Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it – tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest – if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself – you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say, “Here at last is the thing I was made for.”  We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all.

—  C.S. Lewis, from The Problem of Pain (HarperOne, May 28, 2009)


Quote: Thank you The Hammock Papers

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

maybe we try too hard to be
remembered, waking to the
glowing yellow disc in ignorance,
swearing that today will be
the day, today we will make

something of our lives. what
if we are so busy searching
for worth that we miss the
sapphire sky and cackling
blackbird, what else is missing?

maybe our steps are too straight
and our paths too narrow and
not overlapping…

— Naomi Shihab Nye, from “Suggestion” in “Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets Under 25:


Notes:

  • Photo: Daybreak. 5:36 am, May 22, 2022. 64° F. Calf Pasture Beach, Norwalk, CT. Other photos here.
  • Poem: Thank you Whiskey River

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

December 29, 1941.

I’m at the age where I cease to reform my tastes:

I accept what I find—within—without shame.

Patricia Highsmith, “Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks: 1941-1995.″ Anna von Planta (Editor). (Liveright, November 16, 2021)


Notes:

  • Side Note: Patricia Highsmith was 20 years old when writing this in her diary entry. 20 years old! And here I am…still workin’ it…
  • New York Times: 9 New Books We Recommend This Week
  • Photo credit

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

Take a moment to think about the context in which your next decision will occur: You did not pick your parents or the time and place of your birth. You didn’t choose your gender or most of your life experiences. You had no control whatsoever over your genome or the development of your brain. And now your brain is making choices on the basis of preferences and beliefs that have been hammered into it over a lifetime – by your genes, your physical development since the moment you were conceived, and the interactions you have had with other people, events, and ideas. Where is the freedom in this? Yes, you are free to do what you want even now. But where did your desires come from?

— Sam Harris, Free Will


Notes: Quote via themindmovement. Photo: Crystal Green

Saturday Morning

The Saturday morning meadowlark
came in from high up
with her song gliding into tall grass
still singing. How I’d like
to glide around singing in the summer
then to go south to where I already was
and find fields full of meadowlarks
in winter. But when walking my dog
I want four legs to keep up with her
as she thunders down the hill at top speed
then belly flops into the deep pond.
Lark or dog I crave the impossible.
I’m just human. All too human.

~ Jim Harrison, from “Solstice Litany” in Dead Man’s Float


Notes: Poem Source – Thank you Hammock Papers. Photo: Pixabay

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

 

“To live deliberately on the edges of things, in active resistance to a world that places all its value on speed and productivity…It is a reminder that more than ever we need people willing to pause and listen, to open their hearts to what is uncomfortable, and to hold space and attention until the new thing emerges…Perhaps…if we keep practicing…we will hear whispers of a new beginning.”

~ Christine Valters Paintner, from “Way of the Monk, Path of the Artist


Quote Source via Make Believe Boutique. Photo by Laura Malucchi titled Pause.

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is “I didn’t get enough sleep.” The next one is “I don’t have enough time.” Whether true or not, that thought of not enough occurs to us automatically before we even think to question or examine it. We spend most of the hours and the days of our lives hearing, explaining, complaining, or worrying about what we don’t have enough of… Before we even sit up in bed, before our feet touch the floor, we’re already inadequate, already behind, already losing, already lacking something. And by the time we go to bed at night, our minds are racing with a litany of what we didn’t get, or didn’t get done, that day. We go to sleep burdened by those thoughts and wake up to that reverie of lack… This internal condition of scarcity, this mind-set of scarcity, lives at the very heart of our jealousies, our greed, our prejudice, and our arguments with life.

― Lynne TwistThe Soul of Money: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Life

 


Notes: Quote Source: In Your Head. Painting by Rafael Sottolichio (Montreal) with Engloutis_19 (via Mennyfox55)

It’s been a long day

It isn’t enough.

I was gulping for air that never came. You know, graceless.

Until I let go.

