Life – Page 4 – Jane Tawel

A Word in a Stroke of Luck

A Word in a Stroke of Luck

By Jane Tawel

December 7, 2024

I shall call You, “Good”.

You are My Good.

You mean ALL for The Good.

I shall call upon You in the night,

“Oh, My Good!”

“Help us, Dear Good”.

I will meditate

on the World’s Beauty of Good.

I will stand in awe

in the World’s Mystery of Good.

I will put my trust in the power of Good.

For You, are a Good, Good, Good-ness.

I will love You, Oh, my Good;

and have faith that Good-ness

will not only follow me and mine

All the days of this lifetime,

but that I shall dwell in the House of Good

Forever and ever.

Amen.

Words are funny, shallow, flitting things.

Poor words, they try so hard.

And though they fail again and again,

we pick them back up, dust them off, and try once more

to use them to explain,

to use words to understand,

to take words and try to

put an outer shell to what is inside of us –

What is Inside of All.

Poor Words! How exhausted they must be!

They beg us to give them a rest.

But instead, we invent algorithms

to create more and more words

again and again and again

done by computers so words

have less meaning than even the

words of a worm might have.

We think in constant gales of words

Ghosts of words of past and future

Words with no meaning at all.

So, we never have to be still.

And the Silence will never touch us

surrounded by,

hunkered down,

lost and alone

in our fortresses of words.

Oh, Poor Words!

Words swim upstream —

light, floating inconsequentially

in the Ocean of True Truth,

in the Ocean of Unspoken Meaning beyond Meaning.

And there they go again!

Lost. Irretrievable. Unspoken. Too late. Too soon.

We only shut up when we’re dead.

What a Stroke of Luck for me!

For this morning,

as I grumbled over Past and Future,

A mind consumed in a mire of useless wording,

I happened to be writing something on a page,

And carelessly my mind glitched

on spelling, “God”.

And accidentally adding another “o” —

A Stroke of Luck in One Small Stroke!

And Oh, my Soul!

Oh, Joy!

I happened to have slipped upon

a banana peel of misspelling

and landed in a Heaven of New Insight!

With my one small stroke of pen,

with one tiny letter,

with one mistake (I thought) —

I have thrown out a buoy into the

Raging Tides of Time and Space.

And now I think I may make it

to The Shore.

Yes, you may laugh

Or shake your head at me

Or frown at my naivety or lack of theory,

And you may still cling to what you need to believe

about a God you want to call your own,

whose name has been taken in vain so many times

that it has lost all meaning.

But for me –

that one change, that “O”,

has quite suddenly!

made all the difference to me.

Oh, My Good!

I praise You for the Word,

for one small word to

change my angers and my fears into

a fledgling, hoping love of You.

Thank you for all my broken words,

that like a child with chalk in hand

search for You with fleeting strokes

on the sidewalks of this Life.

Thank you for one small circle

to begin to shape

the circle of this Life

of one small soul,

for All.

Today may I Be.

Still.

And Know.

That You.

Are.

GOOD.

All is Love. All is Now.

by Jane Tawel

All is Love. All is Now

By Jane Tawel

November 7, 2024

I wanted to write about woe and grief

but decided to sit here and breathe.

I wanted to share how angry I am,

to know this is how the end begins,

rotting by choice from within.

But I looked to the words

and the life of The Man

to Whom, as a child I had taken a vow,

and I realized His message was all about Love

and all about loving The Now.

I feared the destruction, so long underway

of the feminine Sacred of All.

And the Past and the Future

merged bleakly in me —

a trajectory strong since The Fall.

But I looked at my hands,

writing words on this page,

and I heard that Still Voice

Whispering, Age after Age:

“Just be present and Breathe.

Beingness.

Just Be Still.

Know The Moment —

that’s all that you need.

Be Just You.

Be True You.

Just right Now —

you’ll know how.

Find The Why.

To self, die.

You are Buddha.

You are Christ.

You’re The Way and The Life.

You’re the Voice.

You are Love.

Only you.

Only Be.

Only now.

Only choice is to Love.

Only Love.

Only Now.

Love is All.

Now is All.

All is Love.

All is Now.”

Morning Promises

Morning Promises

By Jane Tawel, July 28, 2024

****

Gorgeous delight,

this Morning, fresh and new.

I put up a good fight against Your hopeful face,

But why did I ever doubt You?

