Photograph by David Barstow
Meals become simple affairs of chowders from the cast iron pot, a big plate of cornbread liberally laced with cheese and corn and basted with fiery jalapeno jelly. Family and friends take time to reflect, resolve, and request. we create a special meal time space with candles, greenery, and cloth napkins. We gather and talk. Hearts open up in the warmth of hearth and home.
Sherry Armendariz in "Winter: A time for Going Inward"
One night when my two and half year old granddaughter was staying with me...we were at home taking a bubble bath together and singing, "Here we are taking a bubble bath, a bubble bath," etc. All of a sudden, no one was singing and I experienced both of us looking deeply into each other's eyes and there was no sound at all. It lasted but a few moments and I felt shivers up my spine. That was intimacy.
Lynn Moore in a review of Tome and Pat Malone's "The Art of Intimacy"
Our culture trains us out of honoring the truth of our experience, moment by moment, our own rhythms, the needs of our physical and emotional body for rest, attention, pleasure. As women, especially, we are trained to take care of everyone else, trained away from remembering that we are caretakers of the sacred in ourselves.
Cherie Martin Franklin in "She Waits: The Call of the Sacred Feminine"
My great ambition is to secure a speaking part in my own life.
@Ashleigh Brilliant, "Pot Shot #2406"
I soon realize that I have gotten myself into a precarious situation and one that is life-threatening. No one knows where I am and no one will even know that I am missing until late this evening when my family will return home. The lack of other human tracks makes me quite sure that waiting for someone else to travel this way is extremely remote and I am getting colder by the minute being exposed to the freezing wind and the elements. I sit and begin to ponder my plight. The waves of fear are intense and I think, "Is this how I am going to die, freezing to death"
Raymond Strolin in "Ledges"
One of my favorite books was Tom Wolf's "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test". In it, Ken Kesey and company had gotten themselves an old school bus and rigged it for sound so they could tour across the country with speakers blaring. They painted the bus with primary colors and manic mandalas. The bus became an metaphor for their life journey; the destination sign in the front read "Further." Even in my fifties, I want to keep my bus brightly painted and to cherish the company of those taking the ride with me.
Grover Criswell in "The Bus Keeps Moving"
In football practice I'd run patterns and be wide open every time. But every once in a while the pass would slip through my hands. When it did, Mr. Knafelc would signal me over to him. He'd rest his elbows on my shoulder pads and lock his hands behind my head. He'd bend over--he was a big man--and put his forehead against my helmet and look me in the eyes and I'd try to hold his gaze. We'd stand that way for a moment. Then he'd say, "Catch the ball," very calm and slow, and let me go. I'd continue back to the huddle, but before I could get there he'd call, "One more thing." I'd turn, "Yes, sir"
"Catch...the ball."
Mitchell Metz in "To Catch a Ball"
By accepting you as you are, I do not necessarily abandon all hope of your improving.
@Ashleigh Brilliant, "Pot Shot #1687"
Like the roots of a tree seeking out precisely the nutrients and moisture in the soil that the tree needs to grow, something in us reaches ever forward toward wholeness, carefully selecting experiences and relationships from which learning can come.
Cherie Franklin in "The Art of Human Wholeness"
Then suddenly I felt the sweetness of that little girl in the park. My prayer today is for her and for myself...that we will not crumble under the weight of life's harshness and injustices, but that we will always be sensitive to the sweetness that also wafts through our lives, sometimes in the most unexpected places.
Mary Byrne in "Sweetness in the Hood"
Now my friend and I stared at Vega, sensing the majesty of a single star. Suddenly, I didn't need Hollywood movies or any other artificial excitement. I was in contact with a feeling so grand I shivered. Surrounded by pure mountain darkness, my friend and I had found something missing from all of Manhattan, the wonder of the night sky.
Will Nixon in "The Joy of Darkness"
Dandelion-covered fields, flowing sea with yellow voices, embrace again our forsaken souls as flower dreams carry us to a deeper abode. Richard Bachtold's poem "Flower Dreams"
Copyright © 2004-2007 David Barstow. All rights reserved.