Emerging, Solitude

Totally conscious, and apropos of nothing, you come to see me.
Is someone here? I ask.
The moon. The full moon is inside your house.
...
Be melting snow.
Wash yourself of yourself.
— Rumi, Essential Rumi, tr. Coleman Barks, p. 13

March 8, 2009
Sunday
Portland, Maine

Both Jeff & I are emerging as writers. I’m totally OK being an emerging writer at 40, nearly 41. At 25, I thought it was lame to get labeled 'emerging writer'. Now, I'm completely fine with it. Fine to be 'emerging' for the next fifty years or so.

Writing poetry requires solitude — a rare commodity these days — but something I actually have right now, for the first time in a long time.
*
Ego: Suit? Or straight jacket?

Golfing with Grandpa, Chi Gong with Geese

"...Doing is never enough if you neglect Being."
— Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth, p. 103






Still February 28, 2009
Easton, MD

Yesterday, a new experience. When we're here and the weather's good, the kids go out with grandpa to the golf course.

They get duded up in their polo shirts and Crocs, haul their downsized golf bags out to the car. At the golf course, they get to whack some fluorescent yellow golf balls on the driving range, and if they're behaving, they get to drive the golf cart. These days, now that they're bigger, I usually stay behind.

All of a sudden, that fear of being alone.

It was warm out, about 60, and windy. I took the moment and went for a walk by myself. Always before, walking alone on the Eastern Shore, the awareness of pain all around has been overwhelming — past pain, current pain, personal pain. Not my own, but that of others. Historic pain. Lots of beauty, but always pain.

For the first time ever yesterday, I feel like I connected with the spiritual aspect of the Eastern Shore. I stopped along the path and did some Chi Gong exercises, there by the corn field, amidst the honking of geese gleaning the field.