You have come, not on soft, pitter-patter feet

as once you did when youth was cleanly cleaved

along the lines of good and bad

along the fenceposts of win or fail

when all the dreams we ever had were moored

along the shores of youth’s grim holy grails.

No, your arrival seems to come without my choosing.

And I fight your crashing cymbals waking me from

restless, aching sleep.

The morning light begins to seep like opening wounds

and stirs the ancient fears that all must keep

as close as terminal denial could ever be.

And yet — perhaps to dream — ah, there’s the rub! —

to sleep is but to die a small, white-noise-ed death.

But — Ah, Good Grief! Dear Morning!

With Your quickening breath,

I wake, perhaps to dream,

perhaps to simply welcome one more cup

of coffee, tea, or toasted bread with honey.

Oh, Gorgeous Delight!

Another day is welcome, I’ll admit

And as I sit, I sip anew this life,

this breath,

this dawn lovely.

I wake to dreams that circle round

The Past, The Present, Perhaps… Infinity…

Ah, Dearest Daybreak, Welcome here!

My soul awakes to deeply drink

and dream with open eyes

the peace, the hope, the joy of

All.

With Love embracing,

I face this glorious day,

And forward-backward, onward facing

I open heart and mind

to Be

at One

with You and me

and just, perhaps, a little bit

to glimpse this Morning’s hinting promises

of Genesis Eternity.

On our last trip in June, I bought some sea shells from the Sea Shell shop in Morro Bay. I gave a shell to friends and family, to remind us of the important things in life (besides work J) that sea shells symbolize.

Shed anything from the past that won’t serve your best interests today. Just like a mollusk sheds it shell to grow into something better and bigger, we, too, must shed the limiting shells of our past, whether negative patterns, outdated beliefs, or painful experiences.
Don’t let imperfections distract you from seeing beauty in things. Be as resilient as a shell has to be in the big, often harsh environment of the ocean. You have already weathered a lot of storms. Let the shell inspire you to find healing and wholeness even amidst life’s greatest challenges.
A sea shell protects the fragile, delicate being that lives inside it. Create your own protective spaces, carve out time for self-care, and set healthy boundaries.
In all cultures and religions, shells represent life. Remind yourself often that Life is good.
Shells remind me of all my favorite places in all the world; places I have explored, visited once, lived at, and have wonderful memories from. Make sure you find time for special places, and if you can’t get to a special place, go to your memories of those places and be rejuvenated and renewed.

May this sea shell remind you of how special you are –unique in all the world – there is only one you! May it remind you that there are people who treasure you as a family member or friend – as I do.

Let Me Take Your Sorrow

Let Me Take Your Sorrow

By Jane Tawel

June 6, 2024

Let me take your sorrow,

if only for an hour

For I am old, not like you;

no longer armored with pangs of youth.

Let me take the tears you ache too much to shed.

And I will let grief flow through me

as your fast stream flows free,

flows free through my slow-moving sea.

Let me take your anger

until you need it again.

Let me take its energy

and keep it safe from misspent deeds.

And when you’ve rested and had some play,

I’ll give it back again.

Then you may lead the charge

to change the world once more.

Then you may slam the doors

on past and future visions of hate.

And in the house of my own self,

I’ll shut the gate on letting loose

the rage on life’s injustices.

Your anger’s safe with me

until you know its rightful cause,

until you know your strength.

Let me take your fears.

For I am old (though not an elder).

(Elders are wise and I am only willing.)

And though I’m still afraid to fall;

I’m more afraid to see you tumble down too far.

I’m not afraid to stay down there.

It’s often peaceful in the depths.

I’ve loaded up a life with care

and carefully, I throw old baggage out.

And piece by piece, what’s left of me,

must t’wards the end, walk fearlessly.

The greatest fear of all draws near.

And nearer, nearer does Death come.

I have nothing here worth fearing,

Except the nearing end of all the life!

Of All The Life and All The Love!

So let me hold each of your fears.

I’ll hold them close, while we sing lullabies.

I’ll wipe your fears away like baby’s tears,

cradling your fears within my ample heart.

Go! –live your life!- not fearless- No!

For fears protect and fears can guide,

but I will gently rock them,

so you may pick them up again,

when they’ve become at least more stilled.

And when your fears grow quieter,

then you will find their shadow strength.

Yes, you will find the strength in fear.

Yes, you will find dark’s might.

And even Life-Death’s greatest fear,

the fear of endless night,

will be the greatest strength of all,

the strength of how to live each moment, right.

Oh, let me take your sorrow,

your anger and your fears.

