Cracked Windows

iPad portal, black

iPad portal, black

door to worlds beyond my sight

but silence opens more.

My iPad has a black cover, so when I looked at it the other morning it appeared to be a very small door. Opening the cover was like opening the door and finding an almost infinite number of worlds available that I couldn’t otherwise imagine, which always energizes my mind. So many possibilities! So much to learn!

Behind my closed eyes the world is also black, but my eyelids are not so much a door which opens to outside worlds, but more a door behind which are my inside worlds. These inside worlds, within the blackness of my own mind, are truly infinite. My job, with eyes closed, is not to go find these worlds but to empty the room inside. So that worlds beyond worlds may enter. Or, better, so that my whole world becomes still. So all is all, all is all. Instead of energizing my mind, behind the closed doors of my eyes lies peace.

Early Morning Prayer

Early morning prayer

Cracked window, fresh air. God’s there.

God’s there, everywhere.

I have struggled with “God” over the years. I don’t believe, right now anyway, that God is any kind of being or person. I don’t believe God makes decisions like a human being would. These kinds of conceptualizations have befuddled me over the years, causing great skepticism. But I also am drawn to the mystery of love and creation and life and the eternal infinite. This resonates with me, with my soul. And so in the early mornings I most likely am not praying “to” God but, rather, am praying within God. That is, within the wholeness of some something, which includes me, which is me, but is much more than “me”. Fresh air is all that. Breathing life in. Feeling alive and present.

Morning Ritual

Morning ritual

Played out in light’ning shades.

Birds sing on heartstrings.

Each morning I start in dark. I open the blinds to the window and the night begins to move, move from light black to dark gray to light gray and at some point colors become evident. Through the small crack I’ve opened in my window, I hear the sounds of morning. A neighbor moving a trash can to the curb. A dog responding to that or to some squirrel or person walking by. Cars starting up, pulling out of driveways, and moving on to the day’s tasks. And birds singing. Little chirps. Through a window crack it’s hard to tell where they are or how they are moving. But they touch me as I sit and listen. They remind me, with all the sounds of morning, with all the new life the brightening day portends, that the ordinary parts of every day are magical and not to be missed.

Reading The Art of Pausing , by Judith Valente , Brother Paul Quenon , and Michael Bever , and writing a haiku, has become a daily practice for me. The authors recommend this, and I have found it in the few short weeks I have been doing this, a meaningful activity when paired with reading a daily haiku and narrative from the book.

I’m not a trained poet, but I don’t think poetry has to be created by an MFA graduate to be meaningful, and certainly meaningful to the author.

So, to introduce profound poetry, here is a haiku I wrote this week.

If you are interested in this poetic form, I highly recommend the work in The Art of Pausing . So, so good.

What Is Haiku?

Three lines. Five syllables the first line. Seven syllables the second line. Five syllables the third line. They aren't supposed to rhyme, but of course why have rules if you can't break them once in a while.

More about haiku here.

It can be so beautiful. Take a look at some here.