Yesterday morning in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, I got an unexpected bit of inspiration from the shampoo and conditioner set in my Holiday Inn. So I thought I would share it with you!
Read MoreHalloween Musings: Old Stories & New Tribes
On an early morning walk on Halloween Eve, these are my musings as I prepare to drive west for the winter. Thanks for listening!
Read MoreThe Joy of Silliness
In these heavy, troubling, divisive times, joy is more necessary than ever. But I've been discovering a new practice of joy: Silliness.
Here is my latest podcast. You'll have to listen to see why this picture will hopefully remind you to be more silly in your life!
Read MoreMy Old Man and the Sea
I took a mini writing retreat at the beach, spending two days thinking and writing about my old man and the sea. My dad -- and his lifelong love of the ocean. As well as his last wishes -- to have his ashes scattered at sea. This week's podcast is recorded on an early morning beach walk with the sound of the pounding waves behind me.
Read MoreExpectation
I recorded this on Thursday morning, with the expectation that I would be leaving for Iceland and Scandinavia to visit four of the ten happiest countries in the world. Within a half hour of this recording, everything changed. Proving that life is neither about road maps and plans or living in the rearview mirror. It is all about Presence. I spoke here what I am just now learning. And will always be learning!
Read MoreUnfinished
This week's podcast accompanies this week's blog by the same name: Unfinished.
Inspired by the Unknown and Unfinished in us all!
Read MoreGood Enough: The Next Step Forward
My time in the Hudson Valley is coming to an end. I feel both ready to go and so sad to leave. This podcast is about learning to hold those contradictions by taking the next step forward into Good Enough. . .
In JOY! Victoria
Read MoreTalking to My Dad: The National Gallery, Washington DC, August 2016
This week's podcast is a conversation I had with my dad after visiting the National Gallery in Washington DC "together" this summer, August 2016.
Read MoreHaiku Practice
If Haikus take those things that we feel and experience but somehow can't express in regular speech -- nature, the Divine, our innermost complexities -- and distill them down to their verbal essence, then the first Haiku I ever heard danced through my head throughout my childhood.
Read MorePodcast Trial Run #2: The Blue Path
Once again, this week's podcast comes from the path. The Blue Path.
Read MorePodcast Trial Run #1: Dappled Light
As promised, here is my first podcast. Over the next few weeks, I'll be doing quite a few trial runs, getting a sense of how all this works. There are many perks to being well on the other side of 20-something. (Frankly, my twenties were just about my worst decade. So many perks is actually a massive understatement.) But one of the few downsides is that learning all this technology -- not just how to do it, but what it all even means -- does not come as fluidly as it would if I were under 30. So please bear with me as I figure it all out. Eventually, I'm guessing, this podcast will appear on iTunes, but for now, it is being hosted on my Soundcloud site.
Read MoreThe Geode: Splitting the Stone
I wrote this week's poem in the spring of 1987. It still feels true, almost 30 years later.
Read MoreGreen & Blue: One Old & One New
This week I thought I would juxtapose one poem I wrote in my mid-twenties with one I wrote in my mid-fifties. . . and let them have a thirty-year conversation.
Read MoreNine Weeks Across America
My Poetry Practice
I began writing poetry when I was in the seventh grade -- encouraged by an extraordinary educator named Sally Jordan. I had always loved poetry. My father read poetry to me as a child, and when I was old enough, he paid me to memorize them -- a buck a poem. He started me out with Shakespeare. Because, well, why not?
To read two poems and learn more about my poetry practice of joy, please see this post.
Read MoreSongs of Joy
Music is most definitely part of my Daily Practice of Joy! Here are some of my favorite joy-filled songs. Please send me yours, so we can share and spread the joy!
Read MoreDaily Practice of Joy Podcast
I'm about to launch a new Daily Practice of Joy podcast, and I'm pretty excited about it! If you want to be the first to get the podcast, keep reading this blog post to find out how!
Read MoreLearning to See
“No man can say his eyes have had enough of seeing. . .”
“Perhaps for you
these meadows
are like our mesas.
Perhaps for you
the awe
I feel
at all
this green
will become
just another
summer memory.
Perhaps
these sunny-faced daisies
elegant Queen Anne’s lace
willowy grasses
are merely weeds
waiting to be mowed.