I’ll take them all for hours,

for days, and months, and years.

Oh, let me take your tears and grief,

and let me take your rages.

And like a tree with many leaves,

and like a book with endless pages,

you’ll shed the dead;

write more beginnings;

and I’ll keep listening,

keep being willing

to take your pain for just awhile

that your soul can recover.

And even when this life of mine,

has passed away and seems all over,

I’ll still be there beside you.

I trust somewhere,

somehow,

some days,

my spirit will reach out to yours.

For Love will always find a way.

And I will take your sorrow,

and I will take your anger,

and I will take your fears;

and fly them far away with me.

And fly them far away.

And you, oh, little, precious bird,

will live to fly –

will climb as high as you want to climb.

And you will know that suffering,

is yet a strength along The Way.

And you will rise, and fall and rise again,

to live this precious moment,

to love this precious day.

The First Could Be The Last

Thomas Park, Unsplash

The First Could Be The Last

By Jane Tawel

May 19, 2024

The first cup of coffee

The last drops of tea,

The argument you always win

The look the mirror gives back to me

And birds in full cacophony

And trees that hold their secrets

And flowers that always, always die

And smiles, so rare, from strangers

But thoughts of you and them and us

But memories of such and thus

But dreams like intersection lights

But sleeping days and wakeful nights.

Ah, Life! Too short, too short to grasp.

Oh, love too small and love too vast.

Oh, seize the day, seize just this moment.

Awake and breathe. Drink deeply. Love.

This too shall pass.

This morning’s cup may be my last.

And what will be, no soul can see.

This moment is all I’ll ever know

A rare small glory is bestowed

in bird, and tree, and this warm, lovely cup of tea.

Hold all things lightly.

Keep holding fast.

Time passes quickly.

Next moment is the Past.

Yet what I am

that seeps the soul

is what I drink from,

what’s in my cup.

And looking up, to sky and rain

I can not help but hope

that birds and trees and these small hands

that hold your face; hold cups of tea

shall somehow live this moment well

to wake into a world of harmony;

to wake to live again eternally.

My Blog’s Eight Years of Poems are Published

Hello Blogging Pals,

I have published eight years of poems taken from my blog. Yes, it is a hefty tome, haha. Yes, you will need to over look typos as editing / publishing was difficult this time due to technical difficulties in KDP. C’est la vie! It is a journey of some interesting years in the world, 2015-2023. Some of the poems are not so great, some are possibly pretty good. All are explorations in living and in the genre that speaks to Big Ideas and struggles with words — Poetry.

Thank you to all of you who have read my poems (and other stuff) over the years. If you are interested in a copy, there are two, one with some pictures which is more expensive and one with just the poems — on Amazon on Kindle and in paperback.

Here is the link to the one without pictures:

The other can be found on Amazon and is called just Musings and Meditation, A Pictorial Version…

Thank you dear bloggers for all your comments and likes over the years and most of all for all the great stuff you keep writing that I love reading. May today bring you joy in your journey, Jane

In Light and Dark, Out of the Garden, and On The Path

by Jane Tawel

“light behind dark tunnel of trees” by Wim Vandenbussche is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

In Light and Dark, Out of the Garden, and On The Path

By Jane Tawel, October 10, 2023

And waking up to birds in the Garden,

heard not seen.

My mouth, dry as fallen leaves,

thoughts crumbling into dust not swept away, but hoarded

A heart as dry as leaves from an ancient but desiccated Book,

falling apart.

My chest hurts,

fluttering helplessly,

like a trapped bird in a cage,

throbbing like a song trapped in a tunnel,

too faint to hear, yet pounding in my ears.

I struggle out of night’s tight bonds,

and the prison of sweaty anxiety-tangled sheets.

Unsolved puzzles of otherness

causing night-fears to cling to my morning,

and morning is already imprisoned

with jello-bars;

thoughts of yesterday, flabby and gel-like,

clinging to today like suckers on a beached rowboat.

My oars went floating out

on the Tide toward Tomorrow.

Ah, me!

If only I could reach through the pain

with outstretched arms, not strong,

but lengthening in supplication,

away from the unformed center of myself.

Oh, My God, where is the salve

of Your nothingness,

the salve of forgiveness and delight?

Salvation is a funny thing,

a flimsy hope,

a solid rock.

The salve of my salvation stings,

and pain heals more than blissful wishes do.

