Kiss by Ellen Bass

When Lynne saw the lizard floating
in her mother-in-law’s swimming pool,
she jumped in. And when it wasn’t
breathing, its body limp as a baby
drunk on milk, she laid it on her palm
and pressed one fingertip to its silky breast
with just about the force you need
to test the ripeness of a peach, only quicker,
a brisk little push with a bit of spring in it.
Then she knelt, dripping wet in her Doc Martens
and camo T-shirt with the neck ripped out,
and bent her face to the lizard’s face,
her big plush lips to the small stiff jaw
that she’d pried apart with her opposable thumb,
and she blew a tiny puff into the lizard’s lungs.
The sun glared against the turquoise water.
What did it matter if she saved one lizard?
One lizard more or less in the world?
But she bestowed the kiss of life,
again and again, until
the lizard’s wrinkled lids peeled back,
its muscles roused its own first breath
and she set it on the hot cement
where it rested a moment
before darting off.

To Bless the Space Between Us

from John O'Donohue “For Equilibrium, a Blessing

Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,
May the relief of laughter rinse through your soul.

As the wind loves to call things to dance,
May your gravity by lightened by grace.

Like the dignity of moonlight restoring the earth,
May your thoughts incline with reverence and respect.

As water takes whatever shape it is in,
So free may you be about who you become.

As silence smiles on the other side of what's said,
May your sense of irony bring perspective.

As time remains free of all that it frames,
May your mind stay clear of all it names.

May your prayer of listening deepen enough
to hear in the depths the laughter of god.”

A Jane Hirshfield Poem

Let Them Not Say

Let them not say: we did not see it.

We saw.

Let them not say: we did not hear it.

We heard.

Let them not say: they did not taste it.

We ate, we trembled.

Let them not say:

it was not spoken, not written.

We spoke,

we witnessed with voices and hands.

Let them not say:

they did nothing.

We did not-enough.

Let them say, as they must say something:

A kerosene beauty.

It burned.

Let them say we warmed ourselves by it,

read by its light, praised,

and it burned.

All around me

At the end of our road is a sheep camp with two bands of sheep, each band is 1000 animals so 2000 sheep. We stopped to say hello to the Peruvian sheepherder, Antonio. There is a big winter storm coming this weekend and he is getting his fire wood ready. It’s a small space with a small stove but he said it does keep him warm at night as long as he keeps it stoked. Antonio and other family members from Peru have worked many years on the Sieben Ranch. We live in the heart of agriculture in the Helena Valley.

A Poem I read over and over

Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

-- David Wagoner
(1999)

May chores

The greenhouse is planted and the spring bulbs are all in bloom. The compost is ready for spreading on the gardens and around the fruit trees. Digging in the Earth is nurturing and healing, therapy for the soul.

A Poem from Ukraine

Don’t say it aloud,
don’t let the coastal span of another utterance
roll off your tongue.
It’s a subtle, innate, human skill
of non-articulation, omission, awkwardness,
concealing something light behind your heart,
something so light, so sweet, so unshareable,
this wild generosity of not burdening anyone
with things that might make their face twitch.
And then speech starts, like the start of a cold,
it warms your lungs, and the fever sets in,
and since early August anxious people have been wandering around
glowing from within with this mysterious light.

Serhiy Zhadan

Translated from the Ukrainian by Amelia Glaser and Yuliya Ilchuk

Mary Oliver Poem

THE FOURTH SIGN OF THE ZODIAC (PART 3)

I know, you never intended to be in this world.
But you’re in it all the same. 

So why not get started immediately.

I mean, belonging to it.
There is so much to admire, to weep over.

And to write music or poems about.

Bless the feet that take you to and fro.
Bless the eyes and the listening ears.
Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.
Bless touching.

You could live a hundred years, it’s happened.
Or not.
I am speaking from the fortunate platform
of many years,
none of which, I think, I ever wasted.
Do you need a prod?
Do you need a little darkness to get you going?
Let me be as urgent as a knife, then,
and remind you of Keats,
so single of purpose and thinking, for a while,
he had a lifetime.

Things take the time they take. Don’t worry. 

