
—Betsy Polatin, Humanual, from Chapter One, (c) 2020
I wrote a poem this week after a monthly meeting with a group a cherished colleagues. I described the poem as a kind of collage of things. Later today (with the help of some feedback), I thought that perhaps it could be a nice poem for this longest night—this year’s winter solstice—as well as being a fine poem for any other moment. I’m sharing it here in two photographs. Read more ›
Travel hopefully. I am told a local psychiatrist who has passed away used to share this phrase often. The first time I heard the phrase, I never wanted to forget it. Isn’t it beautiful?
Aware that sometimes there can be overt, covert, external, internal, intentional, and/or completely unintentional and inadvertent messages that may lead one to wonder if there is something wrong with them Read more ›
I came across an email today that was sent to me on Thursday, April 5, 2001. It was from a dear friend and concluded, “YOU CAN DO IT, CHAMP!”. From what I can tell, it appears I was about a day away from handing in my undergraduate thesis. Read more ›
