After a late afternoon rain,
the cicadas
cease to sing. Their
shrill and steady
hum no longer crowds the air. A
strange emptiness
is left where there
was none before.
It’s funny how you come to miss
the very things
you never thought
you could or would.
JDG
“But ask the animals,
And they will teach you;
The birds of the air,
And they will tell you;
The plants of the earth,
And they will teach you;
And the fish of the sea will declare to you.”
Job 12: 7-8
Years ago I was sitting in with a wise woman and dear friend pouring out my soul when a cicada began flinging itself into her sixth floor downtown window. Now, I must tell you that this friend was a well-respected scholar of symbolism. She turned to skeptical me, and declared that this was clearly a sign. She grabbed her copy of Animal-Wise, by Ted Andrews and read, of cicada – a symbol of happiness from the past and coming positive and necessary change. It turned out that this little cicada was absolutely right – a skeptic cured.
This began my ever expanding understanding that the Divine speaks…
View original post 32 more words
I wanted to share this post and one other from gratefullyyourstoday. I think you will enjoy them and her blog itself.
In the fall off 2013, I found the courage (or it found me) to make some pretty big career and family life changes. It was unsettling at best. As that time came into its own, noisy Herons began appearing everywhere. I turned to Ted Andrews’s Animal-Speak for understanding, and learned that Heron medicine is for people who appear to dabble in various occupations and ways of living life; that this can seem unsettling to most people, but for heron people there is great security in this flexible approach to life. Here began the heron poem.
Must it be Heron?
Though I look to the sky longingly
For eagle,
Or owl,
Or hawk at least,
They are not the totem of this time.
Except on occasion
When dear hawk provides her traveling mercies.
It is heron who continues to find Star and me,
Here on the bridge
As we learn of…
View original post 12 more words
As soon as the rain stops and sun
appears, I fling
open the door
and bid the kids
depart for the world outside. I
claim the fresh air
will do them good
and the sun holds
benefits too numerous to
list, simple facts
they decry and
choose to resist.
JDG
Today as I sit in my small house,
I remember
you who once seemed
so large. Widowed
at thirty, you chose to raise, as
best you could, the
three of us on
dogs, daffodils,
and democrats, thus leaving us
a legacy
of loyalty,
beauty, equity.
JDG
If I could learn not to leap to
thought or deed, but
to simply pause
and breathe, if I
could be with what is, just as it
is, then I’d know
I had arrived
at wisdom’s door
as someone new to me. I might
need to visit
me before I
open any door.
JDG
I never set out to do much
more than write a
poem each day,
but, as often
happens, much more came my way.
What might have gone
unseen before
now stared me in
the face. Taking a minute to
write a minute
gives gentle shape
to every day.
JDG
Soil not hardened by the sun
lets go its hold
of wandering
weeds with only
a tug or two. Our jobs would be
much easier
if we learned to
pay attention
first to the state of the soil
and only then
turned to the
pulling of weeds.
JDG
As we go through our days, putting
things together
and taking them
apart, watching
for any sign that things may fall
apart before
we’re through, we might
miss how we are
simultaneously being
made and remade
both building and
being built too.
JDG
Those aren’t porpoises frolicking
in the water.
They’re yellow labs
let loose at last
to leap, to swim in circles, to
nip at gnats and
chase after low
flying gulls. Shore
fish scurry to safety as a
solitary
stick drifts away.
No retrievers, they.
JDG
