Repost: Mindfulness

Hello everyone.

I wrote this two years ago but I could have written it today.  Or yesterday, as that is when I was supposed to post.  Sorry for the lateness.  

I have spent the last week madly working between sun up and sun down, that time of light which is getting shorter by the minute. Fall is here and winter is coming. My goal in this transition time is to find a way to turn my madness into order. Not lose the energy but find some space in the midst of it all. I have a novel to finish (new novel, but still true!) and I need the space for that. I have a family to sit and read with, play with, hug and hang with (definitely still true!) and I need the space for that.

I want to be mindful and heartful and here. I want to hear the prayers that are made out of grass.

So for today, I leave you with this poem by one of my heroes, Mary Oliver.

Mindful
By Mary Oliver

Every day
   I see or hear
      something
         that more or less

kills me
   with delight,
      that leaves me
         like a needle

in the haystack
   of light.
      It was what I was born for—
         to look, to listen,

to lose myself
   inside this soft world—
      to instruct myself
         over and over

in joy,
   and acclamation.
      Nor am I talking
         about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
   the very extravagant—
      but of the ordinary,
         the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
   Oh, good scholar,
      I say to myself,
         how can you help

but grow wise
   with such teachings
      as these—
         the untrimmable light

of the world,
   the ocean’s shine,
      the prayers that are made
         out of grass?

Gratefully yours,
Tam