Let Nothing Lie Dormant
Posted: August 8, 2013 Filed under: Random Workout | Tags: blogging, David Dominguez, family, freshly pressed, friends, happiness, health, hope, kindness, life, love, lululemon, musings, natural, nature, Omaha, passion, perspective, Poem, Poetry, Prose, running, trail running, yoga 13 Comments…
At the farmer’s market in Rosarito, Mexico,
a man touched my arm.
He sat on a stool at a wooden table,
and in the center,
a blue pitcher of water beaded under the sun.
Hunkered over his lap,
he worked with a gouge on a block of walnut,
and he blew at the dust,
and the dust swirled in the breeze.
Done stripping the sapwood vulnerable to rot,
the man held the heart of the wood,
a purple wood hard against
the chisel’s cutting edge.
He looked up from his work,
and his gray eyes told me I must listen.
“This wood must be strong
or the heart cracks before the real work is done.
See this?” he asked softly,
and he lifted a mallet carved
from a branch of apple, “Strong wood,” he said.
“It wanted to be more than a tree.”
He rubbed fresh walnut dust between his palms.
We drank glasses of ice water,
talked about life in general,
and he used the pitcher,
billowed and wet like the sail of a boat,
to cool his neck.
Later, through the soft meat of an avocado,
I felt the pit longing to be free.
Meditations
Posted: July 25, 2013 Filed under: Random Workout | Tags: blogging, friends, happiness, health, hope, kindness, life, love, lululemon, Margaret Fuller, meditation, Meditations, motivation, musings, nature, passion, Poem, Poetry, yoga 6 Comments…
The clouds are marshalling across the sky,
Leaving their deepest tints upon yon range
Of soul-alluring hills. The breeze comes softly,
Laden with tribute that a hundred orchards
Now in their fullest blossom send, in thanks
For this refreshing shower. The birds pour forth
In heightened melody the notes of praise
They had suspended while God’s voice was speaking,
And his eye flashing down upon his world.
I sigh, half-charmed, half-pained. My sense is living,
And, taking in this freshened beauty, tells
Its pleasure to the mind. The mind replies,
And strives to wake the heart in turn, repeating
Poetic sentiments from many a record
Which other souls have left, when stirred and satisfied
By scenes as fair, as fragrant. But the heart
Sends back a hollow echo to the call
Of outward things, — and its once bright companion,
Who erst would have been answered by a stream
Of life-fraught treasures, thankful to be summoned, —
Can now rouse nothing better than this echo;
Unmeaning voice, which mocks their softened accents.
Content thee, beautiful world! and hush, still busy mind!
My heart hath sealed its fountains. To the things
Of Time they shall be oped no more. Too long,
Too often were they poured forth: part have sunk
Into the desert; part profaned and swollen
By bitter waters, mixed by those who feigned
They asked them for refreshment, which, turned back,
Have broken and o’erflowed their former urns.
So when ye talk of pleasure, lonely world,
And busy mind, ye ne’er again shall move me
To answer ye, though still your calls have power
To jar me through, and cause dull aching here.
No so the voice which hailed me from the depths
Of yon dark-bosomed cloud, now vanishing
Before the sun ye greet. It touched my centre,
The voice of the Eternal, calling me
To feel his other worlds; to feel that if
I could deserve a home, I still might find it
In other spheres, — and bade me not despair,
Though ‘want of harmony’ and ‘aching void’
Are terms invented by the men of this,
Which I may not forget.
In former times
I loved to see the lightnings flash athwart
The stooping heavens; I loved to hear the thunder
Call to the seas and mountains; for I thought
‘Tis thus man’s flashing fancy doth enkidle
The firmament of mind; ‘tis thus his eloquence
Calls unto the soul’s depths and heights; and still
I defied the creature, nor remembered
The Creator in his works.
Ah now how different!
The proud delight of that keen sympathy
Is gone; no longer riding on the wave,
But whelmed beneath it: my own plans and works,
Or, as the Scriptures phrase it, my ’inventions’
No longer interpose ‘twist me and Heaven.
Today, for the first time, I felt the Deity,
And uttered prayer on hearing thunder. This
Must be thy will, — for finer, higher spirits
Have gone through this same process, — yet I think
There was religion in that strong delight,
Those sounds, those thoughts of power imparted. True,
I did not say, ‘He is the Lord thy God,’
But I had feeling of his essence. But
‘’Twas pride by which the angels fell.’ So be it!
But O, might I but see a little onward!
Father, I cannot be a spirit of power;
May I be active as a spirit of love,
Since thou hast ta’en me from that path which Nature
Seemed to appoint, O, deign to ope another,
Where I may walk with thought and hope assured;
‘Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief!’
Had I but faith like that which fired Novalis,
I too could bear that the heart ‘fall in ashes,’
While the freed spirit rises from beneath them,
With heavenward-look, and Phoenix-plumes upsoaring!
Be helpless
Posted: July 18, 2013 Filed under: Random Workout | Tags: Arts, happiness, healing, kindness, life, love, Mystic, Omaha, passion, Poem, Poetry, Prose, Rumi 10 Comments… dumbfounded,
Unable to say yes or no.
Then a stretcher will come from grace
to gather us up.
We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty.
If we say we can, we’re lying.
If we say No, we don’t see it,
That No will behead us
And shut tight our window onto spirit.
So let us rather not be sure of anything,
Beside ourselves, and only that, so
Miraculous beings come running to help.
Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute,
We shall be saying finally,
With tremendous eloquence, Lead us.
When we have totally surrendered to that beauty,
We shall be a mighty kindness.
― Rumi
Notes:
Please be my guest on August 3rd as the Omaha Healing Arts Center celebrates Rumi. This should truly be a night to remember!
Create Desire
Posted: July 11, 2013 Filed under: Random Workout | Tags: American Poets, Creativity, desire, family, freshly pressed, friends, happiness, health, hope, kindness, life, love, lululemon, motivation, musings, passion, Poem, Poetry, Prose, whole foods, WOD, yoga 4 Comments…
Someone was searching for a Form of Fire.
Bird-eyed, the wind watched.
Four deer in a blowsy meadow.
As though it were simply random, a stately stare.
What’s six and six and two and ten?
Time that my eye ached, my heart shook, why.
Mistaking lime for lemon.
Dressed in cobalt, charcoal, thistle—and control.
If they had more they would need less.
A proposal from the squinting logician.
Seems we are legal, seems we are ill.
Ponderous purpose, are you weather, are you wheel?
Gold with a heart of cinder.
Little blue chip dancing in the light of the loom.
Mistress, May-girl, whom will you kiss?
The death of water is the birth of air.
You do
Posted: January 31, 2013 Filed under: Random Workout | Tags: Chill, desire, Despair, exercise, fitness, happiness, health, hipster, hope, Imagination, intensity, kettlebell, Landscapes, life, Lonliness, love, lululemon, marathon, motivation, nature, paleo, passion, pilates, Poem, Poetry, Rage, Repenting, rest, running, trail running, Walk, walking, whole foods, WOD, yoga 13 Comments… not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
call to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
– Mary Oliver
Notes:
Rage or Chill … Which one are you today? Maybe somewhere in the middle, be well and take care.
CultFit 