Tarot’s Not the Only Guidance Out There

“Learning to Pray”
taken from Treasury of Prayer: Prayers of Hope and Faith

by Marjorie Holmes

You know, Lord, how well You know, the years when I didn’t pray (or didn’t think I prayed). How could I pray to someone whose very existence I doubted? How could I ask for help from a force I spurned?
Yet all the while I was hungering for You, groping to find Your hand as I stumbled in the darkness of my needs . . . “If I could pray,” I thought. “If I could only learn to pray.”
But I felt foolish when I tried; I felt phony, insincere. My doubts seemed to rise up like a mockery between us. And You knew my follies and faults all too well. My tongue was inarticulate – it winced to form the words. My own self-scorn made me impotent, dumb.
I would get up from my fumbling so called prayers with an empty heart, feeling rejected, turned away. (Was there some secret rubric others had discovered? Some key that would make the heavens open, unlock the special doors?)

I was wrong. In a while, maybe from sheer persistence, something began to happen within me. A sense of being accepted, however unworthy. (no -not merely accepted, welcome, welcomed home!) And the deep excited stirrings of trust in a power I could not see.

Then I went to the formula You gave in the Sermon on the Mount.
“Our Father who are in heaven.” How kind that seems. “Hallowed be Thy name.” The gentle beginnings of worship . . .

“Thy kingdom come” (within me). “Thy will be done” (take over my life, I”m not doing so well) “on earth as it is in heaven.” (I like this earth. I don’t know about heaven, but it must be a wonderful place.)

“Give us this day our daily bread” (just enough for today, Lord, enough time and money and strength to get through this one day) . . . “and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive” (are my trespasses blocking the road to You? and my lack of forgiveness for those who’ve hurt me?).

“Lead us not into temptation” (this I don’t understand – You couldn’t, You wouldn’t – just hang on to me when I am tempted, give me the will not to yield). “Deliver us from evil” (yes, yes, that’s what I mean – deliverance).

 “For Thine is the power and the glory forever and ever.” (It is, it is, it hast to be, and the more often I admit it, express it, the more I know it’s true!)
So in this way I began to get deliverance, Lord. The deliverance I sought. From self-doubt, which was so deeply enmeshed with my doubts of You.

And to learn the fundamentals of prayer: worship, submission, acceptance, plea, and then more worship to seal it. And I began to know then as I realize now that worship itself is the key. The magic key. Prayer brings You close when we come not merely seeking help, but because we want to be with You.

***

“Prayer of Praise”
by Saint Augustine

But let my soul praise Thee that it may love Thee,
And let it tell Thee Thy mercies that it may praise Thee.
Without ceasing Thy whole creation speaks Thy praise-
The spirit of every man by the words that his mouth directs to Thee,
Animals and lifeless matter by the mouth of those who look upon them.
That so our soul rises out of its mortal weariness unto Thee,
Helped upward by the things Thou hast made
And passing beyond them unto Thee who has wonderfully made them:
And there refreshment is and strength unfailing. Amen.

Grandfather Tree

wonderful way to start my morning, Thank you to Cheryl Mary Coleman for providing!

Expressions

This poem is about an Australian eucalyptus gum tree that I call Grandfather Tree.  I live but a stones throw away and am greeted each morning by the sun rising through the limbs of this great tree as it peeps over our garden wall.

This magnificent old tree (which must be at least 200 years of age) is all that is left in our immediate area of the Gnangara Forest.   This is being slowly cleared and decimated to allow for homes like ours, which is extremely sad.  The tree is now a focal point of the local park surrounded by a small area of natural bush,  where families gather to play and walk their dogs.

