Saturday 18 April 2009

Spring

Watching delicate white blossom
silently falling to the ground,
perhaps only noticed by me.

A private show in the rain.

~

Thursday 16 April 2009

#this


“all there is…is this”


[Tony Parsons]



So, what I’m most interested in, what I’m really really interested in,

what I’m passionate about

is this.


Life happening, right now!


You are life happening right now.


Stop reading now

(you can wait until you’ve finished reading the next paragraph).


Look around you. Breathe!

Feel what it feels like to be in your body (whether you like the sensations or not).

Feel their life, feel their texture.

Hear the sounds, especially the quiet ones.

See the colours and shapes – enjoy them, revel in them!

Smell the smells. Reach out and touch something and luxuriate in the experience.


Life is happening full on right now.


This is your life, happening right now.


This is it!


(Not the next "maybe better" moment, but this one!)



“Bit by bit I came back to my own body

…back to this moment,

this constant unfolding miracle of life.

My search ends when I stop looking and remember –

Now is the dance, is love, is pain;

And beauty;

And there is nothing.”


[Fanny Behrens]



What I am interested in is the mystery and the wonder of this.


It cannot be put into words.


Poetry perhaps gets closest:



“I want to write while crossing the fields that are fresh with daisies

and everlasting and the ordinary grass.

I want to make poems while thinking of the bread of heaven

And the cup of astonishment;

Let them be songs where nothing is neglected…”


[Mary Oliver]


So foolishly, whether in poetry or prose I want to try writing touching on this.


Not writing about it, analysing it, dissecting it.


But writing from it - in it...


invoking the fragrance this,

rolling around in this,

celebrating this!


Why?


Lots of reasons. Obviously.


But mainly for love.


D.

Monday 13 April 2009

Instinct and memory...

So it was a nice sunny day, one of the first of spring. In fact it was today. I put my lightest weight jacket over my t-shirt and strolled out of the door on my way to Homebase (because its a bank holiday Monday and apparently its obligatory to go to Homebase - OK, that's a complete lie, I almost never go to Homebase on a BHM or otherwise, but I needed a shower curtain as there were many and various alien lifeforms living on my existing shower curtain).

I wandered through the sunshine, under the underpass, up the steps to the bridge and down the slope to the retail park, pausing only briefly to retie one of my shoelaces (I can't remember now if it was my left or right). I was listening to lovely new music that I had downloaded from the internet (www.songsillinois.net) and all was right with the world.

I carefully selected my new shower curtain, opting for a tasteful design with simple silver circles and marvelled at how expensive shower curtains are (relatively speaking) at Homebase. I went to pay. The kindly older asian woman wrestled with my debit card for about 5 minutes before giving up and directing me to another till. I was very puzzled about why she couldn't make my card work and why she insisted on bending it backwards as she put it into the machine. She looked suspiciously at the card and pronounced it "cheap". I was slightly hurt, I was amused to notice. I defended my poor First Direct debit card saying that it usually works and that I was surprised that it wasn't working now. In the end she directed me to the other kindly older asian lady at the next till and the card worked fine. Ha! I was right after all! And it was 20% off shower curtains today at Homebase, so it wasn't quite so expensive after all. I put my Ipod back on, thanked the till operator and left the store.

I wandered absentmindedly home in the sunshine, reaching into my pocket as I neared home to grab my mobile phone from my jacket pocket.

It wasn't there!

My mobile phone was gone! How?

My mind retraced my journey - how could my phone have left my pocket?

Could it have fallen out when I had bent down to retie my shoelace? No. I was far too careful and I would have noticed.

Could someone have picked my pocket in Homebase? No the kindly women on the tills would have noticed. The store was pretty empty.

What if it was a scam and they were in on it?

I checked in with my instincts - my gut feeling. I hadn't felt uncertain about any of these women, I had felt them to be trustworthy. My antennae had not been up at any stage. The clear message I got was that they had nothing to do with it.

But then my mind got hold of the scenario. "It must have been them!" it declared emphatically. "Didn't you think it suspicious all that messing around with your card. You are just naive to trust your instincts. That can be the only explanation. There is no other time when someone can have taken the phone out of your pocket and you know that it didn't fall out!"

I got home and called my phone from my landline. No answer. I left a couple of messages. I tried calling the store. No answer. It's bank holiday monday after all and I couldn't be doing with all the telephone trees anyway.

