Month: October 2017

IN THE FACE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

even when I preside
this matter of conducting business
troubles

words and more words
plus reflection
in place of action

called to be a community
exemplifying unity in love (Mark 9:50 and Ephesians 4:3-4)
yet how scattered we are
yet how often grieved

another report
to minute
for the archives

*   *   *

asked by a shining elder
“what are you willing to give up to follow a leading?”
I sputter

not my income
not my household
not my almanac

not again

yes, I’ve been trapped
waiting for the elusive breakthrough

*   *   *

waging peace calls for self-honesty
within
waging peace builds on moments
of rest and contentment
waging peace in the face of ambition

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set, click here.

SERIOUSLY SCORPIO

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Why wait for the dust to settle? Here are 10 bullets from my end.

~*~

  1. Am imagining evenings for violin and piano. How long since I’ve even picked up rosin and bow!
  2. A drive through a stretch I call the Black Forest can be quite amazing now. So luminescent, a golden-yellow tunnel of light.
  3. Indian Summer officially comes after the first killing frost. It’s almost scary.
  4. How much I feel myself a dilettante. A little of this, a little of that.
  5. The Big Question? (Questions! Yes, it’s questions!)
  6. It’s important to have a place to wind down, to fester, to percolate. To look at the messy side of your existence. (Nothing of that in a Frank Lloyd Wright home.)
  7. Reza Baraheni is the Iranian poet I heard read after his release from prison and torture. He warned that the alternative to the Shah would be even worse.
  8. My Mediterraneo poetry project had me reconsidering Greek and Roman mythology and then seeing that in contrast to theology. What strikes me is how convoluted it is, more than even Hindu cosmologies, and how anthropromorphic, down to the birthing or immortals slaying other immortals while frozen in time. How intricately it’s bound to a specific locale and its people. In contrast to the One Truth implicit in monotheism, i.e., science, the mythologies give us a cosmos that’s chaotic, ruled by caprice, fear, vengeance, conflicting deities as the source of human suffering. How do you find direction in such confusion?
  9. A neighbor’s 2 1/2-foot iguana is on the loose, according to the poster on the telephone pole. There’s a $100 reward.
  10. You don’t shoot your own troops. Not if you want to win. Otherwise, there’s every reason to mutiny.

~*~

Along the Community Trail through Dover.
Along the Community Trail through Dover.

 

Just in case you were looking for red.
Just in case you were looking for red.

 

MY VIEW FROM THE TOP OF THE BARN

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments
Some maples are red and others bright yellow. Either one can catch my breath.
Some maples are red and others bright yellow. Either one can catch my breath.

 

October is one of my favorite times for sitting and working in the loft of the barn. The sun no longer turns its air intolerably stuffy but rather adds some welcome comfort. I can still leave the loft door open for natural light and fresh air, if I want. And just look what’s happening around me!

 

Our season of outdoor dining is just about ended.
Our season of outdoor dining is just about ended.

FIELD GUIDE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

When you walk into the expanse, keep going. Maybe you’ll meet a dwarf at creekside. Maybe a bear. If you do, you must speak respectfully and listen closely to the reply. Even if they call you a yokel, as Kokopelli did.

~*~

A dust storm — sandstorm — and they close the highway.

You must wait. Cover your mouth and eyes.

~*~

On high ridges, bachelor Basque shepherds follow their flocks all summer. Each one and his dogs rarely encounter anyone who speaks Human.

~*~

Wilderness is about clouds, too.

Now what were you dreaming?

~*~

Guides do appear. Sometimes among fellow practitioners. Maybe even your landlord. Or Kokopelli.

~*~

“Who’s standing on my head?” a totem pole figure wonders.

Just like a typical office.

~*~

Blinking in my field of karma, the reminder:

PENDULUM
swinging
back
winter
NIGHTFALL

It’s not the first time.

Be faithful and wait.

~*~

Sometimes a lover becomes a place you want to enter.

Sometimes one’s the space the other envelops.

~*~

Where would I have been without her in that desolate expanse?

~*~

For more insights from the American Far West and Kokopelli, click here.

TRIANGLE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

the pack, as in cards or dogs
or the one after

Enigma Variations but it’s snowing
and there are no birds

finally, a female
cardinal

teapot and cup
beside a four-poster bed
with the long shadows of sunrise
on a plank floor

I love you truly madly deeply

mountain laurel and a Cigar Store Indian
unpainted carved wood

this relationship has changed

four State Supreme Court Justices, their backs together

a Portuguese woman
walking the beach with a TV set balanced atop her head
as the husband waves

leathery kelp as “cloven tongues”

the orderly farm in the Shenandoah overshadowed by two tall silos

nine pitchforks hanging in three rows in a shed
with two gasoline cans and four spades
on tool pegs

a map of Sturbridge Village

a pack of poets or painters or ex-lovers or actors or dancers
could be a loaded deck, all right, shuffled together
4-EVA

at the Hague, then Edinburgh
in the burning letters, her third line
how flat, stretched out under the sun

“Your crimsoning lips”

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of Partitas, click here.

