Blog Poetry Slam

From Deborah Oak's blog

Let poetry bless the blogosphere once again!

WHAT: A Bloggers (Silent) Poetry Reading

WHEN: Anytime February 2, 2008

WHERE: Your blog

WHY: To celebrate the Feast of Brigid, aka Groundhog Day

HOW: Select a poem you like - by a favorite poet or one of your own - to post February 2nd.

RSVP: If you plan to publish, feel free to leave a comment and link on my blog. Last year when the call went out there was more poetry in cyberspace than I could keep track of. So, link to whoever you hear about this from and a mighty web of poetry will be spun.

Feel free to pass this invitation on to any and all bloggers.

Thank you, Reya, for beginning what is now an annual event.

You're welcome, Oak. I'm thrilled this event has been so popular. Special thanks go the knitters. They're the people who made this event work so well the first year. Poetry on Feb. 2? YES. Count on it.

Healing is Believing

I'm preparing to teach Reiki levels I and II in a couple of months, thinking about how I want to describe it. Since Reiki is energy-based work, there really is no lingo in American English that can do it justice, but I have to say more than "Try it, you'll like it."

One of the major components of the work is prayer, that is, asking for divine wisdom and divine guidance during the sessions. Even the word "prayer" is scary to many folks, maybe because they associate it with something awful they were forced to do when they were children, or because it conjures up evangelical Christianity in their minds. For many folks, the word is offensive because they don't believe in it.

But all healing is faith based, always has been since healing was "invented" by our ancient ancestors who are now called "shamans" no matter where they lived or how they practiced or what they believed would work. It was about faith then, and it's about faith now. Oh yes it is!

Those who subscribe to western medicine believe in blood tests and MRIs, etc., procedures that are - for the most part - just another form of divination. Western medicine is an analytical belief system based on statistics, mostly. There can be love in western medicine, but it's not the basis of the work. If you believe in statistics, western medicine is probably your healing faith.



The Sufi acupuncturist tells me how funny it is when he meets someone who doesn't believe in Chinese medicine. The conversation goes like this:

Disbeliever: What do you do for a living?
Sufi Acupuncturist: I'm an acupuncturist and herbalist.
Disbeliever: Oh really? I don't believe in that. (or alternately, "Does that work?")

It is funny to realize that the disbeliever is so entrenched in his/her own system of faith, that she/he can't keep from being completely RUDE. Oh well.

Of course there are also people like me who "don't believe" in western medicine. Let me qualify that - for emergency procedures, western medicine is great. If I broke my arm, for instance, I would not make an appointment to see the Sufi acupuncturist. But for most of what ails me, low-level chronic conditions, I don't BELIEVE western medicine has much to offer except a lifetime of expensive prescription drugs and their "side" effects, along with a battery of expensive, not to mention very uncomfortable, tests of every kind imaginable. In my heart of hearts, I don't believe this form of medicine is, in any way, healing.

The editors of the Washington Post Sunday magazine this week are dancing in shamanic alignment with my train of thought. The cover story is about a quadriplegic who cured himself. I haven't read the article yet so I don't know how he did it, but the title of the article is "Walking Miracle." See? The language of faith is always a part of the story of medicine. The cover pic is of the guy hiking in the mountains above the Gobi Desert. Clearly this is a case of someone with faith in his ability to heal himself, in spite of what he was supposed to believe, that his condition was not curable.

The mind is so powerful, especially accompanied by faith in something, anything. Illness and injury challenge us to contemplate what we believe. Pain scares us into dealing with faith on some level or another. I guess in that way, the ills of the body are a blessing, but God, wouldn't it be nice if we could learn these lessons without all the pain and fear? Wouldn't it?

Thinking about My Mother and Father

THE DEAD

At night the dead come down to the river to drink.
They unburden themselves of their fears,
their worries for us. They take out the old photographs.
They pat the lines in our hands and tell our futures.
Some dead find their way to our houses.
They go up to the attics.
They read the letters they sent us, insatiable
for signs of their love.
They tell each other stories.
They make so much noise
they wake us
as they did when we were children and they stayed up
drinking all night in the kitchen.

--Susan Mitchell

The King of Naps

I'm not very good at taking naps, even when I'm tired or sick, even when I "should." But Jake is a napping genius, brilliant at the art. Sometimes he curls up and doesn't move for hours, except to rise periodically, turn several times in a clockwise direction, sigh audibly, glance around, then curl up for another bout.

Jake is an incredible dreamer, too. His eyelids flutter, his feet kick and he even tries to bark. His dream bark sounds like a car that can't quite start when you turn the key in the ignition. It's so funny. Sometimes he wakes up suddenly, startled. I wonder what he's dreaming about? I wonder if he can fly in dreams, as I did in my dream last night (on the back of a swan, I kid you not). Maybe he dreams of hunting, frolicking with other dogs, chasing cats. Who knows? Sometimes I imagine that he's taking shamanic journeys in order to do some canine soul retrieval or some such.

