co-hearts

When ending comes

Cradle it in your arms like an egg, warm it with your body

so that someday when your back curves around it with grief

the bared bones of your shoulders

will breathe out wings.

© Sophia Rosenberg 2019, We'Moon 2023

Iniko © Sandra Stanton 2021

We don’t choose our relatives or our genetics,neither do we control what happens in the world around us. It's why relationships matter more - they gift us with enrichment and beauty.

Friendship bring joy to life. People we love can enrich our everyday experiences. We get to share with them the aspects of life we cherish

Our friendships help us through our challenges. Our friends provide support through hard times to make unimaginably difficult situations seem bearable.

Our individual preferences guide us toward the people who will best meet our particular social needs. With a little luck, we find buddies who can lend a hand and support us when needed. 

Our preferences are the key to finding friends who can buffer against feeling alone and provide the social, emotional and health benefits of friendly companionship. 

Tug O' War by Shel Silverstein

“I will not play at tug o’ war.

I’d rather play at hug o’ war,

Where everyone hugs

Instead of tugs,

Where everyone giggles

And rolls on the rug,

Where everyone kisses,

And everyone grins,

And everyone cuddles,

And everyone wins”

In our world at war on so very many fronts these simple words are a powerful salve for all wounds - old, festering, new.

Bared shoulder blades breathing out wings.

NYC Pride 2021

“Love Lies Sleeping” by Elizabeth Bishop (written 1936, published 1938)

Earliest morning switching all the tracks

that cross the sky from cinder star to star,

coupling the ends of streets

to trains of light,

now draw us into daylight in our beds;

and clear away what presses on the brain:

put out the neon shapes

that float and swell and glare

Lincoln Center

down the gray avenue between the eyes

in pinks and yellows, letters and twitching signs.

Hang-over moons, wane, wane!

From the window I see

for the birds

In a recent post on Medium we wrote about the Sufi poem of Attar, "The Conference of the Birds." It has fascinated writers from Rumi to Borges and been translated throughout the ages by many expert authors.

There are many examples of such subtle symbols and allusions throughout the Mantiq Ut-Tair. Within the larger context of the story of the journey of the birds, Attar masterfully tells the reader many didactic short, sweet stories in captivating poetic style.

The latest translation in 2017 by Sholeh Wolpé strives to make Attar’s unorthodox and mystical vision accessible to contemporary Western readers.

hope & promise

As the holiday season kicks off, the need to quiet and soften our hearts grows with each passing day.

It is apt for the first week of Advent to be dedicated to Hope.

That cherished desire of anticipation and expectation.

Of a promise obtained or fulfilled.

If we surrendered

to earth’s intelligence

we could rise up rooted, like trees.

Instead we entangle ourselves

in knots of our own making

and struggle, lonely and confused.

So like children, we begin again...

to fall,

patiently to trust our heaviness.

Even a bird has to do that

before [s]he can fly.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke, Book of Hours

wishing on 1.6 billion stars

Photo Credit: Jack Fusco, Star Trails, New Jersey. 

The stars twinkled in the sky.

In space - billions of universes.

Silence.

Resting my forehead in my hand and thinking.

I do not dream.

A big Reality has awoken me,

A truth that strikes the eye,

The truth that is being, visible, unique,

Eternal:

I - under this huge starry dome,

I - perceiving its entirety with my brain,

I relish it, I become one with myself

And slowly - inside - I am restored to myself:

To profound joy and perfect rhythm.

All my thoughts, words and deeds

Were only bringing me closer

To universal embrace:

Here I am resting joyfully in myself,

Wrapped in deep silence on all sides,

And my heart beats in the rhythm of everything

Which surrounds me.

Enough. No need for words.

~ Julian Tuwim, translated by Adrian Thomas. http://tmblr.co/ZjYlFyVzI5BX

Image from "Your Shot," National Geographic. Taken on April 19, 2012, in Strathmere, New Jersey. These star trails show the Milky Way rising over the Atlantic Ocean.

boast of quietness

Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1996), Jactancia de Quietud, from Luna de Enfrente, 1925

Christmas Comet Lovejoy

Writings of light assault the darkness, more prodigious than meteors.
Escrituras de luz embisten la sombra, más prodigiosas que meteoros.

The tall unknowable city takes over the countryside.

La alta ciudad inconocible arrecia sobre el campo.

Sure of my life and death, I observe the ambitious

Seguro de mi vida y de mi muerte, miro los ambiciosos

and would like to understand them.

y quisiera entenderlos.

revoking permission

Standing revealed in a moment of clarity
surprised
stunned

Revelation appears in a torrent of torment
recalling
replaying

Apparently this matters much in my world
revealing
resonance

In the center of my circle
complete
conscious

A voice steadily nurtured
vehemently
validates

A L L that is

pity the nation

Here are two poems of the same title, written years ago, they still capture sentiments of our current times and captivate our present imagination. Time to rediscover who it is we truly are.

waiting to go on | David Whyte

…It must be

we are waiting
for the perfect moment.
It must be
under all the struggle
we want to go on.
It must be,
that deep
down
we are creatures
getting ready
for when we are needed.