ALEX NOBLE - WRITING JOURNAL-2015

POETRY: You Reading This, Be Ready - William Stafford

"Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?

When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day. This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life.

What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?"

 

- William Stafford

The Poet Dreams of the Mountain - Mary Oliver

"Sometimes I grow weary of the days with all their fits and starts.

I want to climb some old grey mountain, slowly, taking
the rest of my life to do it, resting often, sleeping
under the pines or, above them, on the unclothed rocks.
I want to see how many stars are still in the sky
that we have smothered for years now, forgiving it all,
and peaceful, knowing the last thing there is to know.
All that urgency!  Not what the earth is about!
How silent the trees, their poetry being of themselves only.
I want to take slow steps, and think appropriate thoughts.
In ten thousand years, maybe, a piece of the mountain will fall."

- Mary Oliver,

"The Poet Dreams of the Mountain"

Alex Noble - Writing Secrets: What to Do When Your Muse Leaves Town

 

 

Alex Noble

 

 You want to write. You intend to write. You almost wrote something yesterday, but… You know you have worlds to say. But all you can do is stare at the blank page. 

Stare, stare, stare. You feel stuck, empty, useless, unworthy, ridiculous, a pretender in the world of ideas. You feel shame, guilt, despair.

Nothing comes.  If feels as though your Muse has left town for Mozambique, with no forwarding address and her cell phone number is no longer in service. What to do?  There is a name for it, and your condition is called “Writer’s Block.”

The good news is that there is a cure.

POETRY : Pablo Neruda - I Like for You to Be Still

 

 

 

 

I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent,
and you hear me from far away and my voice does not touch you.
It seems as though your eyes had flown away
and it seems that a kiss had sealed your mouth.

As all things are filled with my soul
you emerge from the things, filled with my soul.
You are like my soul, a butterfly of dream,
and you are like the word Melancholy.

I like for you to be still, and you seem far away.
It sounds as though you were lamenting, a butterfly cooing like a dove.
And you hear me from far away, and my voice does not reach you:
Let me come to be still in your silence.

And let me talk to you with your silence
that is bright as a lamp, simple as a ring.
You are like the night, with its stillness and constellations.
Your silence is that of a star, as remote and candid.

I like for you to be still: it is as though you were absent,
distant and full of sorrow as though you had died.
One word then, one smile, is enough.
And I am happy, happy that it's not true.

 

Pablo Neruda

POETRY: Mary Oliver - The Journey

 

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.

 

~ Mary Oliver ~

 

(Dream Work)

 

Hafiz - All the Hemispheres

Leave the familiar for a while.

Let your senses and bodies stretch out

Like a welcomed season

Onto the meadows and shores and hills.

Open up to the Roof.

Make a new water-mark on your excitement

And love.

Like a blooming night flower,

Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness

And giving

Upon our intimate assembly.

Change rooms in your mind for a day.

All the hemispheres in existence

Lie beside an equator

In your heart.

Greet Yourself

In your thousand other forms

As you mount the hidden tide and travel

Back home.

All the hemispheres in heaven

Are sitting around a fire

Chatting

While stitching themselves together

Into the Great Circle inside of

You.

From: 'The Subject Tonight is Love'

Translated by Daniel Landinsky

 

    

The Mayan Songs of Dzitblache - Flower Song

 

The Tzolkin Mayan Calendar

 

The Songs of Dzitblaché include most of the ancient Mayan lyric poetry that has survived. In these songs, the poet speaks of personal feelings and ideas, of love, philosophy, ancient rituals and spiritual values.

The original title page reads, "The Book of the Dances of the Ancients that it was the custom to perform here in the towns when the whites had not yet arrived. This book was made by the honorable Mr. Bam, great-grandson of the great Ah Kulel of the town of Dzitbalché in the year 1440." The title, "Songs of Dzitbalché," was given to the collection by the first translator into Spanish, Alfredo Barrera Vásquez, and it is by this name that it is generally known. Written above the title is the word kolomché - a ceremonial dance.

Source:  http://www.red-coral.net/Dzit.html

 

FLOWER SONG  

  The most alluring moon has risen over the forest;

it is going to burn suspended in the center of the sky to lighten all the earth, all the woods, shining its light on all.  

Sweetly comes the air and the perfume. Happiness permeates all good men

SMASH Books - Another Way to Keep a Journal!

 

 

Check out a whole lot of SMASHBook Stories at:

 

http://www.smashstoriesblog.com/

 

Read a SMASHBook story from Charlotte in France:

 

Waking Up: The Enterprise... Is Exploration Into God

Claude Monet - Les Glacons - The Ice Floes

 

 

Dark and cold we may be, but this

Is no winter now. The frozen misery

Of centuries breaks, cracks, begins to move;

The thunder is the thunder of the floes,

The thaw, the flood, the upstart Spring.

Thank God our time is now when wrong

Comes up to face us everywhere,

Never to leave us till we take

The longest stride of soul we ever took.

Affairs are now soul size.

The enterprise

Is exploration into God.

Where are you making for? It takes

So many thousand years to wake,

But will you wake for pity's sake!

 

  Christopher Fry

From "A Sleep of Prisoners"

*******

Alex Noble:  If ever there was a year to "wake up," this is it. Though we may feel we have insurmountable challenges, though we may look all around us and see nothing but a vast wasteland, though suddenly we may feel alone in a way we have never quite felt alone before, though dreams we had cherished for years may have fallen through or vanished like phantoms, though friends may betray and enemies slander, though we may feel as though we have lost everything and and have to start all over again...

 

Closing Cycles - Paolo Coelho

A useful reflection at the beginning of a new year is to become aware of what cycles in your life are closing, what is now outgrown, what has served its purpose and is no longer needed. It is healing to be conscious of endings, as well as new beginnings, and honor the endings with gratitude so that one may move on, liberated and lighter in spirit, leaving the past behind where it belongs.

What cycles are closing in your life?  What work might you need to do to finalize these closures? Your journal is a good place to take notes on this subject.  Endings are excellent material for poems. Be honest!  GO!

You may find it helpful to read Paolo Coelho's excellent essay below on this subject, or at least an essay, attributed to him, which he has adopted and edited.

I am also including one of my own poems, The Clean Break, which was originally written as a journal entry.

Choices

 

 

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

 

Rumi - Only Breath (Write Now!)

Write Now!  Watch this Rumi video, and write a poem or short reflection on how you see this as it may pertain to your own life and journey.  GO!

 

Write Now! A Prayer of Forgiveness

 

Write Now!  As preparation for the coming year, write a prayer of forgiveness, so that you may release any old baggage, and be free to forgive yourself, and those whom you think, rightly or wrongly, have harmed you. This is an especially powerful journaling exercise if you include names and details in your prayer.

Catalyst:

 "A Buddhist Prayer of Forgiveness"

"If I have harmed anyone in any way
either knowingly or unknowingly
through my own confusions
I ask their forgiveness.
If anyone has harmed me in any way
either knowingly or unknowingly
through their own confusions
I forgive them.
And if there is a situation
I am not yet ready to forgive
I forgive myself for that.
For all the ways that I harm myself,
negate, doubt, belittle myself,
judge or be unkind to myself
through my own confusions
I forgive myself."