A Prayer for Haiti January 23, 2010
Posted by openpalm in prayer.add a comment
May all the dead in Haiti find peace.
May all the wounded find ease.
May all the hungry and thirsty find clean water and good food.
May all the grieving, find a gentling hand.
May all the fearful, find strength.
May all who want to help, find those in need.
Sparkle January 23, 2010
Posted by openpalm in happiness.1 comment so far
After overcast and cold and rain and wind, this morning there was sun. The world was dripping wet golden shine and reflecting wet golden shine and, well, glowing. I felt lighter too.
I find myself wanting this to be a harbinger of good things to come; the promise of spring somewhere in our not too distant future.
Then laugh a bit. The shine is now. Why make it mean anything more than wow?
Word Cloud Astrology January 10, 2010
Posted by openpalm in change, divorce, politics.1 comment so far
Three years after the event
DIVORCE is still followed
by HURT followed
by Relationship
in my word cloud’s scatter.
As out of balance
as if Pluto shown brighter
in the daytime sky than the Sun.
To change my daily horoscope
I need to fling Pain
to the outer rim of my system.
Dear Reader,
If you know a mythology
to realign the night sky,
please leave a comment
of any length on my blog.
Best always,
Open Palm
Christmas Past December 20, 2009
Posted by openpalm in Christmas, embody, memory.3 comments
As my 12-year old yanks and tugs (manfully) the Christmas tree through the front door, the smell of the pine wafts me to Christmases past.
1979, just arrived in a new house with a new lover, full of hope for a new future built on still smoldering past ashes, we trim our tree with out-of-season roses and lemons from our garden. Old fashioned roses, blossoms as big as the palms of our hands, petals like velvet, deep red, bright pink, tangerine, and white. Heavy with scent, the boughs of the tree bow slightly as we lay the roses in this Christmas Nest. The lemons, sharp citrus, bright yellow, dense and pregnant, with just enough green stem to act as the hook to hang them.
All else about that time has moved and changed and gone. But roses and lemons and deep green pine still somewhere embodied, suddenly arise, reborn.
Do all you can, with what you have… December 9, 2009
Posted by openpalm in Courage, affirmation, comforts, meaning.3 comments
This from Rick Hanson
When I don’t know what to do about some difficulty, sometimes I think of a saying from a boy named Nkosi Johnson, from South Africa. Like many children there, Nkosi was born with HIV, and he died when he was 12. Before that happened, he became a nationally-known advocate for people with AIDS. His “mantra,” as he called it, always touches my heart:
Do all you can, with what you have, in the time you have, in the place where you are.That’s all anyone can ever do.
Who’s Rick Hanson? neuropsychologist and meditator…
his site.
TedTalks December 4, 2009
Posted by openpalm in TED, world.4 comments
Do you know about TedTalks? here’s a recent example of this wonderful series: Anupam Mishra: The ancient ingenuity of water harvesting http://on.ted.com/216V
The speaker (very wise and very funny) describes 400 year old systems to collect water in the golden desert of India…with the key element being “maintaining” what others have built, a community act of centuries-long respect.
I want to GO to the TED conference…next life perhaps.
Words – City of Glass, Paul Auster October 10, 2009
Posted by openpalm in paul auster, words.2 comments
City of Glass is described on its back cover as “a wonderful whodunnit for metaphysicians”. Auster has a character reading another character’s scholarly work on Milton’s Paradise Lost… I offer this wonderful passage as intriguing in itself (with no desire to check his scholarship)
In Milton’s Paradise Lost, for example, each key word has two meanings — one before the fall and one after the fall. To illustrate his point, Stillman isolated several of those words — sinister, serpentine, delicious– and showed how their prelapsarian use was free of moral connotations, whereas their use after the fall was shaded, ambiguous, informed by a knowledge of evil. Adam’s one task in the Garden had been to invent language, to give each creature and thing its name. In that state of innocence, his tongue had gone straight to the quick of the world. His words had not been merely appended to the things he saw. they had revealed their essences, had literally brought them to life. A thing and its name were interchangeable. After the fall, this was no longer true, Names became detached from things; words devolved into a collection of arbitrary signs; language had been severed from God. The story of the Fall, therefore, not only records the fall of man, but the fall of language.”
Now back to “who dunnit”.
Spirit September 27, 2009
Posted by openpalm in Autumn, prayer, spirit.add a comment
For almost three years now, I’ve been much involved in survivial — rebuilding a place to live and a sense of safety in an exploded world. I finally feel better. I see some openings between minutes when I can think other thoughts, feel other yearnings. Perhaps it’s the effects of Fall, but I think/feel more of golden light and long shadows and the calmer moments as the universe steps back from the frenzy of spring and summer. Odd to think of renewal as the outer world is winding down. Come to think of it, perhaps turning in, not out, now is not so odd at all.
I find myself seeking out places and ways to feed my spirit (now that home and hearth are safe enough.) Last week I went with friends to Santa Sabina for a day of meditation. The center has been created over time by two women, one a Catholic nun, and one a Buddhist. It makes for something quite wonderful.
One way to speak my pondering, “how do I engage in the world of spirit?”
Here’s one tidbit from the day:
Prayer is spirit sighing in us
and another
The goal isn’t to pray to God, but to enter into God’s prayer.
read God how you will.
Rebuilding my non-self September 21, 2009
Posted by openpalm in acceptance, change, seeker, self and no-self.2 comments
Today I wrote my dear A that I needed to rebuild myself. I’m going to a one-day retreat in October on no-self. Hmmmm. I’m sure these go together. When I figure it out (ha!) I’ll be sure to post it here.
Last Wednesday I took one of 18 furlough days from work. Went to Santa Sabina retreat center. Thought this thought (among others):
I don’t belong anywhere.
Since I don’t belong anywhere, I can belong everywhere.
Which half of the glass, depends on the moment.
Death, 4 August 14, 2009
Posted by openpalm in death, depression, happiness, meaning, optimism.3 comments
I don’t know if there is a benevolent god or not. I decided at some point that I might as well believe in one, because in doing so, I could also believe that good would prevail and that life had meaning. I grew up with a felt sense that life does have meaning, qed there must be a god.
Problem with this path is that it’s not true faith, whatever that is, and when pummelled, the thinking doesn’t result in reassurance or extra strength.
There are problems with believing in a god…like, if things don’t go right then *I* must have done something wrong. And when life becomes a long string of wrongs mixed with rights mixed with wrongs, it seems that i’m medocre at best at this business of life.
This thought comes as a shock — I’ve never thought of myself as anything like mediocre, not even average. Hubris? Not just a literary convention perhaps. A great deal of my identity is wrapped up in NOT being average. How embarrassing is that?
How much of what I believe is based on what I want to believe or need to believe? How does any of this align with shapeshifting reality?