Whilst walking my black Labrador Jet, around the park he darted off into the bush, and so following him under the canopy of the trees arrived at the huge base of Grandfather Tree.  I decided to sit…

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Full Moon July 2018

from Mystic Mamma

TOTAL LUNAR ECLIPSE *Full Moon* in AquariusWhat is the salve that will soothe our wounds and calm our beating heart?The Mother. The great Mother of the Universe. The Mother of Creation, The Mother of us all. The Mother, the Mother, the Mother.We turn towards Great Mother Energy and it is her energy that heals us. It is her love that soothes us. It is She who brings us into her bosom and reminds us that we are not forgotten. That we are not forsaken. That we are loved by her. That she sees us and knows who we are. That she holds us through and through. This is the message that comes through. This is the message that resonates throughout the cosmos. Yes, the intensity we are feeling is real, but we are not here to amplify that. Let’s instead invoke the healing Mother energy in the world and allow it to nurture us on the deepest levels. Allow her energy to flow into our heart, soothe our muscles and nervous system, cleanse and purify our minds, and calm our beating hearts. “What the world needs now is love sweet love.” There is so much bubbling up from the depths with a particular focus on the shadow side of the Masculine energy with each of us and within society at large. Personally and collectively we are seeing where it needs healing. There is a lot of planetary activation happening around this, so let’s be mindful with aggression and reactivity. Take deep breaths, be patient and remember we are all feeling it and dealing with it in in our our way. This Total Lunar Eclipse *Full Moon* in Aquarius will be visible in much of Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa and South America. As you might have heard, this will be the longest Eclipse in the 21st Century with the Totality lasting 103 minutes. Through this darkness we will be shifting our assemblage points to realign who we are through space and time, in this space and in this time. Time to take a look inside to see. We hold the key. Love, love love~ MM

A letter to my rock-bottom

“Rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”
– J.K. Rowling

(taken from OJ’s Prides’ “We Strive to Thrive in Life” post

kuthu comma

Dear rock-bottom,

You have been taunting me for the past few years. You are using all your dirty tricks upon me. You hit me in my face and you pull apart my life like no one ever did. You just wanted to broke me financially,mentally, spiritually and socially. You hit me hard in all of my weakest places. You gripped your vices on me , you tried to take away my happiness, my dreams and my hopes.

I know why you are so merciless to everyone. Because people curse you, hate you and they wanted to drive you away. So you taunt them more, you just want to break everyone ,hit them hard.

Somehow , you broke me technically,but not completely. You know why?

Because I choose to embrace you,no matter how vicious you are I still like you🤗. And I accepted my rock bottom as the blank slate where…

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HEARTBEAT OF THE WORLD

Pretty amazing poem.

keithgarrettpoetry

HEARTBEAT OF THE WORLD

From within, the earth rumbles, there’s heated liquid like blood,

Beating as a heart beats, energy, and life, power inside a complicated world.

Rise to the surface, thoughts, and wisdom, to learn becomes the brain not seen,

The flowing wind and air stand to be the breath, lungs of the land.

The moon that rests beyond the sky, the stars and planets that watch up high,

The eyes of the world could only be our creator god invisible to our sight.

Is it sadness in the world or tears of joy that make the sky cry,

A sacrifice as the water drops fall sustaining life and keeping beauty in sight.

Everything hears everything, ears of the land are everywhere,

The world lives as we live, take for granted and many things can do us in.

Keith Garrett

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A Summer Evening’s Meditation

(entire poem)

By Anna Laetitia Barbauld

“Anna Barbauld’s ‘A Summer Evening’s Meditation’ is a late contribution to the cosmic voyage genre of poetry, which had enjoyed popularity during the first half of the eighteenth century. Studying the poem in the context of this literature calls attention to what is innovative about Barbauld’s text: most notably, its allusion to Eve in introducing gender struggles to a genre that had been almost exclusively the province of male authors. In defying the cultural boundaries that had constrained the imaginations of female predecessors, Barbauld provides us with the first instance in English literature of a woman exploring modern deep space.”

