Tag Archives: Beloved

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Love in Ten Sentences

Janebasilblog nominated me for this challenge and I finally have done it. Now to tag ten MORE people…..

Details of the challenge: Write a 10 line poem with four words to each line, and each line must contain the word ‘love’. Nominate 10 people to carry on the challenge.

love complicates my life
love and don’t like
behavior not deserving love
love pours forth anyhow
love feels deep hurt
love withdraws lick wounds
love heals ventures forth
less contact mean loves
behavior change brings love
complicated joy : love anyhow

I still need to nominate ten people to carry on and write the NEXT love in ten sentences. I will add that…

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Beloved

B for Beloved. Rumi and Hafiz, the Sufi poets, write about the Beloved.

The Beloved is God and God is the Beloved.

I like thinking of God as the Beloved. That makes sense to me. God should be Beloved, most Beloved of all.

But sometimes I feel abandoned and lost and stressed and grumpy and it feels as if I am longing hopelessly for a connection with the Beloved. Rumi says in his poems that it is the longing itself that is the connection to the Beloved. Then my inner devil gets annoyed and sarcastic and says, “That’s stupid. That’s a Catch-22. So why is the Beloved Beloved if suffering longing is the way to reach Her or Him?” My inner angel gets involved and is all serene and untroubled and says, “Of course longing is a doorway to the Beloved.” Then they both get out flaming swords and proceed to fight. They can’t kill each other though they try. And I sigh and say to the Beloved, “They don’t behave.” Then the angel and the devil both turn on me and say that I should love each one of them best. “No.” I say. “I love the Beloved best, but you are both part of the Beloved so if everything is loved, then you are both loved best.” Then the angel and devil point to each other and say how the other one is just horribly wrong….. they just go on.

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Angel

I am in the April Blogging from A to Z Challenge and I am already late… that is, I did not post yesterday, my “A” day. I didn’t know what my theme for the month would be this morning. This morning, I am reading Micheal A. Singer’s The Untethered Soul and I found what I would be writing about.

I have written about my inner angel and devil before. That voice inside that talks all the time and makes judgements and gets excited about everything. Mr. Singer says that that voice is not us. That voice is like a roommate who talks constantly and is very dramatic. He talks about stepping back and watching that roommate and listening. If the roommate were a real person, we would cut them off. “Stop talking!” we would yell. But they won’t and they wouldn’t and we cannot get away.

So when that voice gets really irritating I call on my angel and devil to take over. They argue. The angel always says “Forgive.” The devil wants to whack the angel over the head with a hammer to shut them up. The angel forgives the devil for being nasty. The devil gets even more nasty and sarcastic and then I start laughing. The inner angel and inner devil are so over the top. Perhaps someone stepped on my toe and it hurt. The devil suggests what to say to them, where they should go, how to punish them. The devil is unreasonable and suggests punishments that are so far beyond the original insult that the angel appears and says, “Stop that. You aren’t being nice.” The devil swears. The angel says, “Well, your toe doesn’t hurt anymore does it and anyhow someone pushed the person who stepped on your toe so it wasn’t their fault and why did you come to a crowded concert if you can’t tolerate your toe being stepped on?” Then they may continue to fight for a while. At the concert I am laughing, inappropriately, because of the inner dialogue.

Today I want to thank that inner angel for all the times that she or he has calmed me down. Has stepped forward and said, “Stop reacting.” For being loving all the time.

Thank you, angel.

And here are synchronized swimmers, practicing before a competition. In the competition, they will not wear the swim cap or the goggles. This is a lift, remember, where none of them touch the bottom of the pool. It is all supported by the girls swimming. This is a team of eight, so four are supporting from under water, holding their breath. Trust and teamwork.

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Memorial

The Tuesday Treasured Tidbits inspired this…..

I came to Austin, Texas for an old friend’s memorial.

He was the husband of a friend of my parents. She went to school at the University of Tennessee with my parents in the late 1950s. She has pretty much known me since birth. Both of my parents and my sister are dead. I lived with her and her husband and their two teenage sons in Madison, WI for a year while I was in college.

I learned things about George from his obituary that I never knew. They got married on my birthday when I was five. I knew that George had a master’s in Special Education and worked at a high school for 26 years, but not that as the Defensive Coordinator football coach the team won 10 conference championships and 2 state football championships. He is in the State of Wisconsin Football Hall of Fame and The Beloit Sports Hall of Fame.

I visited in August, and got to see his son for the first time since I was in college. I met his wife and three children. I hope to see the other son sometime in the next few years.

Joy and sadness, both.

