Favorites from the Aging with Wisdom Group

May 4th, 2023

Poems -

Please Call me by My True Names by Thich Nhat Hanh

I am the 12 year old girl, refugee on a boat, who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate.

And I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.

I am member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my hands, and I am the man who has to pay his ”debt of blood” to my people, dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all walks of life.

My pain is like a river of tears, so full it fills up the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and my laughs at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names so I can wake up,

and so the door of my heart can be open the door of compassion.

I Worried by Mary Oliver From her book Swan

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers

flow in the right direction, will the earth turn

as it was taught, and if not how shall

I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,

can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows

can do it and I am, well,

hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,

am I going to get rheumatism,

lockjaw, dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.

And gave it up. And took my old body

and went out into the morning,

and sang.

The Time Comes When it’s Easier to Die by Red Hawk

We have to go deeper inside like a tired miner chipping through stone.

We have to dig even when we have had enough and it is no longer worth it to get up out of bed.

The morning is cold.

The gray clouds move in like a flock of dark crows over a picked field.

That is when we have to go deeper, through another hard layer of pain.

You have to be relentless to make it in this place because it will be relentless with you. It will never stop beating and grinding, wearing you down with one more thing gone wrong.

Friends will die or their nerves will fail.

Women will cease to be thrilled with you,

and your sorry efforts to hold it all together will come to nothing.

You will still tremble in the leg, go gray and dim in the face, leak more every year in your yellowed shorts.

Don’t be in a hurry to pack it in.

The time will come when it is easier to die than to dig.

The trick is to find the gold before death finds you, and then to sit there in the heart where you can not be taken while death storms and rages all around you, stealing everything in sight, but only left holding a bag of bones.

March 10th, 2022

Quotes -

“There is no greater love than the immeasurable friendliness that can embrace all beings, all events, and all experiences with unshakeable kindness."

"There is no compassion greater than the fearless heart that can turn toward suffering and pain, tremble with empathy, and live with the commitment to end the causes of anguish."

"There is no greater happiness than inwardly generated joy and peace."

"There is no equanimity more unshakeable than the profound poise of the liberated heart that can meet the world of ungraspable conditions and events without being shattered.”

~ Christina Feldman, Boundless Heart

"We have what we seek. We have it all the time. And if we give it time, it will make itself known to us." ~ Thomas Merton

"No mirror ever became iron again; no bread ever became wheat; no ripened grape ever became sour fruit. Mature yourself and be secure from a change for the worse. Become the light." ~ Rumi

Poems -

Birdwings

Your grief for what you’ve lost lifts a mirror

up to where you are bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,

here’s the joyful face you’ve been wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes, and opens and closes.

If it were always a fist or always stretched open,

you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding,

the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated

as birdwings.

~ Rumi

What We Need Is Here

Geese appear high over us,

pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,

as in love or sleep, holds

them to their way, clear

in the ancient faith: what we need

is here. And we pray, not

for new earth or heaven, but to be

quiet in heart, and in eye,

clear. What we need is here.

~ Wendell Berry

And an Excerpt from Anthem by Leonard Cohen

The birds they sang

At the break of day

Start again

I heard them say

Don't dwell on what has passed away

Or what is yet to be

• Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in

everything

That's how the light gets in

• That's how the light gets in

• That's how the light gets in

That's how the light gets in

Check back each month for more to come…..