~ Rolando Rios, Queen of the South (S2:E:1)


Notes:

Bath Time!

Orphaned baby elephants take a mud bath at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust Elephant Orphanage in Nairobi, Kenya. The elephant orphanage looks after 29 baby elephants orphaned by human-wildlife conflicts and poaching, among other causes. (Dai Kurokawa, wsj.com, April 10, 2018)


It’s been a long day

patty-maher-after-the-fall

I have been thinking how the body
is a vulture—all avarice and need.
How longing creeps up, stalking
for days, catches with such force
it leaves you breathless.

Carol V. Davis, from “Need” in Into the Arms of Pushkin: Poems of St. Petersburg


Notes:

Flying Over I-40 E. And I want what I want…

3:45 am:  Alarm.

4:50 am:  DFW Airport.

6:05 am:  Boarding.

6:40 am:  Wheels up and over the pre-dawn lights of Dallas. Sunrise blazing orange on the horizon.

The National’s new album “Sleep Well Beast” has been playing on a loop for days now.  And, for 6 hours last night, the Beast did sleep well with the aid of two shots of Advil PM. For a man who swore off all forms of artificial assistance, I’m pumpin’ it now. Screw insomnia. I’m making the trade: Zombie for Woozy. A few moments of lucidity in exchange for Anne Michael’s black earth breathing its winter breath…And so far, so far, it’s workin’…

But let’s be a bit more precise, it’s not the album that’s been on a loop but “Empire Line“. I seem to sit, kneel and stand to this anthem with the mind parsing and plaiting the lyrics that burn the groove:

You’ve been sleeping for miles / So what did you see? / Here the sky’s been falling white flowers…/ Can’t you find a way? / Can’t you find a way? / And I want what I want / And I want everything / I want everything.

We climb to 35,000 feet and the giant steel bird levels out. [Read more…]

It’s been a long day


How strong they could want something and how dissatisfied they were with having.

Why was having never enough?

And why did wanting always feel so real?

~ Catherine Lacey, from “The Answers: A Novel” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 6, 2017)
 


Notes:

There is a hole inside of you (Part II)

Dr. Craig Barnes

This is Part II of The Reverend Dr. M. Craig Barnes sermon at Wake Forest University’s Baccalaureate service on May 15, 2016.  Part I can be found here: There’s a Hole in You (Part I)

When my daughter graduated from college, I was amazed to hear the commencement speaker peddle the exact same drivel when I graduated from college. He looked out over 5,000 graduates and said to them: you are among the brightest and best we have ever seen. Set your goals high, dream your own dreams, chase your own star, and you can be anything that you want to be.

Really?

He might of well have said: I’m sorry we have nothing for you. It’s all out there, go put it together the best you can. 

And that’s really the assumption that we have that life is something we self-construct, not something we inherit. Not something that comes upon us with glorious mission, but self-construct. And the way we think we self-construct our own life is through our choices.

Anyone who has done parenting in the last generation knows that all good parenting advice has been about helping Johnny make good choices. So when Johnny throws a rock through the window, you’re not supposed to go out and spank him.  You bring Johnny in, you show him the glass on the floor and the rock and ask Johnny: was this a good choice? Johnny’s who a smart young man says: I’m thinking no. Right. Good choice. Good choice. [Read more…]

There is a hole inside of you

Dr. Craig Barnes, Wake Forest University

There is a hole inside of you.

It has been there for a long time, but by the time you graduate from college, you are acutely aware of this thing in your life that is missing. I don’t know what that is.  It may involve a relationship, it may involve something regarding your health, or something troubling in your past. Trust me it does not matter how many degrees you get, you are never going to have a better past.

