poetry

chère douce Paris, je reviendrai un jour

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

What we call the beginning is often the end

And to make and end is to make a beginning.

The end is where we start from.

For last words belong to last years language

And next years words await another voice.

But the passage now presents no hindrance

To the spirit unappeased and peregrine.

Between two worlds become much like each other.

So i find words i never thought to speak.

Miller Williams, compassion

Have compassion for everyone you meet, even if they don’t want it. What seems conceit, bad manners, or cynicism is always a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen.
You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone.

-Miller Williams, Compassion

a prayer -RUMI

I have come to drag you out of yourself and take you into my heart.

I have come to bring out the beauty you never knew you had and lift you like a prayer to the sky.

If no one recognises you, i do because you are my life and soul.

Don’t run away, accept your wounds and let bravery be your shield.

It takes a thousand stages for the perfect being to evolve.

Every step of the way i will walk with you and never leave you stranded.

-RUMI

the journey

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice—

though the whole house began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

‘Mend my life!’

each voice cried.

But you didn’t stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations—

through their melancholy

was terrible.It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

though the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice,

which you slowly

recognised as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do–determined to save

the only life you could save.

-Mary Oliver

The Call, ORIAH

I have heard it all my life, A voice calling a name I recognised as my own.

Sometimes it comes as a soft-bellied whisper. Sometimes it holds an edge of urgency.

But always it says: Wake up, my love. You are walking asleep. Theres no safety in that!

Remember what you are, and let this knowing take you home to the Beloved with every breath.

Hold tenderly who you are, and let a deeper knowing colour the shape of your humanness.

There is nowhere to go. What you are looking for is right here. Open the fist clenched in wanting and see what you already hold in your hand.

There is no waiting for something to happen, no point in the future to get to. All you have ever longed for is here in this moment, right now.

You are wearing yourself out with all this searching.

Come home and rest.

How much longer can you live like this? Your hungry spirit is gaunt, your heart stumbles. All this trying. Give it up!

Let yourself be one of the God-Mad, faithful only to the Beauty you are.

Let the Lover pull you to your feet and hold you close, dancing even when fear urges you to sit this one out.

Remember, there is one word you are here to say with your whole being. When it finds you, give your life to it. Don’t be tight-lipped and stingy.

Spend yourself completely on the saying. Be one word in this great love poem we are writing together.

ORIAH

I am not I. I am this one walking beside me whom I do not see, whom at times I manage to visit, and whom at other times I forget; who remains calm and silent while I talk, and forgives, gently, when I hate, who walks where I am not, who will remain standing when I die.

By Juan Ramón Jiménez

She is searching now, although not outside of her self any longer. She has gone within, deep within to the core where she knows all of the answers she so desires to know about herself are. She asks now,in quiet whispers,and out loud for the help and the direction she needs,she understands that she is not alone, that the one she speaks to resides within her, this is something she has always known. She is unafraid now, and with each breath she feels her own strength growing and she is aware of the strength that has no name, or maybe does but feels has her back as she moves forward and away from the familiarities of the way she has been moving through this life and begins working towards a more truthful idea of herself. She is beginning to feel the tips of her own worthiness. She knows the further she travels, the greater the love will be, for herself, for you, for this life. She believes all is as it should be, and understands that it is in the hardest moments that life offers, that are the greatest blessings, it’s what keeps us moving, keep us asking the questions, striving for something else maybe, something more, real, closer to our own truth. She is paying attention now, to herself, to what she is feeling in each and every moment and she finds herself holding back from reacting in ways she always has, and pausing for just a moment, just enough time to create a space, a gap within herself where she can decide what choice to make in that particular moment. She is moving through life purposely and intentionally now, and understands that this is the way it should have always have been.

the invitation -Oriah

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love for your dream for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon… I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow if you have been opened by life’s betrayal or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain mine or your own without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy mine or your own if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful to be realistic to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure yours and mine and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

-Oriah

and I know that..

And I know I am deathless.

I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by a carpenters compass.

..I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood,

I see that the elementary laws never apologize. I recon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by after all.

I am of old and young, of the foolish as much the wise,

Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,

Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,

Stuffed with the stuff that is coarse, and stuffed with the stuff that is fine,

One of the great nation, the nation of many nations- the smallest the same and the largest the same,

All goes onward and outward….and nothing collapses,

And to die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier.

Has any one supposed it lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.

My faith is to the greatest of faiths and the least of faiths.

Enclosing all worship ancient and modern and all between ancient and modern,

Believing I shall come again upon the earth after five thousand years ..

-Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

rustic apple and sour cherry pie

rustic apple and sour cherry pie.

rustic apple and sour cherry pie

I lie abstracted and hear beautiful tales of things and the reasons of things,They are so beautiful I nudge myself to listen.

I cannot say to any person what I hear… I cannot say it to myself… It is very wonderful.

-Walt Whitman, leaves of grass

Rustic apple and sour cherry pie

for the sweet pastry

ingredients: 125g butter softened, 1egg, 90g icing sugar,30g almond meal,250g plain flour

method: place butter,sugar,almond meal,egg in an electric mixer with a paddle attachment and beat until well combined, Add the flour on a low-speed until just combined. transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and bring together into a disk, wrap in plastic film and refrigerate for 1/2 an hour. Pre heat oven to 180°C. Remove pastry from the fridge, on a lightly floured surface roll out to 4mm thick and gently line a greased pie tin, can leave the edges for a homely look.Put the remaining pastry aside. Bake the shell for ten minutes in the oven before removing and setting aside to cool.

Pie Filling

ingredients: 1tin of pie apples,1 cup of sour cherries drained,1table spoon brown sugar

method: combine all the ingredients and pour into the tart shell, roll out remaining pastry and cover over the pie. With a sharp knife make indents in the lid, and sprinkle a little brown sugar over the top.

Bake for 25 minutes, serve hot with thickened cream.