The scabs cover over the relief of treasured addictions,

and for a brief moment,

I rise and float,

like a feather on an unseen wind,

like a small twig floating on a wave.

Nothingness is experienced,

as the unbearable lightness of being.

And my some-thing-ness,

my some-one-ness,

is adrift and moor-less.

The path never widens,

but as I scrimp on forging ahead,

I forage for food

to sustain my courage,

The Way seems clearer if not cleaner.

The brambles’ marks toughen my skin,

and heal over to make my feelings

calloused in new strength and some hope.

The fears reside nearer my front door,

but I learn (sometimes)

how to brush the anxious thoughts out,

like sticky cobwebs,

shooed away for whole moments at a time,

banished out of the home of my heart.

Shall I create salvation for myself,

and all within the place I dwell?

Shall I embrace my shadow self,

my night-self,

my dark soul?

And finding within the darkness, will I know

the freedom of not seeing but yet,

still blindly groping forward?

Oh, to walk in green valleys!

Oh, to rest by living streams!

There is a light ahead,

shimmering just outside the Garden,

and though it may waver recklessly

leading like a foolish and small fire-fly,

flitting along My Path,

I will seek The Light,

and I imagine I will find it not out there,

but within myself.

And when I can not see it,

I will make a friend of the Dark.

And wait for the dawn.

I reach for signs along my way,

and I will trust in the pain,

brushing up against it,

my fingers touching

the surface of my pain like rough bark,

scraping my knees on sharp sharded stones

strewn loosely in the road,

scratching my face as I plow through thick thorny places,

secret places of despair,

and fear and the grief that blossoms,

Iike a rose in the world’s heart.

As if…

As if…..

As if I keep walking,

through nights of bruising thoughts,

Salvation may come in the morning.

The path never widens,

but as I forage for food to sustain my courage,

The Way reveals the place of wholeness

abiding in mystery.

Peace passes through the dark

and beyond understanding.

And I let my spirit float,

out and away from the shallows of Life,

floating into deeper waters, and

trusting in The Sea

which holds all waves.

Even mine.

“I lift my eyes up,

to the mountains,

where does my help come from?

My help comes from You

Maker of All Being,

Maker of Light and of Dark,

Creator of All Life.

My feet will not slip

as I walk in The Way.

I will be guarded over

in the dark,

and while I sleep.

There is shade in the sun,

and the moon at night.

There are guardians all around me,

and no harm will come to my life,

I am safe, now and forever more.”**

I do not know but trust —

I do not know,

but keep seeking darkness in Mystery,

light in Hope,

peace in suffering,

and joy in the journey.

I choose to trust.

I am not alone.

You are not alone.

We are not alone.

**My paraphrase of Psalm 121

It Will End, I’m Sad to Say

It Will End, I’m Sad to Say

By Jane Tawel

September 19, 2023

And then it will end.

And all will be as never before,

and never again,

and never ever more.

But whether I shall enter something new,

through a small crack in the ether,

or a wide-open door,

my current view is that all things old,

will pass away.

And that makes me sad today.

Yes, it will end, I’m sad to say.

Hasn’t anyone ever told you?

It’s okay to be sad.

Grief is the gift we fear most to open,

but once unwrapped,

and held tight in shaking hands,

and viewed deeply with eyes continually filling

with the tears of unshed fears or hopeless hopes;

well, then, grief can become a friend

that helps us fill the moments with music,

the music of our real lives,

that the tick-tock-tick of the clocks

try to drown out.

If life is a symphony,

and grief is a dirge,

then only the urge

of our deepest desires,

can transform life and love

into what may inspire

Eternal cognition of a unified whole;

but until then we just have to trust,

in what may be the Soul.

Oh, isn’t the world wonderful?

Today I saw a poor little squirrel,

whose life was ended by the rush

of someone trying to get to work on time,

someone whose mind was probably focused blindly

on things not present, as mine often is,

whose eyes weren’t seeing what was right in front of her,

and missed the opportunity to save a life.

I murmured as I swerved

around the poor little broken, bloody body.

That squirrel was someone’s child or parent,

or friend. It played once in the tree in my front yard.

It hurt me to see it now dead and alone,

as it pains me deeply to think of all that is emptied out,

all that is alone, all that dies.

Life is pain,

and therein is truth to The Way.

Life is precious and oh, so glorious,

and therein is hope for the day.

And I saw a rose in my garden,

once red, now browned and petal-less,

and it hurt me to snip it

but I did it, even though it pierced my silly soul to do so,

like a thorn piercing my heart.