How many roads did St. Augustine follow before he became St. Augustine?

Mary Oliver

Decoction: the action or process of extracting the essence of something

Cedar Mesa, Utah, April 2022

I love to wildcraft and I am curious about the ethnobotanical uses of plants. From food to medicine there are endless ways plants can be used. I’ve harvested parts of trees, herbs, grasses, lichens and mushrooms. As a practicing herbalist I harvest medicinal plants in the wild and in my garden. My favorite method of preparation is a simple tea, also known as a decoction. When I am out camping, it’s a morning meditation. After collecting the plants, i gently crush them and pour boiling water over the mix. The tea renders the scents and flavors of the world around me, it’s magical. While it steeps I sit quietly and give thanks for the gifts of the wild.

Fall Tea Recipe: Plump Rosehips, Horsetail (Equisetum), mint, pinch of yarrow. Let steep 5 minutes.

Winter Tea Recipe: Freshly grated ginger, Peppermint, Juniper berries. Let steep 3-5 minutes

Spring Tea Recipe: Mormon Tea, Horsetail, sliced lemon, 3 juniper berries, Let steep 3 minutes.

This Morning I Pray for My Enemies

And whom do I call my enemy?

Am enemy must be worthy of engagement.

I turn in the direction of the sun and keep walking.

It’s the heart that asks the question, not my furious mind.

The heart is the smaller cousin of the sun.

It sees and knows everything.

It hears the gnashing even as it hears the blessing.

The door to the mind should only open from the heart.

An enemy who gets in, risks the danger of becoming a friend.

by Joy Harjo

Almost Spring: the Unlocking*

Here in Montana winter does not turn to spring. There is a season in between, the Unlocking*, as Kurt Vonnegut named it. In April winter holds a tight grip as the warmer westerly air moves through and the sun reaches higher in the sky. It can reach 80’ one day and turn to snow the next. You can’t count on gardening until Memorial Day. In the North you learn to mitigate your need for warm days, for green grass and wildflowers with more time reading seed catalogs, finding good food to eat and taking long walks. A nice meditation and movement practice is also helpful. It’s challenging to live in the North but giving way to a couple extra seasons lowers our expectations to more realistic levels and softens the transition times between. Longer slower exhales and a slight smile at the irony of it all, this is the feel of the unlocking.

Vonnegut describes the 6 seasons, “One sort of optional thing you might do is to realize there are six seasons instead of four. The poetry of four seasons is all wrong for this part of the planet, and this may explain why we are so depressed so much of the time. I mean, Spring doesn’t feel like Spring a lot of the time, and November is all wrong for Fall and so on. Here is the truth about the seasons: Spring is May and June! What could be springier than May and June? Summer is July and August. Really hot, right? Autumn is September and October. See the pumpkins? Smell those burning leaves. Next comes the season called “Locking.” That is when Nature shuts everything down. November and December aren’t Winter. They’re Locking. Next comes Winter, January and February. Boy! Are they ever cold! What comes next? Not Spring. Unlocking comes next. What else could April be?”

Winter Solstice

Sweet Darkness by David Whyte

When your eyes are tired

the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone

no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark

where the night has eyes

to recognize its own.

There you can be sure

you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb tonight.

The night will give you a horizon

further than you can see,

you must learn one thing,

The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds

except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it take darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn

anything or anyone that does not bring you alive

is too small fo you.

Mono no aware

September 22, 2020 The first day of Fall, the Autumn Equinox

 Mono no aware is a Japanese concept describing transience and the feelings that arise with it. Transient like the season of autumn, changing with the expanding summer energy contracting toward the depths of winter. It is the  awareness of the impermanence, the bittersweet remembrances of saying goodbye. Fall is transition. We prepare for the winter by releasing what we no longer need or what no longer serves us.

 In practicing  Yoga we bring awareness to our bodies, moving mindfully with care and focus. We open our joints, we expand our ribs and breathe, we move forth with more prana, more life force, more grounded. We build a more resilient stillness and support our ability to be totally aware and present in the moment. Accepting of life as it is presented and not daunted by the illusion of the future or the sadness of the past.