Weekly Reading

Grammar
Maxine, back from a weekend with her boyfriend,
smiles like a big cat and says
that she's a conjugated verb.
She's been doing the direct object
with a second person pronoun named Phil,
and when she walks into the room,
everybody turns:

some kind of light is coming from her head.
Even the geraniums look curious,
and the bees, if they were here, would buzz
suspiciously around her hair, looking
for the door in her corona.
We're all attracted to the perfume
of fermenting joy,

we've all tried to start a fire,
and one day maybe it will blaze up on its own.
In the meantime, she is the one today among us
most able to bear the idea of her own beauty,
and when we see it, what we do is natural:
we take our burned hands
out of our pockets,
and clap.
~Tony Hoagland

Weekly Reading

What I Believe
I believe there is no justice,
but that cottongrass and bunchberry
grow on the mountain.

I believe that a scorpion's sting
will kill a man,
but that his wife will remarry.

I believe that, the older we get,
the weaker the body,
but the stronger the soul.

I believe that if you roll over at night
in an empty bed,
the air consoles you.

I believe that no one is spared
the darkness,
and no one gets all of it.

I believe we all drown eventually
in a sea of our making,
but that the land belongs to someone else.

I believe in destiny.
And I believe in free will.

I believe that, when all
the clocks break,
time goes on without them.

And I believe that whatever
pulls us under,
will do so gently.

so as not to disturb anyone,
so as not to interfere
with what we believe in.
~Michael Blumenthal

Weekly Reading

Only as a spiritual warrior can one withstand the path of
knowledge. A warrior cannot complain or regret anything.
His life is an endless challenge and challenges cannot
possibly be good or bad. Challenges are simply challenges.
The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior
is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an
ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.
- Don Juan

Weekly Reading

Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers,
but to be fearless in facing them.
Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain,
but for the heart to conquer it.
Let me not crave in anxious fear to be saved,
but hope for the patience to win my freedom.
~ Rabindranath Tagore, Indian Poet/Saint

Weekly Reading

Care

Spirit takes care of
all that concerns me.
All situations in my life
resolve themselves.
Spirit knows the way
Spirit knows the solution.
I give up all worry to spirit's keeping.
I have the assurance
of answered prayer.
Spirit does not fail me
or forsake me.
I am relaxed
and anxiety free.
~Gabriel Halpern

Weekly Reading

If the philosopher is right
If the philosopher is right,
that all we are
and all the earth around us
is only a dream,

even if a bright, long dream-
that even is nothing
but what sits in the mind,

that the trees, that the red bird
are all in the mind,
and the river, and the sea in storm
are all in the mind,

that nothing exists fierce or soft or apt to be
truly shaken-
nothing tense, wild sleepy-nothing
likes Yeats' girl with the yellow hair-
then you too are a dream

which last night and the night before that
and the years before that
you were not.
~Mary Oliver

Weekly Reading-Chant

Kaayena Vacha Manasendriyar Va
Buddhyatmanava Prakriteh swabhaavat
Karomi Yadyat sakalam Parasmai
Narayanayeti Samarpayami

Whatever actions I may perform
Impelled by the forces of nature
By body, word, mind, senses, intellect, soul,
I offer to the feet of Narayana (direction of a human)-the one that helps a human to his/her goal, i.e. towards moksha or liberation.