Or, maybe the hole in your life is a dream that just seems to keep alluding you. It’s not the same thing for all of us. The only thing that’s the same is that we are all missing something.  Trust me on this, your future success depends completely on how you handle this hole in your life.  [Read more…]

It’s been a long day

The Storm by machihuahua

But most hearts say, I want, I want,
I want, I want. My heart
is more duplicitous,
though no twin as I once thought.
It says, I want, I don’t want, I
want, and then a pause.
It forces me to listen […]

It is a constant pestering
in my ears, a caught moth, limping drum,
a child’s fist beating
itself against the bedsprings:
I want, I don’t want.
How can one live with such a heart?

Long ago I gave up singing
to it, it will never be satisfied or lulled.
One night I will say to it:
Heart, be still,
and it will.

– Margaret Atwood, excerpts from The Woman Who Could Not Live With Her Faulty Heart from Selected Poems II: 1976 – 1986 

 


Notes:

Dragging the fish

 Michael Wong Loi Sing, Fish hat

…desire,
a huge fish I drag with me
through the wilderness:
I love its glint among the dust and stones.

~ Gregory Orr, Leaving The Asylum in The Red House. (Harper & Row, 1980.)


Notes:

  • Poem: Your Eyes Blaze Out
  • Art: Michael Wong Loi Sing, Fish hat. Painting: Acrylic on Canvas. Meditating woman placing herself in the stream of her thoughts, accepting what she has to do, glowing with colors. The fish has his eyes open, he is the watch man.
  • Related Posts: Gregory Orr

 

We’re not so different


Thank you Eric. (Still laughing)

Driving I-95 N. With Potential.

catch-hand-rain

It was some time ago.
Yet, it is now.

I’m heading home Friday afternoon after a long week and the story replays.
Not a sitcom. But a documentary.

The hotel ball room is tightly packed.
The lights dim.
600 eyeballs watch him amble onto the stage.

Blue sport coat. Gray slacks.
Black boots, clean, polished and up over the ankle.
He’s wearing a watch, a large face, a Patek Philipe.

He’s an Engineer, Inventor, Founder, Investor and VC.
And a new Father.
He’s a Silicon Valley giant. A Giant presence
And, still way on the right side of 50.

Q: China. Q: Europe. Q: U.S.
Q: IPOs. Q: Capital markets. Q: Private Markets.
Q: Innovation. Q: Disruption. Q: Cybersecurity.
Q: Facebook. Q: UBER. Q: Lift. Q: Twitter.
Q: Paypal. Q: Apple Pay. Q: Bitcoin.
Q: Regulation. Q: Politics.
Q: Philanthropy.
Q: Diversity.

A:… A:.. A:… A:… A:…A:… A:… A:…

Crisp responses. Stats to support. Colorful anecdotes.
He’s a Giant knife slicing through Butter.

Q:  Where do you find the time? You work. You travel. You write. You curate. You have a large social media following. Where do you get the ideas? Where do you get the content you curate? [Read more…]

Lightly child, lightly

portrait-back-woman

But most hearts say,
I want, I want, I want, I want.
My heart is more duplicitous,
though no twin as I once thought.
It says, I want, I don’t want, I want,
and then a pause.
It forces me to listen…

— Margaret Atwood, from Selected Poems II: 1976 – 1986 


Credits:

  • Image Source: Jenna McElroy (via Journal of a Nobody)
  • Quote Source: Paper Ghosts
  • Prior “Lightly child, lightly” Posts? Connect here.
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

The Yin: “I want to” and “I need to”. Now to the Yang.

wind-wheat-back-woman-portrait

What I want to say to you, my dear, is this: Just for today, live the passionate truth of who you are. Stop looking at what is undone, what you haven’t achieved, where you’ve fallen short. Look, instead, into your own full heart…Your own strong roots are in place – in your own body, in the earth, in the ongoing story of your life, just as it is. Put your faith in those roots, and allow yourself to go with the flow. Let go and breathe into the goodness that you already are. Move with the current, not against it. Resist nothing. Let life carry you. You have work to do. Begin it.

~ Katrina Kenison, Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment


Quote: Thank you Make Believe Boutique. Photograph: mennyfox55.

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