Pause for beauty… Pause for Joy… Allow life to delight you…
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martha’s vineyard
Summer on the Vineyard is blue oceans, sunsets and sand, of course!
But also trees laden with peaches,
water lilies congregating on hidden inner ponds,
and a multitude of other glorious things.
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Questions
I would like to lean with you on a dune
overlooking the voluptuous sea, and ask
what wind called you to this place?
Was it hunger, or a song?
What are the worlds you left behind?
Have you ever known a paradise?
Could you tell it to me now?
What pleasures do you count living here?
What foods are most delicious,
what aromas most divine?
How do you prefer the shape of the moon?
Do the seasons hold equal beauty,
is there one you favor more?
Who did you trust
riding through your tender years?
Do you envy the bliss of others,
or long for it,
equal to your own?
What do you court, worship,
gather to hold dear?
In my mind I’d like to kiss you,
but I’d ask these questions first.
~Ingrid Goff-Maidoff
from the Chapbook of Poems,
CALLING FORTH THE RICHES
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E.B. White said, “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” Do you have similar desires tugging at you every morning? I desire simplicity AND celebration; working with passion AND time with my family; to give And to receive. Although I am not convinced I can improve the world, I do want to pour forth blessings, beauty, and love into it, and I want to continue to determine how to keep my own burden upon it small.
Sometimes I find a halting duality in my desires, when I fall into either/or thinking: improve OR enjoy, simplicity OR celebration, work OR play. Then it is hard to plan the day. I am saved often by the reminder of Both/And. I may both work and play, both improve and enjoy, both give and receive.
I offer these quotations from my Happiness book of quotations, published by Andrews McMeel, coupled with these friendly pictures of a goat at North Tabor Farm. I love goats. I love their full embodiment of humility and playfulness, enthusiasm and curiosity. They do not seem torn between the desires to improve or enjoy- they simply enjoy.
Live in each season as it passes;
breathe the air,
drink the drink,
taste the fruit.
~Henry David Thoreau
Mix a little foolishness
in with your serious plans.
It is lovely to be silly at the right moment.
~Horace
The burden of self is lightened
when I laugh at myself.
~Rabindranath Tagore
The car has broken down,
my love is far away.
My bones feel weary,
and my mind is tired.
Still, I can say with joy
that happiness remains.
~Ingrid Goff-Maidoff
Dwell as near as possible
to the channel in which your life flows.
~Henry David Thoreau
It is the simple things in life that make living worthwhile,
the sweet fundamental things
such as love and duty, work and rest, and
living close to nature. ~Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Infinite Goodness has such wide arms,
it takes everyone that turns to it.
~Dante
Such blessings we receive,
such gifts of grace!
If we have wandered
from the path of gladness,
point us back to Life!
~Ingrid Goff-Maidoff
The journey is the reward.
~Chinese Proverb
If only we’d stop trying to be happy~
we’d have a pretty good time.
~Edith Wharton
Be happy. It’s one way of being wise.
~Colette
The big question is whether you are going to be able
to say a hearty “yes!” to your adventure.
~Joseph Campbell
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Here’s a shy invitation…! Dan Waters is hosting poets who write songs at Che’s Lounge on Wednesday night. (June 17th 7:30) I’m in the line-up, along with Dan, Justen Ahren, Richard Skidmore, and Michael West. In spite of my past life as a singer/songwriter, I haven’t sung out in at least five years- or written a song. I almost thought that door was closed - until last week, when three songs came knocking. If you’re looking for evening entertainment, come by! Che’s is all fixed up, with a beautiful garden, a fountain, new coffee, tea and treats.
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To wander on Wednesdays;
To sit quietly
by the shoreline of stillness;
To drop my mind down
below the surface chatter -
The radio waves of thought
and their compulsive agitations:
The insult channel; the gossip channel;
the channel of panic and confusion.
To drop down into the
deep quiet from which
all wisdom comes.
To rest in awareness
of all that is here.
I do not long for more projects
or lists,
No more doing
or ideas for doing.
I only want this.
This.
The holy embrace of the day.
~Ingrid
(Special thanks to my dear friend Lori, who helped me take out my schedule and block out this time. Tell me friends, how do you make time and space for stillness, contentment, for belonging and for love?)
~
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(This is a poem on keeping the faith; the deep presence of Joy; of the promise of day which follows night, and spring which follows winter. Sometimes I wonder of this recession: will people still buy my poems? And then I entertain the happy thought that perhaps this recession will make poets of us all… we’ll learn to find the hidden riches in our surroundings, in each other and in our hearts.)
Joy Lives
Like a Jonquil in winter,
just beneath the surface
and still very alive.
Invisible sometimes, yes~
here memory assists
(of a pitcher filled with
sunny blooms
on the old farm kitchen table.)
Inaudible, maybe, yes…
we supply our own song.
And then, as promised, yes,
full fragrance, color, light
rise through the pregnant darkness,
lifting higher into Yes.
Joy lives, poised
in all that is possible, yes,
and the sweet splendor of the now.
That is to say, oh yes
here and forever-more.
Ingrid Goff-Maidoff
from the Chapbook, CALLING FORTH THE RICHES
also found in Joy, Light, Beautiful Wisdom
& THE JOY BOOK
Ingrid Goff-Maidoff lives with her husband
and two daughters on the island of Martha’s Vineyard.
She is the author of over a dozen books of poetry and inspiration.
Her work appears in numerous national anthologies.
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The weather warmed on Wednesday, which brought on my favorite kind of fever- spring fever- a kind of moon lunacy mixed with sun-soonacy. I had an ecstatic walk at Lucy Vincent, behind the cliffs and along the beach.
I took these pictures to share. Wishing you warmth, wonder, walks, and deep breaths of fresh air! Love, Ingrid
A dear friend sent me this prayer in a chain letter. I enclose it here for all of you. I don’t know its origin.
‘May today there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you . May you be content with yourself just the way you are.
Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us.’
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My daughter Rose and I met up with my parents for a chilly walk on Lucy Vincent Sunday afternoon. At the entrance to the beach, we met an acquaintance who had recently lost his wife to cancer. “May I join you?” he asked, “I’m lonely.” Something about his honesty put us all at ease. He said his wife had painted many pictures of this beach, and that he was surrounded by her art and jealous of the pieces that were sold. It was as if he still longed to gather every last fragment of her and hold them near. My heart ached a little, and opened.
He asked what I had been doing. “Plodding along,” I said, instantly kicking myself. Plodding along?! What is that? This man would have understood better than many how I had felt myself coming into the winter season with an intense need for pleasure and for rest. He would have understood my excitement at reading that the word “SAVOR” is from the Latin root for wisdom.
That is what I mean to do: to savor the slow and smokey winter sweetness of my days- to look mindfully at the details with gratitude and appreciation and perhaps even a poet’s eye; to breathe of them whole-heartedly; to drink them fully; to hold my family close; to practice beauty- the love of it if not the manufacture.
At home, the door, simple objects, all took on a new luminosity.
And the sun reached in across a kitchen counter, illuminating our abundance: onions, coffee, winter squash…
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Tea Lane Farm, Middle Road
Poem: …And I dreamed
…and I dreamed
of timelessness and pleasure~
amorous companions
in an eternal embrace.
Each a hollow wind
without the other.
…and as the sun pushed up
beyond the trees,
I felt myself longing
not to arise
in the usual way.
And so I lingered for a while
within the dream
and wondered how to pull its song
like mist into the morning…
~Ingrid
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