01.27.2025. Our Noble-Holy Task
Hello dear Friends,
“There is no other moment - no other reality but the one that's here. Revel in this.”
— John Astin
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Reminder, there is no in-person Metta Meditation practice today, January 27th. I am on retreat, reveling in writing, wonder and the landscape of Light.
Something to share, for you to ponder here with me too, the retreat began yesterday with a line from Naomi Shihab Nye’s poem Valentine for Ernest Mann, “we have to live in a way that helps us find what we have to say.” Right, this holy living! This giving voice to what feels tender and true in our hearts. This finding a place within, to live in a way that is faithful to our interior self, to the truth of who we are. This I know like many of you, is easier said than done, but this is our noble-holy task, truth. This is what is essential to do, become, not-to-miss, not be a heartache on our deathbed.
Then there are Thomas Merton’s words here with me, echoing a similar sobering, painful lamenting truth. A prayer I hold in my heart for myself, for all of us who walk this not-so-easy path of being human, of waking up, of bone-deep faith to live into our holy longing-self, “Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men and women are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves. They never get around to being the particular poet or the particular monk they are intended to be by God. They never become the man or the artist who is called for by all the circumstances of their individual lives. They waste their years in vain efforts to be some other poet, some other saint...They wear out their minds and bodies in a hopeless endeavor to have somebody else's experiences or write somebody else's poems.”
May we not be some ‘other’ person, poet, or saint.
May we stay close to our tears, that is where truth is found.
May we listen into the quietude for the sounds yet to be heard,
for the sounds readying to come into form.
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So grateful we are here together.
Love,
Wini
🌸 May the offerings below be warmth and care for your heart: 2 Poems. 3 Quotes. 1 59 second poem. 4 Things to Know About. 1 Closing Song + links to meander in.
🌸 Two Poems to Share
Green-Striped Melons | Jane Hirshfield
They lie
under stars in a field.
They lie under rain in a field.
Under sun.
Some people
are like this as well—
like a painting
hidden beneath another painting.
An unexpected weight
the sign of their ripeness.
it’s time | Maya Stein
In a minute, the average eye will blink 12 times.
Around the world, fifty-eight planes will lift off
Twice that amount of people will get married.
Eighty-three thousand will have sex.
Two cars will be stolen. There will be 1.5 divorces,
and four earthquakes and blood will move through
our bodies three times. Ninety-six million cells
will divide, replacing the ninety-six million that were lost.
Six thousand bolts of lightning will strike and five books
will be published and the wings of hummingbirds will flutter
four thousand times, and in the time it took to read this,
your heart pulsed sixty times, or maybe 100, and 48 other thoughts
came to you, and the earth tore across the heavens for another
eighteen hundred kilometers, and the sun delivered
83.33 terawatts of energy to the open arms of the universe,
and 150 babies saw their mothers for the first time.
🌿 “and 150 babies saw their mothers for the first time.”
worthy of repeating. The holiest of moments.
The mother and baby first gaze outside the womb.
🌸 Three Quotes | Sharon Salzberg. Joyce Rupp & Macrina Wiederkehr. Christian Wiman.
“Beginning again and again is the actual practice.” — Sharon Salzberg, “How to Forgive: A Meditation”
“Few consider their inner wintertime something to enjoy, yet this season is vital for spiritual growth. The human spirit needs dormancy and rest, silence and solitude. Winter provides this opportunity so we can slow down and refocus our direction and purpose in life.” —Joyce Rupp & Macrina Wiederkehr
“Let us remember...that in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might be less apt to destroy both.” ― Christian Wiman
🌿 a powerful interview (1:02.00) At death’s door discussing life’s nakedness, moments in life where everything gets striped away, Christian Wiman discusses his memoir “Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair,” and explores faith, doubt, joy, and sorrow in the way only a great poet can. He takes the stuff of life—the mundane, confusing, chaotic, and tragic—and makes meaning out of it.
🌸 Something to Inspire | A brief poem. 59 seconds. Forgiveness.
"Forgiveness" by Maria Popova (read by Nick Cave). Three people whose offerings out into the world inspire me. This poem written by Maria Popova. This poem read by Nick Cave. This poem’s opening line from Lucille Clifton’s poem “blessing the boats”
Listen Here (0:59 min)
“I had been thinking about forgiveness — about its quiet power to dislodge the lump of blame from the thorax of time and fill the lung of life with the oxygen of the possible, about how you bless your own life when you forgive your mother, forgive your father, forgive the person for whom your love was not enough, forgive the person for whom your love was too much, forgive yourself, over and over and over.”
– Maria Popova
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🌸 Four Things to Know About | Soul Collage. Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. Healing Vessel. PS Ask For A Word.
Discover Soul Collage. Discover Yourself.
My dear friend, a beautiful teacher and soul, Annie Unger is offering a Soul Collage workshop at Women's Exchange in Winnetka. Thursday, February 27, 12:30 – 3:30 pm. Learn more here
Save-the-Date. Sept 27. Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.
A one-day in person workshop with Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, Saturday, Sept 27. (more details will be posted on my website) I want to give you a heads up because those that know Rosemerry’s poetry, know she is a treasure beyond, speaks to what is true in the heart, time with her a not-to-miss. Add your name to the list.
Healing Vessel. Tuesday, February 11.
Join me along with Julie Fedeli and harpist Margaret Pasquesi for gorgeous sacred time. Join us for a meditative evening of tending to your heart. Healing Vessel is time to rest and receive in the quietude the sacred, the elements of healing, and music in response to your energy, opening the channels of awareness.
Come, take part and receive. Bring your presence, energy and heart. Limit 9 people. Learn more here
PS. A Second Offering of Ask-For-A Word.
Friday February 7, 2025 (For those not able to attend in January) Learn more here.
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🌸 Closing Song | Let the Words Wash Over You. Tend Your Heart.
Waterfall of Wisdom (2:46 min) by Fia. A song of remembering that everything that you are looking for is within. A song of remembering that the wisdom you are seeking is within.
Lyrics:
Do what you have to do, say what you have to say
Feel your heart and trust your soul, they know the way
Follow what feels good, those subtle little clues
Listen to your belly that is always speaking to you
There is a waterfall of wisdom at your fingertips
If you would only reach a little further in
Everything you're looking for
The pieces of your puzzle
All the love you seek, it is right there at your feet.
…
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May you trust your soul, she knows the way.
May you listen to the wisdom in your bones.
Love, Wini
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✨ bloom more Light
💞 more Goodness
🌎 more gorgeous-tenderness on our planet.
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….Until next week. 💖 ✨
