Transcendant Beauty in the Ordinary

English translation of “Heyr himna smiður”. The hymn — the oldest known Scandinavian hymn — dates back to the early 13th century when the Icelandic chieftain Kolbeinn Tumason is purported to have written these familiar words on his deathbed. Then, more than seven centuries later, the composer Þorkell Sigurbjörnsson put them to music. Here, in an ordinary train station in Wuppertal, Germany, the group Árstíðir sings. _______________________________________________________________________________________ Hear, smith of the heavens, what the poet asks. May softly come unto me thy mercy. So I call on thee, for thou hast created me. I am thy slave, thou art my Lord. God, I call on thee to heal me. Remember me, mild one,[1] Most we need thee. Drive out, O king of suns, generous and great, human every sorrow from the city of the heart. Watch over me, mild one, Most we need thee, truly every moment in the world of men. send us, son of the virgin, good causes, all aid is from thee, in my heart.

Lost (Poem by David Wagoner)

I found this lovely reminder on Krista Tippett's blog .  It seems to capture the truth of what it means to be in the present as apposed to being elsewhere. We can never find ourselves unless we wander out of the wilderness into the present moment.

Lost
by David Wagoner, from Collected Poems 1956-1976
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. you must let it find you.

Hommage To The Oaks

 

Lately I saw you standing, 
brilliant, naked sun everywhere 
streaming incandescent photons like
Threads of silver 
On your knotted body.

Majestic, silent, patient forest alchemist, 
On every visible and invisible frontier
You bestow your patient blessing 
and manifest the very ebb and flow 
of a breathing God. 

O! How the entire universe (my heart) 
contracts now that you have 
fallen into the openness 
With one last thunderous echo! 

What final blessing did you bestow, 
trembling exquisitely on those last tiny fibers, 
awaiting the supreme moment: 
the ancient Pull of supernovas? 

What can I do now? 
Bow in gratitude! 

That which passes through everything 
Passes through me (Kerouac). 
I bow in a suspended moment of that recognition.

Your thunderous echo 
bestows upon me 
a final blessing, spreading outward 
in the delicate arc of your falling grace.

A myriad of spring buds 
singing one last alleluia 
before the crushing weight 
of congealed sunlight forces them 
down into the yielding 
earth, where galaxies of beings 
embrace your return. 

In your final act of falling, 
I too dive headlong and blind 
Into the fierce eye of God 

WPS May 2014

Farewell Maya Angelou

This recitation by Maya conveys every bit of the struggle to overcome adversity and arrive at liberation. Truly inspirational.

Vishal Vaid Love Song

Simply wonderful to allow the sound to penetrate the veil!

Moral Monday March On Raleigh

On Saturday February 8th 2014 between 80K and 100K marchers flooded into Raleigh NC to protest the regressive politics of the state which include major efforts to restrict voter rights,  limit access to affordable healthcare, impose new taxes on the working class and poor, erode educational advances, and take away the right for women to choose. I was proud to represent Asheville along with 300 other Ashevillians who departed at 0430 from Asheville on 5 rented buses. I walked with Claire (my daughter) and Sam, her boyfriend. Chris (my son) was there selling the official t-shirts from On a Roll graphics.

The Honored Guest

    

The Honored Guest

Outside my window 

An invitation to dance

Sways in the wind and
The warm hand of that light
Smooths rough linear bodies
Stretching up and out to endless blue where
Wet lambits of cloud
Catch wildly in the
Bony extremities of branch

O! To become once again
A lover of trees!

O! To feel that strength inside
My own feeble bones

And stretch my body
Along those soaring flanks
To drink the rising sap

And so,  loved once more
By forest glade,
Become the honored guest 

WPS. Hawkscry 7/7/2010