Love – Page 4 – Jane Tawel

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.

And Let Me Catch Them Up

By Jane Tawel

And Let Me Catch Them Up

By Jane Tawel

July 21, 2023

And when I go,

Yes, when I rise,

Oh, if I rise

when leaving here,

then let my arms be strong and long.

And let me catch them up.

For all those folks,

for those I know and do not know,

who think they’ve found their own way,

I will not trouble my mind about them.

I will not stress

the parameters of my own very small soul

with questions about their destiny.

Especially for those who feel there are no questions left.

I’ll let them trust in what they trust,

and agree that they’ve found their own way.

But for my loves,

my own dear loves,

who have seen too many battles fought

by those who think they own The Way;

for my true loves, my own true loves,

who are scarred into inactivity,

demeaned into a frigid heat of bored anger

by those who put a price on Love,

Love, meant to be free to all;

Oh, for my loves, my precious pearls —

I do not ask You to change them, but —

Oh, my God, Oh, my God,

Oh, let me catch them up!

Oh, for the ones I hold so dear,

the ones I love,

love more than my own life,

and because in this strange and troubled Time,

I know my loves,

I know with the surety of old wounds,

that they are not sure

what this fresh blood can mean.

We live in uncertain times.

I know my loves and their doubts,

doubting that they have actually found their way,

no matter what they say.

I know their fears that going forward is not an option,

and not just the way of open-ended appeals.

I know my loves, who walk alongside,

with trepidation if there even is a Way.

Oh, for them,

I shall not depart from the narrow path,

even as I stumble and fall.

Oh, for them,

I shall blindly blunder forth,

even though the light is often fading.

Oh, for them I shall not claim I know anything,

anything but that only Love exists

and that only Love will remain.

Oh, for and with them —

I shall raise a fist of protest.

I shall raise an opened palm of supplication.

I shall raise a banner over them;

and my banner over them will be Love.

And I shall day and night, cry out —

at the gates of the cities,

at the shorelines of the oceans,

at the edges of dark woods,

at the embassies of the nations,

and to all living creatures

and to the sun, and moon and stars,

I shall cry:

“Oh, let me catch them up with me!

Let me grab onto a little finger,

or a strand of hair,

or grasp a big fat toe.

And let me hold their precious spirits close,

as I go on my Way (I hope to God)

and as The Way, (I pray) leads me on,

and further up and in,

I shall grab hold of them!”

And in that moment,

that final moment,

when all is changed forever and a day —

Oh, may my heart be huge enough,

my soul be meek enough,

my self be gone enough,

my fears and doubts be purged enough,

to carry just enough,

and just enough faith and grace

for all of us.

Oh, may my love and Your Love,

and all my foolish floundering,

but still straight-ish path-ed love of You,

may all of me,

regardless of how small and weak,

regardless of how much wondering and wandering

that still lies within and ahead of me,

may I be enough,

enough to carry them again, as once I did,

(or might have tried to do, if asked),

enough to carry them, as You have always carried me.

And may they not feel my arms,

but feel only Truth and Peace.

No matter what is,

or what will be,

of all we do not know now,

may Divine Embrace of hope and love

be enough for me,

enough for all of them.

And let me catch them up.

Oh, let me catch them up,

to rise,

and forever be,

caught up in The Great Dance.

Create a Space

by Jane Tawel

“Wide open space, taking it all in” by PeterThoeny is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Create a Space

By Jane Tawel

Juneteenth (June 19, 2023)

Take today,

just this moment, in fact, is all you need.

Take this moment

to create a new and empty space inside of you.

Do not fill it with all the crowding thoughts.

Leave a space that is bare

and tidy of all thought of things.

Create a space,

as naked as a baby ready to be cleansed,

naked of all your emotions.

Become unadorned.

Divest your very soul

of anything you think of as yourself.

Create an open space,

and leave it empty.

Leave a space that is free and open

to whatever Love may choose to fill it with.

And with Love within,

even within a very small, but clean and empty space,

you will find you are full-filled.

If-Only’s, What If’s, & Now

by Jane Tawel

“Doors” by robynejay is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

If-Only’s, What-if’s, and Now

By Jane Tawel

May 24, 2023

The “If-only’s” stuck inside

create a life-time of regret.

