Coming home to a place before

thought, intent, or

even desire,

I pause and see

this is the spacious place I seek,

fertile and free,

an emptiness

that’s strangely full.

Resting here for a little while

lets what’s hidden

deep within sprout,

spring forth, and bloom.

                                                          -JDG

Lately I have been puzzling over the difference between the ” just rightness ” of  going for excellence and the ” just rightness ” of  going for perfection. Going for perfection can so easily turn into perfectionism and leave us feeling depleted, deadened, impatient, and unsatisfied because we can never get it just right. We  feel different though  when we go for excellence. Even when we encounter difficulties and delays, we still feel energized, alive, patient, and full because  simply to go for it feels just right. When we are going for excellence, the process itself is satisfying because we take pleasure in what is and what it can become. When we become perfectionistic,  the process is often irritating because our focus is on what is missing and what is yet to  be attained. If we monitor our feeling state, we can get a sense of which process we’re engaged in and that awareness can help us shift our focus, if  need be, to one that brings softness and a smile rather than hardness and a frown.

Tinkering hands tease and tidy,

poke, pry, noodle

and nudge, shaking

out the wrinkles,

til smoothed of all imperfection,

you lie at last

straightened and stiff,

flat and flawless

under that relentless tweaking,

free from all the

glitches that made

you only you.

                                      -JDG

Attention Hacker! Your lame attempt to lure me to your site so you can phish my data is an unmitigated failure! You have to know your alleged sender better to be believable! Your assertion is so absurd. You would have generated more credibility by claiming that your alleged sender had decided to take up skydiving or nude parasailing or even that she had joined the Republican Party! Get a grip!

Yours,

The Incredulous Son

Been blogging now for just four days.

I’ll tell you what

has come to me.

Technology!

Up to now it has seemed remote,

unknowable,

and, need I quote,

omnipresent

and omniscient too, but Culture’s god

gave me the nod.

What can I do?

I’m in a stew.

                                -JDG

Synchronicities, those unexplainable, meaningful coincidences, always give me pause.  Just a few days after I started this blog, I came upon these lines from Reeve Lindbergh’s FORWARD FROM HERE : “I don’t think that the details of writing, or of speaking, either, need to be titillating on the one hand, or tedious on the other. I think the details on the written page need to be there for their own interesting sake, and to hold a place for all that is real in our lives, minute by minute and molecule by molecule.”

I can’t help but think that the Universe called in the big guns, via Reeve Lindbergh, to insure I had a clear sense of what aholdingplace was to be – neither titillating nor tedious – but a place for all that is real in my life and perhaps in yours. How’s that for a mission statement?

On my land, overlooking a large pond, is a shed which inspired the following poem and this blog. Writing the poem made me realize I needed a holding place for the work in process which is me. I invite you to join me in visiting this holding place and to bring with you the work in process that is you.

The Shed

Before even a road was laid

the shed was there

nestled amidst

tall pines, scrub trees;

a holding place for lawn tractor,

shovels, hoes, rakes,

and a woman,

who, mowing done,

rested and watched two great blue

herons soar and

nest, their place found,

hers yet to be.

                                               -JDG