Six Ways to Kneel and Kiss the Ground

September, and the promise of routine. Days in my own home. A sunday morning with my laptop (which is functioning, just at the moment, reasonably well!), and a prompt from Inner Artist, a lovely blogger, new to me, to dig out one of my own poems. Jo uses a line from Rumi as a quote on her blog - a line that caught my heart and prompted a poem quite a few years ago. The Rumi line, known to many of you, perhaps, is:

There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground....

My poem....


Six Ways to Kneel and Kiss the Ground

Stand stock-still, watch a red admiral sail
beyond your garden and your neighbours.
....
Place your palm on the warm bark of a maple,
pat it, pet if. If you're brave, put your face
against the smooth grain of it; wrap your arms
tight around the trunk. Hug.
...
Brush your nose in the shampooed silk
of a three-year-old's storytime head.
...
Breathe air flowing in from the sea.
...
Breathe air flowing down from the mountain.
...
Lie on summer grass; roll over;
feel the blades on your cheek;
place your lips on the earth;
kiss


,,,,

still here... or here again

Since that last post, I've actually started two posts, but not gotten to the stage of hitting the "publish post" button, thinking I'd get to add pictures, maps, etc.

Main thing is - to anyone who was worried or wondering about me - I'm fine! I'm doing that summer-time thing of taking off on unplanned trips, have been having wonderful times, in fact, along with spending time with my family over the few days around my Mum's first anniversary.

I thank all of you who commented or emailed after that angsty post. The blog is in transition, but I know I'm not comfortable with Facebook, and I do want to stay in a place where I can meet people online, so blogging it is.

Past few weeks... a few of the wonderful things... visiting Newgrange; seeing James Taylor in concert; oh, oh, oh - seeing Leonard Cohen in concert (words fail me!); boat-trip to the Cliffs of Moher (and depositing my wedding-ring in the depths of the Atlantic from there); meals with sisters and friends; family gatherings; driving the entire circuit of Ireland (and more!); seeing great new art.

Knowing I am lucky and blessed. Life is good.

Re-connecting

Look what happens! I wrote about "Disconnected" for Sunday Scribblings and where do I go for the next month-and-a-bit-more? Into somewhere not connected to my blog for sure. I've still read blogs from time to time, and even managed to leave the occasional comment, but am still not properly back on-line. Now that my holidays from work have started, time to get neglected tasks (like having my computer looked) at seen to.

Well... computer problems were only part of the reason for my disappearance. It's been a difficult month, with traumas minor and major, and my attention and energy were elsewhere.

But, as to blogging... I see many bloggers reach a point where there's a dilemma. Questions are asked like "What am I doing here?" This blog has changed since I started it. I've "gone underground" in certain ways. My focus in my life has changed, and there's more that I keep outside of the blog. But there was a time when I shared more of my poetry and the poets that I like, more of myself, and maybe I can return to that a bit.

I don't want to delete the blog, or to stop it. But it can't sit there with nothing happening for months at a time (Why not? I'm only a very occasional blogger on my SoulCollage blog, after all). If there's still anyone out there, what do you think is important about keeping a blog?

This is just a meandering musing, really. I suspect that this will pick up again at a point where something catches my interest and I start to post about it again. A bit like calling an old friend after a gap, and saying "Well... where have you been? What have you been up to? Tell me all..."

Sunday Scribblings.... Disconnected

This week, the prompt at Sunday Scribblings is "Disconnected". Does it seem apt for me? Oh, yes! Does it strike me as odd that this week, of all weeks, such a prompt appears? Not at all. I often find the prompt that's offered at Sunday Scribblings is very strangely fitted to something going on in my life, just right at that time. Totally Connected, in fact!

So... the immediate link I made when I saw that word was with what's been happening with my laptop all week. Disconnected is the word! Last Sunday, it appeared to have lost all memory of me, to have disconnected from my life. It transpired, after some frantic messages to people who might know something about all this, that all the documents, photos, music that at first seemed to be GONE were actually still stored, but just in a back-room that took a bit of finding, and that couldn't be accessed straight-away on switching on the laptop. "Phew" I said. "First chance I get, I'm going to have someone look at this and sort it out for me"

That's a week ago. My computer is still disconnected from me. What's actually going on is that it won't hold my profile and settings, and has no knowledge when it's switched on, of what I want from it, so I have to teach it each time. It doesn't know I have a Skype account, and messages I sent disappear into the ether when I switch off.

No, I'm not going into all the details! Why haven't I had someone look at it? Life took over... a problem emerged with my car a couple of days later, so I got distracted with the more urgent task of finding a roadworthy replacement (which I've done, and for which I am very grateful, very thankful!) I wanted to go ahead with a planned outing on Friday with my friend, K, so I did, and so one of this week's tasks is to find someone to sort out the computer.

Disconnected? The word... That's its immediate association, but I'm actually also "connecting" to the opposite word. Connected. I can't help feeling that there's something in the fact that in one week, major faults emerged in machinery in my life... and the connection in terms of reason is that I'd neglected to follow up on minor, but irritating faults, didn't have them checked out, and then, major problems emerged.