We become unaware

that we have created our own unhealthiness —

Re-gretting. Re-griefing.

Re-gurgitating.

And we bring it all back up,

again, and again,

like bile, like vomit,

like hiccups that never end.

We drink the dregs left from the past,

and our insides ache,

but we keep sucking it all down,

and spewing it all out again.

Like carbonated bubbles,

we keep burping back up past wrongs.

Heart-burn as choice.

We come close to letting go,

but step away,

as if the perfume of freedom,

freedom from the past,

is too heady a scent,

too strong to wear now.

We re-fuse to re-alize

that all of us must leave

the past at the altar.

Kick it to the curb.

Close the door.

Re-lease ourselves,

from the past,

once and for all.

If-only we could leave the past at the altar,

the altar where we forgive ourselves all,

in the same way we forgive others, all,

we would never look back.

We never would look back.

We can never re-turn,

but we can, with re-joicing, re-pent.

Repent! which is just another word

for turning around and turning a new leaf,

and turning out our pockets,

where we hoard past judgments.

We re-place the thoughts of yesterday,

With awareness and love of today.

We can stop.

We can re-fuse the refuse of the past,

in order to sit still,

to be,

in order to walk ahead.

Living with the “What-ifs”,

is not a life of hope;

it is a life of fear.

“What if this happens?” “What if I don’t — ?”

“What if she does — “ “What if they — “

“What if?”

Fear of tomorrow,

is a cornered animal,

a dream spent in anxiety

about the un-real.

And the fears

that multiply like choking weeds in my mind,

kill the living garden trying to grow

within me, today.

The worries pound,

like a headache at the door of my heart.

And I bring them all in,

“Make yourself at home.”

And they crowd in like an unruly mob,

fighting for my mind’s inattention.

Trying to gather the slippery slopes,

the thoughts of the future,

is like trying to grasp and hold on to

wisps of smoke.

I peer ahead, through the mists of what-ifs,

blinded by them to today;

they blind like smog, like fog.

Seeing but not seeing,

imagining but not knowing,

wishing but not hopeful.

My mind is a shimmering chimera,

real only to my doubts of what is true,

what is real and true, only in the now.

I look at what-ifs,

as if they exist,

but it is like drawing funny faces on a mirror,

faces without humor,

and I look at my reflections,

as if the reflections are myself

and not an image I have created out of lies,

for things that may never be,

are as much lies, as things that were then,

but are no longer now.

Only the present is Truth.

Why do I imbue the present time

with so little valued meaning?

Why do I keep my accounts from the past?

I have already paid them in full.

Why do I invest in days and hours

that might never be?

The soul cries to self:

“Rejoice! Today, you may yet live!”

Today waits for no man,

and yet it waits for my embrace.

Today’s possibility

stands knocking at the door of my life,

as truly as my heart knocks against my chest.

Spirit whispers, a still, small voice

that calms the storms of yesterday,

that blows away the cobwebs of yesterday,

that comforts the whimpering fears of tomorrow,

that sings to rest, all that should be laid to rest.

The Voice is not heard by the mind,

but speaks to our spirit, our hearts,

as only true feelings, true love,

can communicate:

“Behold, Love stands at the door and knocks.

If any one opens the door,

Love will come in to her, and they shall feast together —

eyes, ears, smell, touch, taste — feasting.

Present.

Being.

Loving.

And if any open the door,

Love will abide with you

and together,

right now,

you will find peace.”

Love is the Ocean. Jump in!

by Jane Tawel

Love is the Ocean. Jump In!

By Jane Tawel

May 19, 2023

They say in heaven there will be no more seas.

And I thought, “That would be a loss.”

Until I realized all Truth speaks metaphorically.

There is no need to see an ocean or a sea,

if you are in one.

There is no need to dip a toe in the waves,

if you are one.

Love (or God, whichever you prefer to call Her) —

Yes, whatever you want to call the Power of Life,

that which powers all Truth,

that which lives in all Living things,

that which loves all, because it eventually is All —

This force in life, this force in each of us,

calls us to live life fully,

freely,

truly,

joyfully,

completely,

whole-ly,

peacefully,

at One.