– from: “Anna Letitia Barbauld’s ‘A Summer Evening’s Meditation’ and the Cosmic Voyage since Paradise Lost” by Rob Browning, First published: 20 August 2015, https://doi.org/10.1111/1754-0208.12339

A Summer Evening’s Meditation

‘TIS past! The sultry tyrant of the south
Has spent his short-liv’d rage; more grateful hours
Move silent on; the skies no more repel
The dazzled sight, but with mild maiden beams
Of temper’d light, invite the cherish’d eye
To wander o’er their sphere; where hung aloft
DIAN’s bright crescent, like a silver bow
New strung in heaven, lifts high its beamy horns

Impatient for the night, and seems to push
Her brother down the sky. Fair VENUS shines
Even in the eye of day; with sweetest beam
Propitious shines, and shakes a trembling flood
Of soften’d radiance from her dewy locks.
The shadows spread apace; while meeken’d Eve
Her cheek yet warm with blushes, slow retires
Thro’ the Hesperian gardens of the west,
And shuts the gates of day. ‘Tis now the hour
When Contemplation, from her sunless haunts,
The cool damp grotto, or the lonely depth
Of unpierc’d woods, where wrapt in solid shade
She mused away the gaudy hours of noon,
And fed on thoughts unripen’d by the sun,
Moves forward; and with radiant finger points
To yon blue concave swell’d by breath divine,
Where, one by one, the living eyes of heaven
Awake, quick kindling o’er the face of ether

One boundless blaze; ten thousand trembling fires,
And dancing lustres, where th’ unsteady eye
Restless, and dazzled wanders unconfin’d
O’er all this field of glories: spacious field!
And worthy of the master: he, whose hand
With hieroglyphics older than the Nile,
Inscrib’d the mystic tablet; hung on high
To public gaze, and said, adore, O man!
The finger of thy GOD. From what pure wells
Of milky light, what soft o’erflowing urn,
Are all these lamps so fill’d? these friendly lamps,
For ever streaming o’er the azure deep
To point our path, and light us to our home.
How soft they slide along their lucid spheres!
And silent as the foot of time, fulfil
Their destin’d courses: Nature’s self is hush’d,
And, but a scatter’d leaf, which rustles thro’
The thick-wove foliage, not a sound is heard

To break the midnight air; tho’ the rais’d ear,
Intensely listening, drinks in every breath.
How deep the silence, yet how loud the praise!
But are they silent all? or is there not
A tongue in every star that talks with man,
And wooes him to be wise; nor wooes in vain:
This dead of midnight is the noon of thought,
And wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars.
At this still hour the self-collected soul
Turns inward, and beholds a stranger there
Of high descent, and more than mortal rank;
An embryo GOD; a spark of fire divine,
Which must burn on for ages, when the sun,
(Fair transitory creature of a day!)
Has clos’d his golden eye, and wrapt in shades
Forgets his wonted journey thro’ the east.

Ye citadels of light, and seats of GODS!
Perhaps my future home, from whence the soul

Revolving periods past, may oft look back
With recollected tenderness, on all
The various busy scenes she left below,
Its deep laid projects and its strange events,
As on some fond and doating tale that sooth’d
Her infant hours; O be it lawful now
To tread the hallow’d circles of your courts,
And with mute wonder and delighted awe
Approach your burning confines. Seiz’d in thought
On fancy’s wild and roving wing I sail,
From the green borders of the peopled earth,
And the pale moon, her duteous fair attendant;
From solitary Mars; from the vast orb
Of Jupiter, whose huge gigantic bulk
Dances in ether like the lightest leaf;
To the dim verge, the suburbs of the system,
Where chearless Saturn ‘midst her watry moons
Girt with a lucid zone, majestic sits

In gloomy grandeur; like an exil’d queen
Amongst her weeping handmaids: fearless thence
I launch into the trackless deeps of space,
Where, burning round, ten thousand suns appear,
Of elder beam; which ask no leave to shine
Of our terrestrial star, nor borrow light
From the proud regent of our scanty day;
Sons of the morning, first born of creation,
And only less than him who marks their track,
And guides their fiery wheels. Here must I stop,
Or is there aught beyond? What hand unseen
Impels me onward thro’ the glowing orbs
Of inhabitable nature; far remote,
To the dread confines of eternal night,
To solitudes of vast unpeopled space,
The desarts of creation, wide and wild;
Where embryo systems and unkindled suns
Sleep in the womb of chaos; fancy droops,

And thought astonish’d stops her bold career.
But oh thou mighty mind! whose powerful word
Said, thus let all things be, and thus they were,
Where shall I seek thy presence? how unblam’d
Invoke thy dread perfection?
Have the broad eye-lids of the morn beheld thee?
Or does the beamy shoulder of Orion
Support thy throne? O look with pity down
On erring guilty man; not in thy names
Of terrour clad; not with those thunders arm’d
That conscious Sinai felt, when fear appall’d
The scatter’d tribes; thou hast a gentler voice,
That whispers comfort to the swelling heart,
Abash’d, yet longing to behold her Maker.