Guess who's booking herself in for health and dental check-ups this week?

Get the connection?

For more stories of being Disconnected, go to Sunday Scribblings HERE
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Edited, later to add: Some Sad News

When I went to the Sunday Scribblings page to add my link, I found the very sad news that Otto Smith, beloved husband of Phyllis (Sunday Scribblings regular contributor, Granny Smith), had died suddenly last week. I am so saddened by this news. Her love for him shone out in so much that she wrote. They have been a remarkable couple for many, many years, and it grieves my heart to think of her huge loss. On one Sunday Scribbling post, Phyllis shared a most beautiful poem of hers, The Old Lovers. I invite you to go and read it. It's at the end of this post, and it is a most delicate poem, expressing her feeling of dread at the parting that would come to them sometime, after their 68 years of marriage. In a post on "Trust", she wrote about her decision to marry Otto. That's HERE .

My prayers are for the eternal progress of his soul, and comfort and healing for Phyllis and her family.

TGIF - Trusting, Grateful, Inspired Friday

Brene Brown, over at the "I Thought It Was Just Me" readalong, has a lovely feature on Fridays, in which she asks What, today are you Trusting? Grateful for? Inspired by? and she kindly offers a giveaway to anyone who replies, which is lovely.

Well, in the week where my computer forgot me (and hasn't completely regained its memory yet), my ten-year old car finally cracked up and had to be replaced, and word arrived that I may be out of a job come September, I'm actually feeling very up-beat, and I am:

Trusting that I am being looked after, that everything is unfolding as it should.

Grateful for my health; for the problem with my car emerging before it caused an accident in which I, or others might have been injured; for my family; for having resources enough to handle "stuff" happening; for the friends who encouraged me when I had to take the big step and buy my first car on my own.

Inspired by friend K, who has just quit cigarettes, and has asked me to keep her company today to help her through a hard day; by friend D, who is taking new departures all the time, bravely; and by sweet C, who is very, very ill, but fighting, holding on and hoping that all will be well, as am I, as are so many people.

computer crisis

Woke up this morning to a computer that doesn't remember me. I have no history here, it seems, no contacts, no documents, no pictures, no data. I've never registered for anything, .... have you ever been there?

I think the universe is repaying me for a claim I made yesterday of being "detached", not tied to things so much any more. I am being tested bigtime!

My biggest worry is email addresses... how do you reclaim them, find people again? There are people who were on my SoulCollage mailing list whose full names or postal addresses I don't know, and quite a few bloggers who don't show email addresses on their profiles but that I've been in touch with in the past.

OK. It's Sunday morning, and I don't know where to start finding help with this, but in the meantime, if you're someone I've been in touch with by email, will you email me again? It may be a while before I can even get back into my email account, but I'd appreciate having a place to start!

THANK YOU!

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UPDATE, a few hours later....

Phew... the data is still there, but so far the only way to get to it is by a back-door. It's a software problem, and a lesson to me (and maybe to you?) to follow my own advice and get external backup organised soon.

Confession: Sunday Scribbling

This week's prompt at Sunday Scribblings is "Confession". To anyone brought up Catholic, it's likely that the first image to arise will be the memory of the confession-box, the first confession, the ritual cleansing of the soul before the first communion. Does she look like her soul needed to be cleansed?

I didn't mind going to confession. The biggest problem was figuring out what on earth to offer up as "sins". Bless me, Father, for I have sinned... I was cheeky to my parents, I told a lie....

As I became disillusioned with the church, my attendance at confession dwindled, dwindled, and then, in my teens, when I decided to become a Baha'i, it really interested me to find that the founder of the Baha'i Faith had forbidden such forms of confession.

"Bahá'u'lláh prohibits confession to, and seeking absolution of one's sins from, a human being, and enjoins the sinner, when alone, to repent before God, for it is He Who forgives."

That doesn't mean that we never admit to having done something wrong! If I have an apology to make, then of course I should make it, or if it seems important to acknowledge a mistake I've made to someone else, then again, yes, I should make that "confession", but as to forgiveness, that is for God, and I really don't believe anyone's been given the power to offer that forgiveness on His behalf.

I've been reading a really interesting book about shame and guilt by Brené Brown, "I Thought it was Just Me", and reading that, it becomes clearer than ever to me that instilling shame or guilt in children (or anyone!) for being "bad" doesn't serve anyone. [There's a read-along underway at her blog, with the most inspiring podcasts and posts... go check it out!]

Another line from the Baha'i Writings says: "...such confession before people results in one's humiliation and abasement, and God -- exalted be His glory -- wisheth not the humiliation of His servant." Having come from a religion where little children were made to feel guilty for the most ordinary and human of things; where women were taken off to be "churched" after childbirth before they were seen as clean enough for ordinary society again, this was a revelation indeed.

So my confession today... I'm not a fan of confession!

I've no idea what the other Sunday Scribblers have confessed today, so I'm heading over now to find out... Join me?