God-Love is not for someday-somewhere.

Love is for you today, and when you have love,

you can love. You are love.

When you become aware that you are only filled with love,

you become a wave

in the Ocean of Love.

A wave may ebb and flow,

but that is just a wave’s way of becoming something else,

of becoming something reborn,

as every drop of water does

when it is in The Ocean.

Every drop of Love becomes something else,

when it is in The Ocean of Love.

And so, nothing that is Love ever dies.

Everything that is born of Love remains;

love remains rebirthing as Love, forever.

Do not be afraid of jumping headlong into the Ocean of Love.

By loving yourself and others, you live in Heaven on Earth.

Jump in. God is Love. Jump in. The water’s fine.

Today heaven comes to earth,

not when we stand on the shore and look to some distant horizon,

but when we humbly and bravely acknowledge,

that we are loved. We are made only to be love.

And just as an Ocean can not exist without the waves,

so too, the waves do not exist

unless they are part of something greater than they are alone.

A wave is created in the image of an Ocean,

and we are created in the image of Love.

We can only be ourselves, when we love being ourselves.

Love yourself today; without you, there can be no Ocean.

And love all others, for they too, are waves, and without them,

there can be no Ocean.

Be a wave at One with all Life’s waves,

for the Ocean is the waves, and the waves are The Ocean.

We are but waves in the Ocean of Love,

and someday, even if we shall be no more,

The Ocean in which we live, shall remain,

Forever.

Someday, there will be no more seas to conquer, no ocean to fear,

no depths, nor heights of tides or time to scale or suffer.

Today we can enter into what will one day be only and all,

A Kingdom on earth as it is in Eternity, where only Love exists.

Jump in! Feet first! Hands out! Eyes open!

The Water is Good.

The Water will hold you.

Jump in with me.

And we shall have no need to watch the tides or times,

for we shall be as One,

eternal,

in the Ocean of Love.

Returning True Self to True God

A poem by Jane Tawel

“Primordial” by Patrick Gensel is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Returning True Self to True God

By Jane Tawel

May 4, 2023

I lie down in fear and awake in fear,

the fear of not being enough.

I stumble over the thoughts that trip,

the memories or doubts that trip me up.

And then I sit by my window sill

and quiet my mind and my wandering thoughts,

and then — of a sudden — my soul is stilled

and I close my eyes and open my ears

and the symphony of life in the trilling birds

returns my true self to me and true God.

We’ve made up so many false theories and prayers

about gods and their communications.

We fight for our gods for religions we’ve made.

We confuse our gods with our own nations.

We love to make gods who require so little,

or a god who’ll judge others with no chance of acquittal.

We’re so busy in judging our foes, friends and peers,

unforgiveness returns in our own hellish fears.

We believe in a God who will angrily choose

to send us to heaven or hell,

and we don’t see the life we are living right now

is already a hell or a heaven in which we now dwell.

Look around. Stop death’s fear.

Quiet down. God is near.

Be at peace. Don’t ask how.

God is Good. God is here.

God is now.

There’s a God Who’s as close as a song in the dawn,

as close as the stranger I meet.

There’s a true God, as present as our doubts and our hopes;

there’s a God Who’s alive in every heart-beat.

There’s a God Who is playful and full of deep joy.

There’s a God who is born anew in each girl and boy.

There’s a God who cares nothing for our theology,

for God’s too busy loving us — loving you, loving me.

There is not a God Who’s at a distance above.

There isn’t a God causing judgment or fear.

For how could that be? When God is only True Love?

For how could that be? When God is right here?

My thoughts go in circles and fearful formations,

when I think that I know or am knowing.

But if only I find peace and awe in creation,

then there’s only real Love to and from me that’s flowing.

The poet sang, “Be Thou my vision, Oh, God,

here, yes God, True God of my heart”.

Oh, Be Thou my ears and my hands and my eyes.

Be Thou within me today and tonight.

Be only Love in me, for me, and from me.

Be True Love only, for eternal life.

Be my True God, with no knowing required.

And may only my true self be God’s true heart’s desire.

