Monday, February 17, 2025

Remember To Look Up...

 Cult / Anti-cult...

The topic arises again for me...
With the current political landscape, it's always around...
Sometimes up close and personal...
Sometimes in the distance...

I can be standing in a clear calm
Yet away off in the horizon I see a storm
The storm never reaches me
I simply witness it from afar

And when the sun shines afterward
A rainbow

Will the same happen in the nation where I live?
Will we see a rainbow?
Will it appear to everyone?

It could.... 
But one has to be looking up... 
To catch the majestic display...

~*~

Prompted by a couple essays I received via email in the last few days.

~*~

Monday, February 10, 2025

Big Iron Vat

A scripture asks...
Can a leopard change his spots?
Can an Ethiopian change his skin?
Two rhetorical questions

But can a sociopath change?
Can the abuser change?
Can a narcissist change?
Can the abused change?

I believe that yes, we can
But it isn't easy 
It's like cleaning a giant vat
Filled with molded stew

Broken hearts
Broken souls
Broken bodies
Decades of collection

The stew is toxic
The mold can kill
Do I wear goggles and a mask?
What about a hazmat suit?

Once shielded from toxic vapors
Light a fire under the vat
Hot enough to simmer the
Contents 

Stir and mindfully extract what I can
Pausing to honor each broken piece
That floats in the simmering
Collection

Once the stew has boiled down
Fire and iron having cooled
Climb inside and scrub
Mindful of that which once was

Despite the hazmat suit
Take in a deep breath
Climb out and sanitize the vat 
Preferably with sunlight

Once sanitized
Discard the protective garments
Breathe in fresh scents
Feel the warmth

Bow my head and honor what was
Knowing this is an ongoing project

Visit it regularly to
Acknowledge and let go
Before losses pile up 
Before the toxic mold sets in

Acknowledge the expansiveness of life
No longer confined to a vat 

Saturday, December 28, 2024

Fumbling words... (2017)

I feel I offended you
I struggle with this often --
this feeling that I offend others
I want you to know that I care
But in trying to relay that
without directly telling you
I fumble and my words come
out too bluntly
Often, I cannot retrieve from
my brain the proper words
I'd probably be better off to
say nothing


2/22/2017

~*~

I regularly revisit posts I've written in the past, prompted by viewing my stats and discovering the posts which visitors to my blog have read. That said, the visitors may be bots or something other than human eyes. 

In December 2024, I ran across this poem (that I'd penned in 2017) while viewing one of those posts on my tossandripple blog. 

I do not recall whom it was that I felt I had offended.  
But the poem is still relevant today.

~*~