Tag: Inspiration

SO THIS IS THE GOOD LIFE?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

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

~*~

  1. Is anything more relaxing than sitting in front of a wood fire? Even when it means sitting on the floor?
  2. Gift-buying husbands? Just look! As she says, they’re subjected to indentured shop-itude.
  3. First day of winter and the flannel sheets should be on the bed by now, if not earlier. Flip the mattress and rotate, too.
  4. Our traditional Christmas dinner includes fresh homegrown Brussels sprouts, which means I’m out in the garden harvesting – sometimes in several feet of snow. Likewise with kale and chard: frost improves the flavor.
  5. Let me suggest Mary, as the mother of the church … a slightly different twist on the Nativity story.
  6. For someone who’s lived under relentless deadlines, Christmas itself can be seen as another damn deadline. Or series of deadlines. This year, I think I’m ahead.
  7. Still, I’m deeply grateful for the sense of release – notes, poems, correspondence … the logjam broken … now that the poems and novels are available.
  8. Grandfathers have grandfathers too. In case you’re in one of those inner-child perspectives.
  9. What are the theological dimensions of Alzheimer’s or dimentia? Where are the connections – the response ability – when your story gets so fragmented you’re no longer connected to anything you encounter?
  10. Tell me something true.

~*~

Our own holly, in front of the house.
Our own holly, in front of the house.

SHELLS UNDER THE RIGGING

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

fingers stiff, numb
on ice-encased rigging

any fire in the hull
a hazard

tend the footing, Jack,
and stay dry, if you can

steering around the storm

*   *   *

hell comes without
flame
without smoke
under the prow

*   *   *

impressed
by chance misfortune

or the flight from somebody
gone astray

rolled together, creaking
skin to crab shell

all the same
lost, for the cold duration

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

AND HAVE A GOOD DAY?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

In the early days of Friends, they’d often greet each other with the question, “How does Truth prosper among you?” Not “How are you doing?” or even “Good morning.”

Strikes modern ears as puzzling, even problematic, beginning with that verb prosper, which we tend to consider along financial terms rather than thrive or even proliferate. Equally unfamiliar is the idea of Truth being active – alive – rather than static and unchanging.

To further thicken the plot, consider their linkage of Truth and Christ, so the question also asks, “How is Christ alive among you?”

How would you answer that!

~*~

For more along these lines, take a look at Religion Turned Upside Down.

 

YES AND YET

~ 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. She’s big on Christmas traditions, including our observing Advent these days. I’m still surprised she inherited none of it in her family! Created it like a radical quilt. Makes this array all the more remarkable, from my perspective.
  2. Slush on the windshield. Ice underfoot.
  3. Winter’s setting in, though I’m already tired of it.
  4. The earliest sunsets of the year have plateau’d and are already inching back in my part of the world. The oppressive late-afternoon darkness will soon be obviously relenting. We don’t wait for the solstice.
  5. I like the Eastern Orthodox insight of Mary as the Mother of Light.
  6. In reality, I hate being the caretaker, responsible one, cleaner-upper, put-awayer. Contrary to my self-image.
  7. It’s been a long road to here. Sometimes it feels like a hangover.
  8. In working a seasonal job, she has a curious freedom in not having to worry about being fired, losing the mortgage, and so on. Just put the hours in and go home.
  9. Whatever happened to my collection of winter scarves? (As if I really need to ask.)
  10. Authenticity: something that speaks to the bones.

~*~

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Brussels sprouts are one of our crops that taste sweeter after surviving a good frost. We’re known to harvest some for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, and that can mean having to dig them out from the snow. One year required us to shovel more than two feet down.

REVELATION, BEGINNING WITH GROUNDHOG’S DAY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

BEING SINGLE AND without children for much of my adult life, I could get around Christmas without getting caught up in many of its trappings. One year, getting my holiday greetings out late, I launched my annual letter with “A happy Ground Hog’s Day to thee.”

