Ave Maria, Gratia Plena!

Be Lost in the Call

Lord, said David, since you do not need us,
why did you create these two worlds?

Reality replied: O prisoner of time,
I was a secret treasure of kindness and generosity,
and I wished this treasure to be known,
so I created a mirror: its shining face, the heart;
its darkened back, the world;
The back would please you if you’ve never seen the face.

Has anyone ever produced a mirror out of mud and straw?
Yet clean away the mud and straw,
and a mirror might be revealed.

Until the juice ferments a while in the cask,
it isn’t wine. If you wish your heart to be bright,
you must do a little work.

My King addressed the soul of my flesh:
You return just as you left.
Where are the traces of my gifts?

We know that alchemy transforms copper into gold.
This Sun doesn’t want a crown or robe from God’s grace.
He is a hat to a hundred bald men,
a covering for ten who were naked.

Jesus sat humbly on the back of an ass, my child!
How could a zephyr ride an ass?
Spirit, find your way, in seeking lowness like a stream.
Reason, tread the path of selflessness into eternity.

Remember God so much that you are forgotten.
Let the caller and the called disappear;
be lost in the Call
.

“You are just a sweet person. When a friend needs a shoulder to cry on, you are happy to offer yours with a box of tissues as well. Once in awhile, you wish you could be a little more dramatic but then sensibility sets back in and you know that you are perfect the way you are.”

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
And remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender,
Be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
And listen to others,
Even to the dull and ignorant; They too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
They are vexatious to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
You may become vain or bitter,
For always, there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble,
It is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs,
For the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
Many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere
Life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
For in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
It is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
Gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
Be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe
No less than the trees and the stars;
You have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
No doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
Whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life,
Keep peace in your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams,
It is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

"Desiderata" Max Ehrmann 1927

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.

So, so much love…

The New Compost Pile, originally uploaded by hazelfaern.

I’ve been immersed in garden reading this month, especially material on organic food gardening and the related art of composting.

I was inspired to build a new compost bin out of recycled pallets and I’m redonkulously dorked-out excited about the results. Well, consider that this is the first thing I’ve built that wasn’t, say, Target furniture. It didn’t come with instructions and I figured out how to build it with free materials and 3 nails.

The shiny circle at the top of the bin is most likely an old metal belt from a long-gone wooden bucket. I like it because it reminds me of a new moon. It’s a little zen and a little redneck. Yay.

When I placed it on top of the new compost bin, I started thinking about cycles and how the new moon corresponds nicely with the idea of compost: with winter, sleep, death and decay. Here the simple symbol of the memory of fullness lapsed stands watch over decay slowly transforming into new life.

Yet it also looks a bit like a zero — a reminder of the zero point to which all things return and an instant reminder of how many miles our garden’s gifts travel from harvest to kitchen to dinner plate.

Starhawk, the activist pagan ecofeminist author, has said she considers compost a very nearly sacred thing. At this hour, I’m inclined to agree.

I want to rewrite this poem and mail it to every moment I’ve procrastinated over this month.

This White Unswaying Place

I’m sorry not to have written you sooner.
We are peculiar forms, like someone’s old papers rifled quickly through
But not read before the burning.
How to speak of the icy cave-like place I lately feel,
Its white reluctance dividing me from all things I desire and see.
I think it must often be the case
That one holds within oneself a guardedness, expectant, steeply quarried,
The way mistakes grow magnified inside the mind, spiked and sharply gleaming.

How skilled, how dominant, this white unswaying place.
And I wonder how, bred from our churning, it constructs itself so strongly
Like the crush of light I sometimes at the noonhour hear.

Sock-Monster is a little comic strip written by a fellow vegan and really talented cartoonist, Neil Brideau. Dark, funny, apt — I heart Sock-Monster. Check it out by clicking on the cartoon panel above.