Attitude and Longitude

Poem: The Mid-Life Crisis...

The Mid-Life Crisis:  The Spiritual Version (is there any other kind?)

I move along the path of my life and wonder what I am supposed to do here. 
What is the purpose that is in me?  What is the purpose that is me?
It is that which has been with me since I was a little child
... before the world’s troubles became known to me 
... before I thought there was no way and no how and what if this and what if that happens to stop me or to thwart me
... or what if...
Actually... what if it actually happened?
What if I dared to be different than the masses – than those around me who have disapproving looks and make whispering comments behind wishful hands? 
The judgment.  Oh, the judgment. 
Can I stand that?
I was in fear, so I shut down the conduit of knowing what my purpose is.
I shut down the free-flowing knowledge of my purpose and what I dreamed of doing when I incarnated.
As a child I had the clues in me. 
The fun – the passion to play without inhibitions and without anything whatsoever holding me back. 
Where am I now? 
I am faced with a wondering what next, the life ahead being possibly so different than the life behind.
What is the challenge in seeing what was always there but is only now hidden?
Is it more fear that still keeps it hidden? 
Raise the blinds that cover it from my view. 
Let’s peer in and see and know and recognize the truth of me. 
Let’s remember.

–Angela Loëb; August 3, 2009

"Transform yourself to wine" ...the wisdom of Rilke

While looking for the specific verse in Rainer Maria Rilke's The Sonnets to Orpheus, about how the nymph, Lament, is still learning (I'd been reminded of it while reading The Wishing Year by Noelle Oxenhandler), I came across a translation by Robert Hunter.  There seems to have been many translations of the German into English, but Hunter says that his reproduction "approximates the original rhythm & rhyme" of the Rilke's poem.  Whether this is true or not, I am not fit to judge as I don't know a lick of German, but I really love his version for the very reason he claims... I guess the rhythm and the rhyme helped to open the meaning of it to my poet's ear.

So, here's the verse I'd wanted:

Joy has certainty; Longing: her confessions.
Lament alone still learns. Through night's successions,
she tallies, with girlish hands, our ancient vices.

To me, that image of Lament and her sisters, Joy and Longing,  is just so deliciously insightful.  We continue to learn through sorrow mode, we continue to stagnate in longing mode, but when we get to joy mode there's certainty.  Joy, the absence of uncertainty or, rather, fear.

The next three lines are:

Suddenly, hesitant and awkward,
she chooses a constellation among our voices
and flings it, free of sorrow, heavenward.

Lament flings a constellation heavenward.  The story goes that Rilke wrote the poem during a time when he grieved the death of a friend, the dancer Vera Knoop.  If this is true, then the starry formation could be his friend being flung heavenward.  He seems to share the widely-held belief that death will bring a release from sorrow. 

On a personal note, I just wonder how sweet life would be if, collectively, we decided not to wait until death to be released from sorrow.  I believe Rilke's final stanza of the sonnet sequence suggests that this can be so.  He advises us to recognize opportunities to know ourselves (our own "sweet tones") even in darkness, transform ourselves in the face of despair ("transform yourself to wine"), be in connection to our higher-self purpose on earth (the purpose of your sense's mysterious plan)  and know that we are bigger than our earthly experience. 

Before I leave you with Rilke's profound words from the ending of his poem, let me simply say this...  of the three sisters, I choose to hang out with Joy.  It's not because I don't want to learn anything or that I don't have any wishes to make, and it's not just because she's a whole lot more fun.  It's because she helps me see the certainty that we are more than this flesh.  Joy helps me to release sorrow now rather than later, at death.  And, after all, couldn't that actually be the ultimate wish for us to make, the ultimate lesson for us to learn? 

Silent friend of many distances, feel
how space dilates with each breath of yours.
Among the rafters of dark belfries peal
your own sweet tones. Your predators

will grow strong upon such fare.
Know transformation in its varied sign.
Which experience produces most despair?
If drinking offend, transform yourself to wine.

Be, in this immensity of night,
the magic force at your sense's crossroad;
the purpose of their mysterious plan.

And though you fade from earthly sight,
declare to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water say: I am.

Poem: Warm Winter's Eve

Warm Winter’s Eve

It’s as though Beauty has Nature wrapped around her little finger today.
A warm winter’s eve has brought two yellow butterflies dancing with a dozen white snowbells blooming on the shrub outside my window.
A daring, new-growth branch waves above its tree’s top in a playful breeze.
The leaves are still affixed – is this an evergreen oak?
Yet in the middle of my window scene looms a thorny ornamental devoid of any foliage, its spiky limbs a nude sculpture.
It remains the only hint of December.

I love this month.
My joy must spring from when I was a spark floating and flitting in my mother’s womb, readying for the birth, anticipating the adventure ahead.
For me, December holds that eagerness of the next... the next birth, the next step, the next year.
I’m in “are we there yet?” mode as I move through the days of December.
I yearn to embrace my Now – slow my heart and head just a tad – but I can’t help myself.
I want to know and do and decide and wake up the cave and party.
I want to shoot forward, not hibernate.

Caught in the human condition, I could be betwixt and between what I am supposed to do and what I am compelled to do.
And what a cross that would be! 
But this is the season, and it is my reason.
I am the compelling resolution.
I am a wee bit of spring in winter’s bosom.