But to me
they are
green miracles
of a liquid blessing
floral apostles
of Love.
My friend
the doctor
on the Res
sometimes feels
his only purpose there
is not healing
but to fill plastic jugs
with clear liquid
from his bathroom tap
for those
to whom this
necessity for living
has become a luxury.
I confess
that sometimes
our blood red mesas
merely form
the scenic backdrop to my life.
I do feel wonder
but of a muted kind
not giddy with the joy
I feel this morning
in this meadow
with these flowers
and these birds
this lush verdure
all around me —
The gleeful childlike joy of new.
What if
we remembered
every day
to learn to see
with fresh eyes
that which we come
to take for granted
To look with gratitude
on that which we
merely to expect to be?
What if
what we call
common and mundane
brought the same fascination as
our very first
snow-capped mountain
cascading waterfall
roadside deer and fawn
red gold autumn hillside?
Perhaps to learn
to see anew
really is
that illusive elixir
that turns back time
to the fresh wonder of childhood
the awe of first sight
the curiosity of youth
the joy we believe
we have outgrown.
This is my prayer.
Every day
to see
my old familiar
with the same
brandnewness
I feel amid
all this
utterly
glorious
green.
To find joy in the blurred backdrop
excitement in the same old scene
wonder going round the block
awe at the almost invisible.
This is my prayer.
To feel
five year old new.
The pure and simple
delight
in being alive.
To live
without ceasing
the innocent amazement
we were never meant
to lose.
This is my prayer.
This meadow.
This morning.
This me.”
Words to Live By
“I want to think again of dangerous and noble things. I want to be light and frolicsome. I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing, as though I had wings.”
“To be alive: not just the carcass
But the spark.
That’s crudely put, but. . .
If we’re not supposed to dance,
Why all this music.”
“The healthiest response to life is joy.”
“Remember that your natural state is joy.”
“Live in joy.
Even among those who hate.
Live in health,
Even among the afflicted.
In peace,
Even among the troubled.
Look within.
Be still.
Free from fear and attachment,
Know the sweet joy of the way.”
“Inside of everyone
is a great shout of joy
waiting to be born.”
“Joy is a sign of generosity. When you are full of joy, you move faster and want to go about doing good to everyone.”
“If to say it once
And once only, then still
To say: Yes.
And say it complete,
Say it as if the word
Filled the whole moment
With its absolute saying.
Later for ‘but,’
Later for ‘if,’
Now,
Only the single syllable
That is the beloved,
That is the world.”
“Someone dancing inside us
learned only a few steps:
the “Do-Your-Work” in 4/4 time.
the “What-Do-You-Expect” waltz.
He hasn’t notice yet the woman
standing away from the lamp,
the one with dark eyes
who knows the rhumba
and strange steps in jumpy rhythms
from the mountains in Bulgaria.
If they dance together,
something unexpected will happen.
If they don’t, the next world
will be a lot like this one.”
“Every object, every being,
is a jar full of delight.”
“Find a place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.”
“I hear bells ringing that no one has shaken,
inside ‘love’ there is more joy than we know of,
rain pours down, although the sky is clear of clouds,
there are whole rivers of light.
The universe is shot through in all parts by a single sort of love.”
“The soul is here for its own joy.”
“Wanting Sumptuous Heavens
No one grumbles among the oyster clans,
And lobsters play their bone guitars all summer.
Only we, with our opposable thumbs, want
Heaven to be, and God to come, again.
There is no end to our grumbling; we want
Comfortable earth and sumptuous Heaven.
But the heron standing on one leg in the bog
Drinks his dark rum all day, and is content.”
“Shake out your qualms.
Shake up your dreams.
Deepen your roots.
Extend your branches.
Trust deep water
and head for the open,
even if your vision
shipwrecks you.
Quit your addiction
to sneer and complain.
Open a lookout.
Dance on a brink.
Run with your wildfire.
You are closer to glory
leaping an abyss
than upholstering a rut.
Not dawdling.
Not doubting.
Intrepid all the way
Walk toward clarity.
At every crossroad
Be prepared
to bump into wonder.
Only love prevails.
En route to disaster
insist on canticles.
Lift your ineffable
out of the mundane.
Nothing perishes;
nothing survives;
everything transforms!
Honeymoon with Big Joy!”