Dust and Rain

by Jane Tawel

Dust and Rain

By Jane Tawel

February 24, 2023

Sitting here,

watching the birds in their feathered drab raincoats,

pick through the dust for worms.

The lovely, longed-for rain has come.

Yet I recall

that all and all is gone

or almost gone.

Faith fades like light in shallowed dusk.

And you have left,

and you and you and you.

And I will leave soon, too.

And this time, I will leave (I hope) for Good.

I’m sorry — please forgive me —

that I so little valued Time

and little valued you, and you, and you,

’til all, or almost all, were gone.

Oh, what are memories,

but fallow, shallow-laid dust?

Yes, we are but from dust

and to the dust shall we return.

And one can only hope,

The Wind will carry us.

Perhaps The Wind,

The Wind of rain and dust,

will carry us,

to land upon the future,

and sting some other’s eyes.

Perhaps my dust will settle down,

to meld with other dust,

and rain will form us into mud,

to nurture living things.

Or might my dust,

light softly on my dear ones’ heads,

as off they tread to the party,

to dance and laugh

and remember sometimes,

that though we are but dust,

Love is what we’re made of, too.

Some say it’s never over;

that one becomes one plus One

to equal more than just this particle of dust.

And some can bide their Time

until the ooze of Earth has passed,

and Time is blown into Eternity,

like so much dust.

And some can find a way,

to shape dust into clay,

and mold the hours of now

into something worthy of Love.

But I am just a little thing,

not much at all,

not more than just this speck.

And yet I have been loved.

And yet I have so loved.

I don’t know much of anything.

but for today,

as I sit here,

the lovely, lovely, needed rain,

will have to be enough.

** This past Wednesday I was able to partake in what for me is still one of the meaningful rites and “passages” in a lunar calendar, Ash Wednesday. This poem may have been inspired by the ancient teaching in the Genesis story and the beginning of profound humbling as to who we are and to what we can possibly hope for from a SomeOne/ Something that chooses to communicate to even dust. (Genesis 3:19: “And God said to Adam, from dust I created you and to dust you shall return.” )

And On It Goes

On the Road to Joshua Tree by Jane Tawel

And On It Goes

By Jane Tawel

January 20, 2023

And on it goes –

this life.

If you’re lucky.

And if you take

(and give and take),

well, then,

a little time

can go a long way.

There is nothing real,

nothing that exists,

that you do not create

for yourself,

but mostly that, and if,

you do create

for others.

All else is suffering.

Truth tells us truly,

that anything we make,

without love,

will never last longer,

than the span of our lives.

But all created

with love is eternal.

Today, be love.

Today, be eternal.

Be what you were created to be—

an image of Creator-Love.

Real. Here. Now.

Love.

Life.

Forever.

And on and on it goes.

Forgivin’ is Livin’

by Jane Tawel

“Fake Bird, Real Sky” by Daveography.ca is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Forgivin’ is Livin’

By Jane Tawel

November 19, 2022

Forgive my assumptions

that lead me to doubt

that You have guided and gifted me.

Forgive my forgetting

the times that pure Grace

was all that protected and lifted me.

Forgive my instructions

that force You to choose

whether Your will or my will is done.

Forgive me the most

for the things that I boast of

while neglecting it all came through grace.

And help me, today,

to walk in a New Way,

that one day, We may stand face to Face.

Forgive that I choose

to be lazy or greedy

and to live in a life based on fear.

May I do what is hardest,

and forgive me, Myself;

to stop looking outside me,

for there’s nothing to right me,

but the Love that’s inside me,

and has always been here.

Forgiving is freeing

You, you, and you.

Forgiving is seeing

that all that is True,

is Faith, Hope, and Love—

all the rest will be past,

and all that will last,

is whatever I’ve given

to bring to earth, Heaven.

Oh! “for-givin’” is livin’

in Eternity now.

“Go, now, your sins are forgiven. Which is harder to say? Your body is healed or your soul is healed? You have forgiven yourself in the same measure that you have forgiven others. Forgive yourself as We forgive you. Forgive, and Live.” (Paraphrased from The Wise One)

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A poem by Jane Tawel

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