If Jake could teach stressed out, insomniac humans how to just let go and sleep, he could be a zillionare. When I ask him how he does it, he looks at me so intensely, but of course he's limited in terms of language. He has never yet found a way to articulate his skill. How sad. Oh well.

Urban Terrain

Washington DC is a surprisingly green city, bursting with trees, lawns, gardens, parks, and two beautiful rivers. Ordinarly I tend to focus on the living green world when I think about the terrain in which I live.

But truth is, much of the terrain here is made from concrete, brick and asphalt. No denying it - cities are paved landscapes, which is, in many ways a nice thing. I know I should be against all the pavement, but it does serve a practical purpose. Riding a bike is far easier on a street than cross country, walking on sidewalks is so great on rainy days (walking through mud isn't as much fun).

During the summer, all that concrete and asphalt contributes to the feeling of being scalded, roasted and steamed, but in winter, the streets soak up sunlight and provide a tiny bit of warmth. Winter tree shadows are splendid on nice black asphalt. I can't resist staring at them and photographing them, over and over again.

With our shoes, bikes, strollers, shopping carts, and cars, we city dwellers have adapted to the paved landscape. Many of us urban folks would be completely undone trying to move around over a "natural" landscape.

Of course, it's all natural. The asphalt, concrete and brick does not come from outer space. Sidewalks and streets are manipulated natural materials, not that different than squirrel nests, ant hills or beaver dams, except we're larger animals, and have opposable thumbs. And of course we get carried away sometimes and just can't stop our manipulation of the landscape, so we end up with completely paved cities like San Francisco and New York where the green earth only has tiny islands in which to express itself.

DC is the perfect balance of paved and unpaved which is yet one more reason I am so in love with this crazy, beautiful city. Why not appreciate the asphalt? Why not?

Oh Baby It's Cold Outside!

On days like today, I'm able to vividly remember the harsh winters in the midwest where I grew up. Yikes it's cold. And the wind - gusty, sharp, freezing! The wind today is just plain old mean.

In Chinese medicine, wind is a form that demons take. Wind can get inside your body and cause all kinds of problems, like coughing and congestion, muscle aches, in other words, all the symptoms we Americans call 'the flu.' In the throes of a high fever, coughing, nose blowing, barfing, diarrea, and the stupidity that comes along with the symptoms, the flu can feel like a demonic possession, can't it? I think so. Remember poor Linda Blair in The Exorcist? That was one bad case of the flu!

Those of us who believe in western medicine think of the flu in terms of bacteria and viruses. How boring. I'm not saying that viruses have nothing to do with the flu. They do. But that's not all there is to it. The flu brings with it a mood, a feeling comes into the room with the virus. This is one of the reasons I am so enjoying my study of Chinese medicine, because I know what they mean when they say wind can be demonic. I know that feeling of wind creeping underneath the collar of my warmest coat, sneaking up the sleeves of my most snuggly sweater. On days like today I make sure my ears are completely tucked under my hat, not only because ears get so cold, but because I can feel the wind trying to find its way into my brain, down my throat. The ancient Chinese believed demonic winds lived in caves most of the time, only coming out when 'hungry.' Maybe that's why we sometimes say the wind is "biting." Satanic wind, get thee behind me!

There are many different kinds of wind. Some winds are much kinder, some winds blow away stagnant air, bring relief during the summer. Gentle breezes are part of the beauty of spring and fall, too. I'm very friendly with beneficent winds, in fact I feel a familial relationship with nice winds. Why not? But the wind today is no friend of mine. It is NOT my brother.

Thank God for warm hats, scarves, gloves, and for the full length black wool coat I'll be wrapping tight around me when I take Jake for his walk. Jake, too, will be wearing his fleece sweater.

A hard freeze accompanied by a mean wind is part of January here in the midatlantic. I'm grateful to live indoors in a well warmed house, safe and sound, protected from the evil wind. Stay warm, stay out of the wind and be well, ya'all.

Chop Wood, Carry Water

And walk the dogs, too. These aren't my dogs, but aren't they cute? Even cuter are dogs in the snow. The Drowsy Fabulist published lovely pics of her dogs in the snow today. Here on Capitol Hill, where this week's snow lasted only a half day, we have to be content with dogs on bare sidewalks, which is really OK.

Today I'm planning to clean my room, have lunch with a British friend who's in town this week, mat and frame photos, receive a massage and buy a blender. (I didn't mean to drop the blender this week, in a cooking frenzy, but that's what happened. Oh well.)

What a fine day I have planned. I'll accomplish some things, but have some fun, too. What's not to love about today?

Chop wood, carry water, have lunch and a massage ... and ... buy a blender! At least, that's my plan. Yes.