Sunday, January 6, 2013

A lot of circling before declaring one's love.


My town in the rear-view mirror
and a major task
to get back to
as soon as the sun comes out
this rain stops
this knee heals
this shoulder stops twitching.

How I circle around what's really driving
me off
to and from
and in and out
of focus.
This is not fear, I declare
loudly.
I'm just praying to
an unknown deity
to give me strength
courage
and
that something else
I seem to lack
I seem not to know
enough words to name it properly.

How is it that we are afraid of so many things
we can't name?

9 comments:

  1. huh interesting...i wonder if its a feeling...i get those as well...i dont know if fear is it...well i know at times it is...but others it is anxiety....

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  2. And therein lies the problem; the unknown. The things we can name do not frighten us!

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  3. Well, the fact that we cannot name them means we cannot control them. If we cannot control them, they are so much larger than life. That's my thought, and I'm sticking to it.

    Me? I just stuck out my snout, to see what's happening. Still winter; back to hibernation.

    Blessings and Bear hugs for 2013, Rosaria.

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  4. how is it? you name something that i often find myself wondering rosaria. why the fear of so many things in this world? is it because fear is a control device that keeps people muted and cowed? it occurs to me that many times religion, politics, advertising and the media in general utilize fear very deftly to realize a desired end result. fear works, so we have to counter it with increasing love. it is the only way.

    thank you for sharing your thoughts here. as always i come away with something nutritious for my brain to chew on.

    wishing you and yours many blessings in the new year~

    with love,

    amanda
    xoxo

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  5. We never get to what really bothers us. We talk around it! We walk away,we drive miles from it, and it comes with us always, out of sight, but still with us.
    Our brain is afraid to voice the concern, afraid even to name it.

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  6. I always feel better when I can name it. I usually find out others have the same things going on in their minds and bodies. Somehow, to have company is comforting.

    On the other hand, it could be the weather. We are in Tucson now, in the sun, but before we left Seattle I was so weighted down it was hard to think about anything positive.

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  7. !

    you know you and i could talk about this for the rest of our lives:)))

    (and i am a little upset that others do not jump up and down around this very important point.)

    i think that all fear comes from, first, our fear of our own mortality which underscores our lack of control. and yet it is our mortality which gives our lives value. can you imagine an eternal life on earth? in my mind this would be a hell. there would never be loss to teach us value.

    and so why do we fear? is it instinctual? i think perhaps in part but we groom our fear because we have built industry around it and we have equated value in life with monetary gain.

    so there you have it, mortality and money. damn.

    but if on the other hand we say, ok, we live and will die and my god, look at each of these miracles, including hunger and poverty (although not abject but natural, as a world not motivated by money might allow), including sickness and death, for to know the losses allows us to know the joys, we would remove the tension, our battle for the power we will never have, and thereby remove the fear. we would still know pain. pain is essential to living but it would become something that we cherish.

    and if we were to remove money as a motivation how would we sell t-shirts, insurance, food? we would be moved by need instead of inflated desire. without inflated desire we might have more equality and equitable distribution in the world.

    ah, but i am an idealist.

    and yet i do not give up.

    xo
    erin

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  8. Years ago, as a principal, I came up with an idea to provide elective offerings without elective teachers.

    (We had had woodshop, computers, home ec., but budget cuts had eliminated these electives.)

    On Fridays, all teachers taught a class of their choice, a hobby, an interest, something they would do for fun...
    and students could then take six various classes of their choice, or one class all day long!

    So, we discussed the logistics and because nobody had time to actually sign everybody up and balance the numbers, etc.. we took our chances and announced that students, on the first day could "drop in" and audit any class before signing up for it/them for the rest of the quarter.

    We told students that the passing bell was a strict five minutes; if they didn't get to class within five minutes, they would be assigned one!

    All students stayed put in that first class, fascinated by the new routine. Many ended up in the "wrong" class but liked it enough to remain. All learned something new, exciting, invigorating.

    Most importantly, teachers felt they had a day off!
    Oh yes, they had students with them, all day long, and new materials to explore with them,new people to get used to. But they were doing what they would do with their "leisure" time, and sharing their love with children who had never learned to play chess, or make a bird house.

    Fridays were the most popular days of the week. Even parents dropped in to learn to make pizza, plant a garden, learn to design and construct a leaded glass window, sing, dance, write plays, construct sets...

    We had no additional money for this experiment.
    We had no additional people except volunteers that teachers pulled in.
    We had a need to expose students to many skills and interests just the way we were exposed to many skills and interests in our youth to find our way to happiness and success.
    We defined success over and over again, in terms of emotional growth, intellectual pursuit, physical stamina and expression, artistic expression, practical skills...

    Without these opportunities to explore, create, express, our spirits stop living. We develop a disquietude that doesn't leave us.

    We live our lives in precise terms, worried about this and that, concerned with what we "need".
    What if we redefine our needs?

    (Erin, your conversation sparked this response!)
    What if everyday becomes a discovery of what gives us joy?


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