{Soulfood Friday}

Sometimes poetry is medicine. This is one of my favorite medicine poems.
  
 Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. 
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
     purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

Naomi Shihab Nye
  



 Every Friday I'll be pausing to notice something from the week that has nourished my soul. 
* 
A special, sacred-everyday moment captured on camera, or perhaps a snippet from a book, a recipe still warm from the kitchen or something whimsical that simply made me smile.
 * 
Here are a few simple things that have fed my soul this week. 

What has inspired/fed/nourished your soul this week friends? 
*  
 Feel free to link up to your own soulful spaces either at the bottom of this post or in the comments.

   

    An InLinkz Link-up

   

{Soulfood Friday}

 'I have no philosophy, I have senses"
 Fernando Pessoa

From the uncertainties of last week we have found our course once more. Having a baby is the most life changing event ever. It is especially so when you are young and still forging your own path in the world. There is so much negativity in the media about young parents. The way life has been structured, with  so many fabricated hoops to traverse on the road to becoming an adult it does make logical sense to wait before having a family. But then something unexpected and altogether wonderful happens and suddenly the old picture, the one we bought into about how things "should" be doesn't make sense anymore because the new picture with all it's strange and wild beauty leaves us breathless with real wonder. Emmy is 18 and Emmy is a wonderful Mama. Her gentleness and connection with her little boy is a magical thing to see. Rowan Joe is growing fast and beginning to charm us with the flutters of first smiles and gurgling sounds. 

The clouds are clearing space for the blue today and the forget me nots and cow parsley are in full bloom. Sometimes simple things like these are just enough to fill the cup full.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Every Friday I'll be pausing to notice something from the week that has nourished my soul. 
* 
A special, sacred-everyday moment captured on camera, or perhaps a snippet from a book, a recipe still warm from the kitchen or something whimsical that simply made me smile.
 * 
Here are a few simple things that have fed my soul this week. 

What has inspired/fed/nourished your soul this week friends? 
*  
 Feel free to link up to your own soulful spaces either at the bottom of this post or in the comments.

   

    An InLinkz Link-up

   

{Soulfood Friday}

I'm not going to lie, it's been a tough week. I am tired, body and soul. I hope I have been enough.
It is hard not to be able to wave a magic wand and fix everything for those we love, make all the hurt disappear.

One thing I realized again today is how incredibly vital it is to have people who you can just be totally vulnerable. A few years ago I was lucky enough to come across a beautiful, diverse, open-hearted group of women as part of a weekly home-school meet up. Today I felt supported, encouraged and blessed by their friendship.
I also felt blessed by nature and it's ability to inject beauty and re-frame our perspective and the soft, warm place to land that is my five girls and Tani.

Wishing all a peaceful and restful weekend...

Every Friday I'll be pausing to notice something from the week that has nourished my soul. 
* 
A special, sacred-everyday moment captured on camera, or perhaps a snippet from a book, a recipe still warm from the kitchen or something whimsical that simply made me smile.
 * 
Here are a few simple things that have fed my soul this week. 

What has inspired/fed/nourished your soul this week friends? 
*  
 Feel free to link up to your own soulful spaces either at the bottom of this post or in the comments.

 
   

    An InLinkz Link-up

   

word kindling

Sylvie stares at me bemusedly as I jot down notes. I began a couple of projects about a year or so ago. They are bundled into a riddle of skeins which I am now, finally, attempting to untangle. Journals brimming with brief sketches, spider diagrams and scribbles clutter the bedside table. There is a book in here somewhere, maybe two. Well it's nice to dream.

I love the initial stage of writing. The stream of consciousness memory jotting. The sideways  glancing at humanities eccentricities. I metaphorically (although sometimes when pushed, literally) throw all my notes up in the air and let them fall where they may. It is glorious. But oh, the picking up the pieces and pasting them back into some semblance of order and the knitty, gritty editing and re-editing of drafts is a far less inspiring task. Yet I have felt unusually methodical of late and as a result I already have 10,000 words down.

Ultimately, if no bound tome arises from these crumpled ashes the process of breathing my breath on them till they kindle will seem enough.