But now my soul unus’d tostretch her powers
In flight so daring, drops her weary wing,
And seeks again the known accustom’d spot,

Drest up with sun, and shade, and lawns, and streams,
A mansion fair and spacious for its guest,
And full replete with wonders. Let me here
Content and grateful, wait th’ appointed time
And ripen for the skies: the hour will come
When all these splendours bursting on my sight
Shall stand unveil’d, and to my ravished sense
Unlock the glories of the world unknown.

 https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-summer-evening-s-meditation-2/

Gemini Ink Writers Conference in San Antonio, July 2018 — O at the Edges

Gemini Ink Writers Conference in San Antonio, July 2018 This 3-day conference has quite the line up in poetry, with renowned poet and editor Veronica Golos, Pulitzer Prize winner Vijay Seshadri, and Ruth Lilly Prize winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist Martín Espada. I can’t pass up this opportunity, and have already registered for Veronica Golos’s […]

via Gemini Ink Writers Conference in San Antonio, July 2018 — O at the Edges

Angels and demons

So humanly TRUE.

Excerpt from “A Summer Evening’s Meditation” by Anna Laetitia Barbauld

photo credit: “Orion on the rise!”: Bob King

Lines 14 – 60
(spaces mine)

The shadows spread apace; while meeken’d Eve
Her cheek yet warm with blushes, slow retires
Thro’ the Hesperian gardens of the west,
And shuts the gates of day. ‘Tis now the hour
When Contemplation, from her sunless haunts,
The cool damp grotto, or the lonely depth
Of unpierc’d woods, where wrapt in solid shade
She mused away the gaudy hours of noon,
And fed on thoughts unripen’d by the sun,
Moves forward; and with radiant finger points
To yon blue concave swell’d by breath divine,
Where, one by one, the living eyes of heaven
Awake, quick kindling o’er the face of ether
One boundless blaze; ten thousand trembling fires,
And dancing lustres, where th’ unsteady eye,
Restless, and dazzled wanders unconfin’d
O’er all this field of glories: spacious field;
And worthy of the Master: he, whose hand
With hieroglyphics elder than the Nile,
Inscribed the mystic tablet; hung on high
To public gaze, and said, adore, O man!
The finger of thy GOD. From what pure wells
Of milky light, what soft o’erflowing urn,
Are all these lamps so fill’d? these friendly lamps,
For ever streaming o’er the azure deep
To point our path, and light us to our home.

How soft they slide along their lucid spheres!

And silent as the foot of time, fulfil
Their destin’d courses: Nature’s self is hush’d,
And, but a scatter’d leaf, which rustles thro’
The thick-wove foliage, not a sound is heard
To break the midnight air; tho’ the rais’d ear,
Intensely listening, drinks in every breath.

How deep the silence yet how loud the praise!

But are they silent all? or is there not
A tongue in every star that talks with man,
And wooes him to be wise; nor wooes in vain:
This dead of midnight is the noon of thought,
And wisdom mounts her zenith with the stars.

At this still hour the self-collected soul
Turns inward, and beholds a stranger there
Of high descent, and more than mortal rank;
An embryo GOD; a spark of fire divine,
Which must burn on for ages, when the sun,
(Fair transitory creature of a day!)
Has clos’d his golden eye, and wrap’d in shades
Forgets his wonted journey thro’ the east.

-copied from: www.digital.library.upenn.edu.

Interesting exploration of “A Summer Evening’s Meditation” : Anetta Newcamp, Examining Anna Laetitia Barbauld’s poem, “A Summer Evening’s Meditation”

Great short video on “Stars: The Art and Science“