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Thorns

Once, oh Best Beloved, there was a little girl. She went on a trip to the desert.

The desert was very different from where she lived. All of the plants had thorns. Even the trees had thorns in their bark. But just like home, there were birds.

She saw a little bird. “Hello little bird,” she said.

“Hello,” said the little bird.

“The trees have thorns,” said the little girl. She touched a cactus softly and it bit her. She pulled out the fine thorns and sucked on her sore finger.

“Yes,” said the little bird.

“Where do you live?” said the little girl.

“Here in the desert!” said the bird, happy.

“How can you live in the desert?” said the little girl.

“There is morning dew and delicious insects and nectar from flowers!” said the bird.

“But can you build a nest?” said the little girl. There were no twigs.

“Of course!” said the little bird. “Come see. My nest is in this tree.”

The little girl looked and there was the nest. The nest was built of thorns.

“It is thorns.” said the little girl, thoughtful. “If you live in the desert, you build your nest of thorns.”

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Off balance/balance

Plato’s Groove lovely poem from yesterday reminds me of Portia Nelson’s poem “A Poetic Interlude:  Autobiography in Five Short Chapters”. I wrote my own version of this back in 2005, about trying to change. It is hard. I also want to submit this to the Ronovan Writes BeWoW Wednesday, for Be Wonderful Wednesday. @RonovanWrites. I think looking inside and trying to change and changing is wonderful…..

Off balance/balance

Confusion
Makes no sense
React react react
Engage
Argue
Fight
Want to bite kick scream
Argue (control) argue
Icky tone of voice
Ugly
Confusion confusion
Told I am wrong
I am overreacting
I am invalid
Child again
Hide

Confusion
Makes no sense
React
Stop
Don’t react
Stop…..
Wait…..
Feel…..
Confusion ANGER
Let anger go
Confusion: Sad, Hurt
Sad feels lonely
Not engaged
Remember you are loved
Remember you are lovable
Sad is ok
Remember
Roses and violets and lupine
Spring from the path
Where your true self steps
Call true friends
Comforted.

Confusion
Makes no sense
Hurts
No react
Listen
Confusion not mine
Sad
Disengage
Remember
Roses and violets and lupine
True self
Comfort self

Confusion
Not mine
Step away
Comfort self

Comfort
Comfortable
I am loved
I am cherished
I am safe

June 11, 2005

previously published on everything2.com

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Love and self

When you love someone, do you lose your self?

I think that is the tricky bit about love. When you fall for someone else, do you fall or do you hold on to yourself? Where is that boundary?

I am in a flirtation. I am very interested in a person. I am interested in what he says and what he is interested in. I am learning quite a bit about some topics that really, have not been on my radar. I also often disagree quite strongly in the realm of politics. And I don’t really care that our politics are just about opposite ends of the spectrum.

I am interested in where we meet and where we don’t meet. Where we agree and where we very strongly disagree and privately think that the other person needs their head examined. I am not falling too far into the “really this person thinks like I do, they just won’t admit it” trap. Well, perhaps I am. Perhaps that is what love is: when we project part of our self and the ideal part of ourself on to the other person. They reflect and occupy some part of our ideal. That does not mean that they ARE our ideal or that they ARE the projection.

In this particular flirtation, he does not seem interested in much of what I am interested in. Well, particularly poetry. Occasionally this bothers me but mostly I shake it off. I am hoping that I have reached the age and level of cynicism where I do not expect the other person to like everything I like, to agree with what I say, to have the same ideals or ideas. I am watching myself and wondering how much of what I like in him is him and how much is my projection. Don’t know yet. The mind is a peculiar place. So is the heart.

But …. I am feeling much happier about holding on to myself at the same time as I fall and crush. I look at what he likes and wants but I also hold what I like and want. I am trying to give them equal weight, the needs and wants and desires of the two people present.

Hold and fall, at the same time.

The picture is of an etching by my mother, Helen Burling Ottaway.

Shake it off.

Also published on everything2.com

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Falling

I was asked to write a poem from the perspective of the angels in my dream.

Falling

We are stars
We are born
We are made to burn
We flame
We explode or burn out
We are made to die

We are angels
We are made to fall
We all fall
We are white falling in black space
Or black falling in white space
If you prefer
It doesn’t matter
It is the contrast that is important
There is no light without dark

We are angels
We are made to fall
We all fall

Do you fear
your fear?
your anger?
your grief?
falling?
death?

We fall for you

If you reject
your fear
your anger
your grief
falling
death

We will fall for you
We accept falling

All must fall

If you accept
your fear
your anger
your grief
falling
death

We will fall with you

You will fall with us