That’s particular calendar date had seemed so weird, until I discovered there are “solar seasons” as well as the ones our calendars show. In solar winter, for instance, the solstice comes at the middle of the season, rather than the beginning; so Christmas would be right around the middle of solar winter, even though it’s at the beginning of the calendar winter. Why does my brain ever go into these bizarre leaps? Oh well, as long as we’re at it: If my calculations are right, Ground Hog’s day comes at the end of solar winter. Follow that? In other words, as far as the amount of sunlight falling on the Earth is concerned, winter is over, even if we wind up getting another six weeks or so of cold and snowy weather, right up to the vernal equinox. So what I really began asking was whether Punxsutawney Phil, the official ground hog those Pennsylvanians in tuxedos and stovepipe hats bring out every year, is stuffed or live. He sure looks stuffed in the official portrait the wire services move, but what do I know? One of my coworkers, who has witnessed the event, claims it’s a living critter.

Awareness of solar seasons puts other events into perspective. Halloween, for instance, acknowledges the beginning of solar winter. May Day brings solar summer. The Midsummer’s Day or Night, ostensibly announcing the beginning of calendar summer, really does come at solar midsummer. The beginning of August is the invisible event in our awareness.

(Neo-Pagans, incidentally, put their own significance into this alternative alignment of seasons.)

Dwelling in northern New England, as I do, presents another awareness of seasons. They are not evenly divided across the year, as a calendar would do, but are instead of unequal duration. Winter, for instance, begins around Halloween and lingers until the beginning of April – five months, rather than three. Summer, on the other hand, opens around the Fourth of July and ends by mid-August – all of a month and a half. That leaves three months for spring and two-and-a-half months for autumn. Within that there are other divisions. Winter, for example, ends with Mud Season, Black-Fly Season, and Mosquito Season. Or some Mainers see the year as Freezin’ Season, Black-Fly Season, and Road Construction Season.

It’s easy to make the leap to the emotional dimension of the seasons. Skiers and ice fishermen can view deep winter with their own appreciation. I revel in the glorious mutations of October foliage, while another friend dreads its appearance, knowing all too well the gloom that will follow.

Some creatures, of course, will hibernate.

~*~

For more Seasons of the Spirit, click here.

NOTING A GLINT OR TWO

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

These field notes from religious aspiration and practice spring from a muse of fire. As much as Dr. Bronner’s bottle-label diatribes arose from a splash of water, at least when we read them, usually while showering or bathing.

A brief flash. Something that sparkles or shimmers. A half-seen motion, perhaps recollected later. Illumination. A beacon. A guide. A break in the night. Sometimes, this is something even the blind perceive. A word of truth. Prophecy or healing. A vision of eternal mysteries. A star or hint of coming dawn. And then, as James Nayler instructed: “And as thou followest the light out of the world, thou wilt come to see the seed, which to the world’s wisdom and glory is crucified” (Journal, 349). Everything is transformed and made new. Mind the Light.

 

~*~

DEVOLUTION AND RESURRECTION

Tat Ekam
that one thing

prakriti, pra = before
or kriti, creation
a sutra is only a note / a stitch / a knot

Wading into holy waters

to sink or be overwhelmed
decades later,

thunder
within
silence

returning to art
“keeps my feet on the ground”
carving wood and marble, “It’s so smooth”

these steps leading down to the water
in the sense water
is always below you
unless, that is, you’re in
up to your neck, as it were
some calm other than drowning

“We’re descended from lower-level gods
who mated with apes.”

Now outraged at other deities

next, we’ll encounter human brains
in tigers prowling along the street
all thanks to science.

Mine owners will be confined to the lands they’ve debauched / despoiled.
The Hidden Way –
Sometimes it’s Tao
Sometimes, passion
Sometimes, only a sunset
Or fog lifting

The saved love letters
become curled, black crumbling leaves
falling from the fire.

to UNBURDEN
AND MAKE NEW

first, burn all of the out-dated financial records,
then all of the old passionate drivel

that is, to MAKE FEW

as the Hidden Way
Is the route that opened
Through Glint’s own sea of reeds

Parting, at the base of mountains
she’s come through

a prayer of the earth, actually, of Seed
clearing, recentering

LIFT JESUS HIGHER

painted at the top
of a barn roof

Poem copyright 2017 by Jnana Hodson
For more, click here.

