Revisiting - When All The While

More September Thoughts about Learning

Photo by Joel & Jasmin Førestbird on Unsplash

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Thoughts About Public & Personal Speech This Week

In these troubled times, it is so important to remember the power of speaking with integrity and honesty - but also with decency, respect and kindness. Our words have meaning but they also promote and add a certain kind of spirit. Let us choose to add the kind of words and sentiments that heal divides, that speaks the truth, that tells the story and that calls in love in all its many forms.

There are those who feel it doesn’t matter if they sit behind a screen and unleash their anger in ugly and hateful ways, forgetting that there are real people on the other side of that screen, forgetting that hate and hatefulness doesn’t solve anything and it doesn’t grow anything of real value.

There is speech that invites us to consider and reflect. There is speech that inspires us to thoughtful action and rising to our best selves. There is speech that uses the worst tactic (lies, hateful ideology, name calling and humiliation, threats and fear mongering, othering and scapegoating. We’ve seen and heard so much of these worst tactics, and they do nothing but drag down the discourse and foster violence.

That is why I so appreciate this A Gathering of Spirits community. I am grateful for how incredibly decent everyone is here, that we treat disagreements with care, concerns with empathy and compassion, and keep asking ourselves and one another the best kinds of questions. A deep bow of appreciation to you…this amazing A Gathering of Spirits community.

Now onto the post…..

This Poem was written as a way of engaging with a book of poetry by Hafiz. I would read a poem and then write a poem of my own in response…kind of a poetry conversation. This is a poem that looks at the sincerity of my own longings with a bit of humor. I don’t know if you’ve ever inhaled a book wanting to take in all the wisdom it contained, only to get to the end and not remember much about what was on each page. It is a poem for those of us who occasionally lean so hard into becoming, who long to “get there” so much, that we forget what we need is already right here. I think there is a shift that happens when the internal dialogue is grounded in compassion…and even a little humor. When I was much younger I would pray to be wise, until I figured out the kinds of experience that wisdom would require. Now I don’t pray to be wise—I ask to be here, to be humble and mostly kind, even with myself. Because on the way to my growing edge are so many glowing autumn leaves to consider.

When All The While

I can only travel as far
As I can go in one day
Such is the way of walking.
For pressing hard,  
Lengthening my stride
Quickening my pace
Only keeps me focused 
Upon the movement of my own feet
When all the while 
The autumn light
Is streaming down through the amber leaves
Making the dust sparkle 
And the whole world glow from within.

How foolish
Yet so good intentioned 
The impatient pilgrim in me
Who longs so sincerely
And comically to see you
At the journey’s end
That imagines us sharing mint tea
With the perfect number of ice cubes
Mumbling, "I'm sorry it took me so long." 
Forgetting  you are right here
In the water bottle
In my shoe laces
In the dappled light
In the right path
In the wrong turn
In the ache in my shoulders
In the time it takes
Especially in the time it takes
And always
Always
In the song that is ever 
so slowly 
forming. 

Carrie Newcomer 

Practice

Autumn sky alert - set your watch or calendar to alert you at some random point in the day. When your alert goes off, take a break and head outside and just consider the autumn sky. Notice how the quality of the light is different in September than it is in August or January, at 10am or 6pm. Breath it in, Breath it out. Then head back into whatever you were doing.

Question

What can you tell us about your experience with the autumn sky today?

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Tour Schedule

For more info about these or other shows and workshops this fall visit my website tour page