Thank you all of you for reading these Random Acts of Writing (and art, photography, poetry, et cetera) for the past 10 years! It’s been a blessing to share this journey with you!.
You can take a look back on our past 10 years HERE, but if you’re like me, it’s the What Comes Next that’s the best part! I hope you’ll come along!
With love and gratitude, Jen
I am eerily reminded this week of my experience during Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Hunkered down here in my little house without power for days, the whole world seemingly stalled and subdued. There was no work and no technology, the roads were strangely as quiet as the airwaves. And no one knew how long it would last or how bad it might get.
At first, there was the natural reaction to kick against what I could not control. Worry and fret. Freak out. But then a calm settled in, a different pace than the norm, a day guided by the rising and setting of the sun.
Looking back now, I remember those quiet, restful days as blessings.
So here we are — on the edge of a storm we’re watching overtake everything we know as normal. And we are freaking out.
But the Universe is sending messages, if you listen. She’s there in the poem “Pandemic,” that Lynn Unger was inspired to write this week.
She’s in our daily prayers, if you are inclined, like me, to whisper on occasion:
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
She even showed up yesterday morning in my meditation reading:
“We must except we are there and settled enough so we can be carried by the deep. The willingness to do this is the genesis of faith, the giving over to currents larger than us. Even fallen leaves float in lakes, demonstrating how surrender can hold us up…. In life as in water, when we curl up or flail we sink. When we spread and go still, we are carried by the largest sea if all: the sea of grace that flows steadily beneath the turmoil of events.” — Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening
So listen for those messages.
Pay attention.
Do the things you need to do to stay safe and healthy.
Get rest.
Breathe.
“Just as fish can’t see the ocean they live in,” writes Nepo, “We can’t quite see the spirit that sustains us.” But it’s there.
A POEM BY LYNN UNGAR
What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath —
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.
And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.
Promise this world your love —
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.
Which came first…
Who better to guard
the mountains than
Ursa Major?
Great She Bear
mothers over
oak and pine
where Noctua / Owl
keeps watchful eyes on
swayed grasses
grown by Eridanus.
Sister river flows
clean and pure,
sings bubbling songs to
Grus and Vulpecula —
crane and little fox —
running nearby
We can almost imagine Aquarius,
great water carrier
divine this lush, verdant sphere,
pour life from a star-crystal pitcher.
But man gives and man takes
hardly in equal measure —
The ghost of Lepus, rabbit,
runs quick from Orion
hunter and destroyer
wondering: is this your Eden before
or our Eden finally after?
If you’re reading this, then you follow my blog Random Acts of Writing — either by email, or from Facebook, or within the blogging community at WordPress.
According to WordPress there are about 1,500 of you who might, at any moment, read something I’ve written or see something I’ve seen. How cool is that?
Of course, some of us remember the old days of WordPress, when we seemed a little more connected than we do now. But that was before the shorthand days of Facebook, the cryptic moments of Twitter, and the no-words-necessary glances at Instagram and Tik-Tok.
We weren’t memes back then, we were writers and poets, philosophers and considerers, photographers and artists, sharing ourselves with the world. And the world shared back. Not just with a thumbs-up or heart emojis, but with questions and conversations. Some so real, we’d find ways to meet in person to keep talking. Imagine!
One of my dearest friends today is someone I met right here, in the comment field of this very blog. Seriously! Here we are, seven years ago, meeting in-person for the first time. >>>
Some of you have been following Random Acts of Writing from its very beginning — 10 years ago this month! Some of you have joined us along the way, and some of you are brand new to this hodge-podge of writing, photography, art, and musings I call my blog.
No matter your history here, I’d like to say Welcome and Thank You and Please Keep in Touch. Because if you’re reading this, you’re curious and inquisitive and maybe of like mind to start a cool and lasting conversation. I’d like that.
Stop dysfunctional everything – speak art, poetry, wicked love.
“The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.” — William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
When you find a kindred spirit in the parking lot.
It’s the first love I resent so much I can’t look back,
can’t muster enough for even a retrospective love poem —
the glare of that reflection is blinding, still, and perhaps for the best.
She so young and hopeful and revoltingly naive.
He so wrongly fit one wonders why no one said anything those first long years,
put a stop to the nonsense before
that first virginal kiss, that awkward stumble into love,
that goddamn Brides magazine under the mattress after the glittering rooftop proposal.
What were any of us thinking?
It was no more a match made in heaven than my parents
who would suffer like good Catholics for only a few more years themselves.
Thank god he went to war, ate a dog, voted for George Bush —
I might no longer recognize myself.
Random Acts 10 