Rounding
by Gary Boelhower
All the stones are smooth here,
and all the hearts;
the sharp and cutting edges
have been rounded and softened
by the tender persistence of Pacific surf.
No single moment of mysterious bliss
wrought this transformation,
but the constant and faithful motion
of the whitewater's gift and surrender,
the force forward and the calm retreat,
an intimate dance of energy and grace.
This patient carver, with pounding power,
washes over us breath by breath,
heartbeat by heartbeat,
so we barely feel the shaping
and remaking of ourselves.
But we are being reborn,
out of the water again,
reshaped to the roundness
of the mother,
softened slowly
by the warm pull of the moon.
by Sharon Farinacci
Blended echoes build in tempo
Down corridors, and through
Cubicles of company mind,Carrying an array of notes
Laughter and sorrow
Encouragement, despair.
The daily struggle for profit and power
creates quite an ambiguous air.Yet, Music is heard by the stilled mind
And the soul's needs there filled.
The soul then hears it's calling:
To harmonize these varied notes
Into one essential tune.
And to this awakened mind
That sways in harmony
Profit's the natural rhythm
As the collective song is sung.
Dance to the Piperby Martha Graham
There is a vitality, a life force, an energy,
a quickening that is translated
through you into action.
And because there is only one of you in all time
This expression is unique.
And if you block it, it will never exist through
Any other medium, the world will not have it.
It is not your business
To determine how good it is, nor how valuable,
Nor how it compares with other expressions.
It is your business to keep it yours
(and) clearly and directly,
to keep the channel open.
Corporate wombby Jeremy Nash
Once gave shelternow cold gray walls
reflect fluorescent glare and names
of the dead are mumbled in shadows.
Somewhere
Faint murmuring
sounds give birth
Saying Life you are
too precious! Here now I dare
To stitch hope to faith to dreams to
you for me.
When you stop, stop,
When you go, go.
When you sit to partake of a bounty,
try really saying thanks.
When you share a touch with a loved one,
try listening deeply.
Try bowing low to the wise
laughing loud with the young.
Because life
is in the way you are.
The river we cross is water
in a way.
The rain that splashes out
from under our wheels is water too,
in another way.
The wine that brings us back to simplicity
and draws us to each other
is water in yet again another way.
As are tears, snow, and the mist that
lays in the hills at dawn.
Your way is the shape of you,
the color and the tone
the rhythm and the flow of you.
The way of you is the
sound your name makes when you speak it,
The lines your arms trace
when you’re dancing,
The echo that is left in
the heart of everyone you meet.
So..
When you stop, stop,
When you go, go.
Copyright, 1998 Puran Perez
Summoning the Call: An Invocation
By Kathryn Hall
Finding the courage to sing our own song
Drawn from the wellspring within our own soul
Piercing the darkness and shadows within
Granting the spirit a home, again.
by Kahlil Gibran
Then a ploughman said, Speak to us of Work.
And he answered, saying:
When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the
hours turns to music.
Which of you would be reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings
together in unison?
And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if
your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to
dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even
as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit.
And to know that all the blessed dead or standing about you and
watching.
Often I have heard you say, as if speaking in sleep,
"He works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone,
is nobler than he who plows the soil.
And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of
man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet."
But I say, not in sleep but in the over-wakefulness of noontide, that
the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of
all the blades of grass;
And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into song made
sweeter by his own loving.
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better
that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and
take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that
feeds but half man's hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distills a
poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle
man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.
