It is such a blessing to live in a beautiful place- I am ever thankful, and happy to share these snapshots with you.
“To find one’s center- to become centered in the infinite,
is the first great essential of every satisfactory life.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
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I wrote this song many years ago shortly after having a miscarriage. The day of the loss, Jonah and I drove out to Lucy Vincent and sat on a rock, watching and listening to the waves come in. While the ocean couldn’t explain for us why, or what for, we did find its presence comforting.
The Infinite
The Infinite is my Beloved,
this ocean is my reminder.
And I’ve walked this shore restless,
near a thousand times,
my head full of measurements, my soul divided.
The green waves that rush in and back again,
wind in the dune grass, million grains of sand,
crickets at dusk, stars in the night sky,
all call me back to my love.
They sing, “You are not the sum of your suffering,
you are not all that you have done.
you are not even the thoughts that you think.
You and we are one.”
When I bring my sadness to the sea,
and I look to the horizon.
From where I stand to eternity,
everything’s so beautiful.
~Ingrid Goff-Maidoff
From the album, Savor The Days
On my way to vote this morning, I stopped by Lucy Vincent Beach. It was serenely beautiful, with the most gentle waves caressing the shore. I invite you to watch this video, and imagine the fretting of your mind being soothed, and your natural well-being restored. It works for me!
The Tug of Autumn
At noon I stood in stillness
amidst a cathedral of browning oaks~
chin up, mouth agape, watching
leaves languish from the trees.
It was raining and the tug of autumn
was surely here.
I would like to be wiser, calmer,
more at home in the world.
I’d like to give my days
the delighted artfulness
of courtship, merging, lingering,
bearing witness, offering praise.
I want to hold what holds us.
~Ingrid Goff-Maidoff
Lately I’ve been considering this question from the Zen poet Ryokan, “If you point your cart north when you want to go south, how will you arrive?” I think I might do this often- second guessing myself, my deepest calling- trading in the inconceivable for the conceivable, which is often too small. Does this ever happen to you?
I’ve been doing a bit of walking lately, and asking myself some good hard questions, like “Is it God I converse with on my trail, or my own wide and mysterious life?” and “Is it a visitation I wait and long for, or the awakening of an awareness?” Must a distinction be made? Must I choose? Could it be both/and?
These kinds of questions prompt two desires: the first is to escape into the arms of a lovely sleep. And the second is to lean into the mystery, and see how I am held.
~~~~~~~
I wrote the above poem as I was beginning to feel a new energy flow into my life. Rose has been away at college for a few weeks, and I must admit I built much of my world around her (and Jonah and Bella.) As with a break-up or separation, it’s quite an unravelling- quite an adjustment in the Mothering journey to have a child venture from the nest. She seems to be doing very well. And I am doing much better. In the first week I was surprised by how I would be overcome with emotion at any moment. There was no sense in repressing this- it felt very necessary and life affirming to let it move through my body. With the poem below, I invite you- I offer tender permission- to let some of your own sorrows out.
WOMEN’S RETREAT ON MARTHA’S VINEYARD ~ November 12-14th 2010
If you are longing for a weekend of renewal, refreshment, inquiry, sisterhood, and a lot of wonderfulness in between, check out this women’s retreat that I will be co-facilitating with Anne Colangeli and MJ Bindu Delekta. We will gather at MJ’s Sacred Circle of Yoga, and allow the weekend to unfold as it will, depending on what our hearts yearn for.
Connect to your deepest self through yoga, poetry, laughter, play and relaxation…
Life has Loveliness to Sell song and slide show ~ This is a pretty Sarah Teasdale poem which I sang on my album Savor the Days. I used pictures from my blog, mostly of the Vineyard, for the slide show.