MORE THAN A QUESTION OF IDENTITY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

What would you be if you weren’t Quaker?

I usually pose it in terms of religious affiliation, skirting the bigger issue of what we’d be without that particular spiritual discipline and nurture.

The question often illuminates an individual’s leanings within the Society of Friends, and it’s one that can be telling in many other denominations as well.

Many of us come to where we are from other religious traditions, and even among Christians the variations can be vast. And then there are yogis of all stripes, Buddhists, Native practices, arcane and pagan seekers, non-theists, agnostics, and much more. Neo-Muggletonians, anyone?

Some Quakers are very drawn to the social activist side of our community; others, the meditative worship. Some are quite Biblical; others, anything but. (Shall we mention the Gospel of NPR?) And that’s before we get to the full spectrum of today’s Friends, from ultra-univeralist to evangelical to alternative Christian to, well, we’re all over the map. And yes, many of us do miss music in our worship.

Continue reading “MORE THAN A QUESTION OF IDENTITY” →

LATE AFTERNOON AUTUMN SUN

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

1

180-degree
sweep of ocean
seen from a cliff

great slow curve
of our planet

eight vessels
are barely
specks on this expanse

two seals so close
Rachel observes their features

“here I am”
the great breaking surf

2

toddler tracks
bird tracks
out for the show

car tires
looping over bicycle
beside shoe
gull, dog, and mouse
imprints in sand
leaving the parking lot

everybody’s
been to the beach

parasailing / surfing
weekend

3

Juan skirts New England
slams New Brunswick as a tropical storm

a danger of frost on Thursday
or we may be spared

by our proximity to the sea

4

moonlight

couples
entwined
on sand

man, we’re getting older, America
still ill-at-ease in this dwelling

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of seacoast poems, click here.

RECOVERING WHAT HAD BEEN LEFT UNSAID

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Decades ago, faced with a question of just what Friends believe, I embarked on an exploration that might provide a more inclusive answer than “Some believe this …” or “Most do that …”

To the surprise of many, the Religious Society of Friends does have a rich underlying theology, one so radical our First Publishers of Truth (one of the original names for the Quaker movement) couldn’t voice it in its fullness in the earliest years before settling into a system of practice rather than fully pursuing its intellectual implications.

Call it an alternative Christianity if you will, but even Friends need to understand its dimensions.

~*~

For more, check out my essays, Religion Turned Upside Down.

DEAR CROSSINGS … WHERE THEY WILL

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

The mind dances here and there, rarely in a linear fashion. So what’s on my mind these days? How about counting on these fingers?

~*~

  1. So strange to awaken with no agenda for the day, no pressing project at hand. To return abed, with coffee. Not that this is normal, by any stretch of the imagination.
  2. My big dream for financial liberation: HAWAIIAN SWEATERS. In northern climates like ours, the popular Hawaiian shirts have about a six-week span of usefulness. But with long sleeves and sufficient heft, their colorful designs just might be welcome for leisure wear the rest of the year. Think of skiing or ice skating or sitting beside the fire. Let me know if you’re interested in investing.
  3. On my way home the other day, had to brake for deer on each side of the road. And then? Such large ears!
  4. Am seeing so many of my literary work turning into history – despite their contemporary focus.
  5. “You write where your soul is” (says Ernest J. Gaines). Not necessarily where your body is.
  6. A long procession – parade – of panel trucks, tractor rigs, pickups – was headed by a hearse. I still don’t know the story.
  7. The Provost’s Wife is quite a character, famous for her parties.
  8. When I’m involved in a project, just plain STOPPING is difficult.
  9. The ocean’s turned wild, restless, throwing big sprays. I’d never be viewing this had that lover returned. Nor would I have written anything of what I have since she left. Seems altogether fitting.
  10. As another said, “Things are slow when it rains.”

~*~

The Ogunquit Art Museum hosts some impressive shows but is open only part of each year.
The Ogunquit Art Museum hosts some impressive shows but is open only part of each year.

 

The central gallery looks out over Perkins Cove, where major artists painted some iconic coastal Maine images in the years before the museum was built.
The central gallery looks out over Perkins Cove, where major artists painted some iconic coastal Maine images in the years before the museum was built.

 

Care to step outdoors?
Care to step outdoors?