I decided that I was going to go back to the store and speak to the security manager and ask them to review the tapes. I was convinced that either a pickpocket had taken the phone in the (virtually empty) store or that one of the (seemingly) nice women on the tills had been in on a pickpocketing scam.

I wandered down the road and reached the edge of the parkland that I had walked through on my way to the road bridge. I suddenly had a fond memory of finding an abandoned (slightly broken) football there on my way to the shop earlier today and how I had run through the sunshine joyously kicking the football, running up and down the small hills as the ball flew sweetly through the air glistening wet in the sun, before I had abandoned it after 4 or 5 heartfelt thumps.

Suddenly the thought occurred to me that it was just possible that my phone had fallen out whilst I was chasing the ball. My mind told me that this was a bit ridiculous, as I hadn't really been running that wildly - had I?

I decided to carefully walk the area where I had been chasing the ball just for a few minutes - police search style. I did this for a couple of minutes. Nothing. Then in the distance - could that be my phone? Looks like a stick! On closer inspection - there it was - rather damp nestling in a patch of grass, gleaming wetly in the sunshine, protesting 2 missed calls and some answerphone messages, one SonyEricsson K800i phone. My phone.

I felt happy. I felt grateful. I felt foolish.

Why had I doubted my insticts about the kindly women at the shop?

How had my memory of the trip to the Homebase simply excluded the (joyous) incident of chasing the ball?

I shrugged and realised that this is what we are like. This is what I am like. I am a creature with good instincts who quite often discounts them. I am a creature whose memory like all memories is sometimes a little on the capricious side.

I decided that I would share this story with you in case it was of interest. Feeling a bit sheepish that this is rather a long post for a short pay-off, but hoping that you've enjoyed the journey nonetheless.

D.

Friday 10 April 2009

Poems arriving

Poems have been "arriving" for the last couple of years, I suppose.

I can't say that I actually write them - it seems like an idea comes into my awareness and there is a realisation that there is a poem there. It then seems just a matter of writing and seeing what comes out. Occasionally I change a word. Often I don't.

This seems to me to be a magnificent example of what can happen when I/we just get "out of the way" - out of our own way. There does seem to be a connection to a deeper knowing, a clearer seeing, a more heart-full connection.

This is a place that I would like to spend living much more of my life from and a connection that I am drawn to explore much more deeply. In fact it is probably the thing that most interests me in the world at the moment, though of course it is not a thing at all. It is much more mysterious than that. And at the same time it is really simple and very ordinary. I guess that this is an example of the ordinary mysteries to which the title of this blog relates.

I hope to share these journeys into the unknown within the known with you as they unfold for me (whoever I may be).

In the meantime I felt to share the first of these poems that arrived about 2 years ago.

It came out of a realisation that life although it often seems complicated isn't really complicated - or that it needn't be. There is always (or almost always) an option of relating to it in a simple way and that is usually through the heart. This poem has not had a title before now, but I think that it will get one here:



Life

Life
Can sometimes seem confusing.

If,
At any time,
You don't know what to do

Do love.


~


Dx

Sunday 5 April 2009

Life is simple

So, I was having this conversation with my friend J. and we fell to discussing life, and in that moment things felt pretty simple. After a few moments I realised that we had just written a poem.

I felt that I'd like to share it...


Life is simple

"Life is simple,
if you accept that
this is how things are",
he said.

"How are things?",
she said.

"Like this"

"And then what?"

"And then you live,
Until you die".

~

Starting a blog

I suppose many blogs start with a post a bit like this one - a blog post about starting a blog.

Frankly, I've never seen the point in blogging. I guess that I've supposed that I had better things to do than publish my thoughts to the world, or had imagined that the world had better things to do than to read them.

In the last little while though I've had a very few things that I've wanted to be able to share with the world in general, and which were longer than the 140 characters that I'm allowed on Twitter.

The catalyst today, the day on which I've started this blog is that I'd like to share a poem with you dear reader.

I say "dear reader" in the expectation that someone or several someones will stop by to say hello and read these words, at a time when (perforce) no one yet even knows about the existence of this page.

But as you read this, that is, already no longer true. You may well be the first, or one of the first, or perhaps a later welcome visitor browsing the archives to see where it all started (assuming that it will have continued).

I have no idea how often I will post here, but its nice to have a public "wall" on which I can offer anything that I'd like to offer.

I hope that the things that I post here will connect with you, amuse you and touch you in some way.

Welcome to me and welcome to you.


Daniel