I snipped off the dead rose-hip,

in order that some other small flower could have the space to grow.

Everything has to die.

But all must choose to grow.

And I wonder, how much of my life,

I have squashed and killed,

or just not taken the time for,

or not let grow,

in my rush to think of something

other than what I was doing?

And I wonder, what might grow from me,

when I am snipped off from Life’s vine?

Oh, to live eternally

seems a goal not over-reaching.

And yet, our arms are far too short,

and our faith too short-sighted

to reach the end in sight;

to reach the end in Light.

Like a misplaced period.

We stop before the sentence end…

We keep restarting before the story begins…

We are not meant to live desiring eternity

but to live in the passions of this present moment.

Seeking Presence, not presents,

we can gift ourselves

with the continual opening up of

Joy in the journey,

knowing this journey’s end will come,

but not what journey may lie ahead,

with each next step of unearned grace,

around the bend of surrendering to blessing.

I grieve for the me that one day

(perhaps even today)

will no longer be the me I think I know.

And every once in a while,

in the embrace of my grief,

I feel the freedom to rejoice,

in what none of us can ever know,

but I can dimly sense,

that someday I might be.

And so, in moments today,

stolen from Time’s rushing River,

I make my fears and hopes inert.

As in a dead-man’s float,

I let myself be carried.

I trust in the Unknown Unknowable,

and though I still fight against, fight within, fight on,

I try to let the River take me;

take me just as far as the next wave or eddy,

just as far as a small stone’s throw.

It takes a bit of practice to let things die.

Creator of New Things,

Please snip off the dead things in me,

so that something new may grow.

And whether I shall ever know,

what lives beyond my grave,

I hope that someday I shall feel

the motion of my small, own wave,

lapping against a bright, new shore,

Alive! as never before,

and reborn, in the Ocean of Your Love.

Much Ado About AI

Perhaps I am alone in this, but reading living authors like Yann Martel, Fredrick Backman, Alexander McCall Smith; seeing plays by living authors like David Mamet, Tony Kushner, ; watching things that need good writers, like “The Good Place”, “White Lotus”, “Schitt’s Creek”; or movies that reveal something so deeply human, so deeply spiritual, by living authors, like Roberto Benini, Jane Campion, Spike Lee, Key and Peele, Lin-Manuel Miranda; when my whole worldview is rocked by living authors like Don Miguel Ruiz, Richard Rohr, (only one year passed on- Thich Nhat Hanh); or you listen to lyrics by living writers like Joni Mitchel, Alanis Morrisette, Elton John, Leonard Cohen, Beyonce, Patty Griffin, Tori Amos, Dave Matthews….

Oh, I could go on and on and if I had to include any writers who have already gone to that great writer’s conference or jam session in the sky, I would never, never stop — so I guess what I am saying is. Let’s not be silly folks. There is not a chance in the world that AI will replace even the smallest little humans here, let alone the Greats.

Oh, yes, AI is already replacing the people who used to respond to your complaints about your health insurance, or to your request for a response from your local politician, or hacks who churn out fodder to advertise yet something else none of us need but think we do, but is that really so bad? I mean, even those people deserve a chance to find something valuable and meaningful to do with their lives.

So, bring it on, AI. We’ve got your number, which is still 01010101…. You can find me rereading “The Grapes of Wrath” or rewatching “Life is Beautiful” or listening to a Sondheim’s greatest hits CD. And I just finished the latest Backman and saw a great production of “Much Ado About Nothing, and you know what — AI, you are MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING! Nope, no computer in the world will ever, ever, write like even my struggling students can write when it comes from a beating heart, a head full of dreams and things that must be said, and a soul that lives and breathes as only human souls have ever lived. Want to decrease your fears about AI? Grab a good book, go for a walk and conversation with a friend, watch something that makes you think or question or feel, feel, feel, or listen to something that soars and descends, rises and falls, and makes you feel alive. Because “Being Alive” (allusion to Sondheim intentional) will always be a million times more creative, more real, and more eternal, than anything, anything else.

Tag: Life

A Word in a Stroke of Luck

All is Love. All is Now.

by Jane Tawel

Morning Promises

Sea Shell Sagacity

Let Me Take Your Sorrow

The First Could Be The Last

My Blog’s Eight Years of Poems are Published

In Light and Dark, Out of the Garden, and On The Path

by Jane Tawel

It Will End, I’m Sad to Say

Much Ado About AI

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