Poetry
Poetry

MUTED WITNESS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

best known for our anti-war witness
we could do much more
individually and together
to summon others
to transcendental worship

*   *   *

if we hesitate to strip naked or don sackcloth
to march brazenly into parking lots
and through malls
or the courthouse
or legislature
to proclaim Truth

to those who reach for a Budweiser
the first thing
1st-Day morning
or so passionately decry anything
smacking of religion or church

how else do we extend the welcome?
maybe we’re just getting old
or sedate
or muffling passion

this is more important
than placing a notice
in the paper or a line in the phone book
if anyone remembers

*   *   *

there’s no invitation
without an address
or sign
or billowing aromatic
celebration
made visible

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

UNCOVERING THE PLACE OF STRUGGLE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In his Pendle Hill pamphlet last year, Marking the Quaker Path: Seven Key Words Plus One, Robert Griswold opens with the term “condition,” which initially seems familiar enough. Quakers often remark to a comment, “This speaks to my condition,” or even “the Friend speaks my mind,” conveying a sense of unity and affirmation.

Griswold, though, gives the concept a darker twist, noting that a meaningful spiritual journey requires seeing ourselves in our places of failure and weakness rather than a state of “being in charge,” as we so often do. Think of Anne Lamott’s “three essential prayers” — Help, Thanks, and Wow — and admit a long personal list invoking the first.

I would extend that awareness of condition not just to ourselves individually but to our families and circles of faith and then the wider society. I’d say there’s great need everywhere.

This, then, leads to the subsequent steps where we turn to the Holy One and our kindred spirits for direction and growth.

Curiously, condition is not a word I find used widely in either Scripture or early Quaker literature – not directly, that is – but it does fit the situation of many people as they set out in faith as recorded in both.

Could it be that in many of our religious circles, we’ve been running away from this very difficult but essential challenge? We go to worship looking for rest and renewal, not more turmoil and suffering.

O, Lord, give us strength!

~*~

More of my own reflections on alternative Christianity are found at Religion Turned Upside Down.

IS THIS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Being mindful of what’s right in front of us can always be a challenge. Here are 10 new items from my end.

~*~

  1. Hard to think Christmas is so near. It’s just not in the air, at least for me, despite the bell ringers and carols around the stores. But then I’m often off on another planet.
  2. I always intend to put up our outdoor Christmas lights while it’s still warm. Rather than freezing my fingers.
  3. I’ve long said if she would only dance, she’d be perfect. OK, there are few other details I’d add, all these years later. Learning to read music, for one.
  4. Another old fear? If you get to know me, you won’t like me. Or maybe: You won’t like what you find. (That muscular reaction when someone gets too physically close in a conversation.
  5. I seldom I feel myself fitting in – in a crowd, an audience, a group, a family.
  6. NOT THE USUAL … one of my strictures in my desire not to repeat myself in blogging. Or anywhere else, for that matter. Not that I usually remember.
  7. I miss being able to get the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts on local radio. These days I have to listen on my laptop or cell phone. Just ain’t the same.
  8. In a depression.: Do I really LIKE anyone? Being with them? Am I having ANY fun?
  9. Well, I am drinking Virgin Marys during Advent. (Cheers in the morning!)
  10. You were supposed to save me.

~*~

Yes, light snow counts.
Yes, light snow counts. We know what just might be really ahead.

HOW THE STREAMS CAME TO THE SEA

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I come to the sea a stranger
a person of a different religion
learning to eat at one table

these days, one who dwells inland
as far as the tide retreats

the passion of the moon
with its heartbeat and home and
those who have been torn and uprooted
will sense this

no image holds the tide
the moon, then, must do

somehow resembling the moon I knew first in Ohio
and later, in sagebrush desert

all things who move furtively in the night

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