–Angela Loëb; December 20, 2008

Poem: Trinity

Trinity

The breezes of The Breath lift us.
We are winged as The Dove.
We are moved in the circular currents of The Cosmic Consciousness.

The breezes of The Breath caress us.
We are feathered in rays of Love.
We are joined in our joyous purpose to rejoin, rejoice Oneness.

–Angela Loëb; September 25, 2008

...unite my avocation and my vocation...

Two Tramps In Mud Time
by Robert Frost

Out of the mud two strangers came
And caught me splitting wood in the yard,
And one of them put me off my aim
By hailing cheerily "Hit them hard!"
I knew pretty well why he had dropped behind
And let the other go on a way.
I knew pretty well what he had in mind:
He wanted to take my job for pay.

Good blocks of oak it was I split,
As large around as the chopping block;
And every piece I squarely hit
Fell splinterless as a cloven rock.
The blows that a life of self-control
Spares to strike for the common good,
That day, giving a loose to my soul,
I spent on the unimportant wood.

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March.

A bluebird comes tenderly up to alight
And turns to the wind to unruffle a plume,
His song so pitched as not to excite
A single flower as yet to bloom.
It is snowing a flake; and he half knew
Winter was only playing possum.
Except in color he isn't blue,
But he wouldn't advise a thing to blossom.

The water for which we may have to look
In summertime with a witching wand,
In every wheelrut's now a brook,
In every print of a hoof a pond.
Be glad of water, but don't forget
The lurking frost in the earth beneath
That will steal forth after the sun is set
And show on the water its crystal teeth.

The time when most I loved my task
The two must make me love it more
By coming with what they came to ask.
You'd think I never had felt before
The weight of an ax-head poised aloft,
The grip of earth on outspread feet,
The life of muscles rocking soft
And smooth and moist in vernal heat.

Out of the wood two hulking tramps
(From sleeping God knows where last night,
But not long since in the lumber camps).
They thought all chopping was theirs of right.
Men of the woods and lumberjacks,
They judged me by their appropriate tool.
Except as a fellow handled an ax
They had no way of knowing a fool.

Nothing on either side was said.
They knew they had but to stay their stay

And all their logic would fill my head:
As that I had no right to play
With what was another man's work for gain.
My right might be love but theirs was need.
And where the two exist in twain
Theirs was the better right--agreed.

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sakes.

Poem: Still Glimpsing The Depths

Still Glimpsing The Depths

 

I am enriched. 

I have always been enriched. 

I have always been more than what I thought. 

I was just never fully conscious of it

  nor do I feel that I am yet fully aware of all that I am.

But I am moving into more knowingness everyday. 

The glimpses have been exciting and peaceful at the same time. 

And now that I’ve lived with sparks and glimpses,

  I know great happiness.   

I don’t feel a missingness like I used to. 

Vulnerability,

  worries about measuring up,

  and concerns over being accepted

  are lessening their grip. 

Categorizing these as ego

  and then standing ego aside when it does not serve the highest good

  allows recognition of the Source of All in me and in everyone. 

And though I don’t yet see all that I am,

  for I am still glimpsing the depths,

  this I do know... 

I am –

  you are –

  each of us -

  is an eternal, everlasting energy pulse inhabiting the realm of matter

  ... and the good news is that we’re made of Living Joy.

 

--Angela Loëb; June 2008 

Poem: Strands

Strands

 

Fragrance of orange blossom tea

Specific strands from a fun familiar tune

These float in my senses during the waking moment

The aroma drifts away yet Winan's lyrics linger...

        I want to be more than just a friend

        ... All I want to be is everything...

 

An angel thumbprint on me - in me - firmly

    and the knowing comes softly

 

I must do this or flake away to dust

I am alluvial

I still slough and flow

    and I must go with it... use it... create...

    no more hesitation

    no more what if

 

Within these strands of activating connections

I must be who I know to be

    with courage

    in joy

 

--Angela Loëb; May 2008

Let's Have a Little Fun on Friday - Poem: On Market Street

During the work week, I usually like to post something of interest to the work side of life, but this week I decided to stray from that plan.  "It is a bad plan that admits of no modification." - Publilius Syrus (1st century BC).  So, instead I'm sharing a poem I wrote on a Saturday a couple of years ago while in San Francisco on a business trip.  Happy Friday!

On Market Street

On Market Street 
A one-legged man in watch cap and wool coat
Picks a jazz riff on his electric guitar
A funky tune with a whole lotta cool to it

People pass by his borrowed real estate
It’s early on a cool October morning
And he earns a few coins

Street vendors arrange their wares
Hand beaded jewelry and glittery glass baubles
Photos and paintings of city scenes and the Golden Gate for the tourists
Fruits of the autumn harvest – from luscious peppers to lemon grass

It’s all there on the square at Market Street
I sip my coffee with cream
Listening to the cable cars do their
Ricketing, ricketing, ricketing, ricketing
As they slide past the palms lining the railway
And give a backbeat for the funky tune
with a whole lotta cool to it

--Angela Loëb; October 14, 2006

"Work is Love Made Visible" from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Today's post is about loving life through your work.  Rather than making any attempts at being eloquent, I want to simply share Kahlil Gibran's poetic essay with you.  He says it best...

You work that you make keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.

When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?

Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.
But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,
And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,
and to love life through labour is to be intimate with life's inmost secret.

But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.

You have been told also that life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.

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 where to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection, even as 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 are standing about you and watching.

Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, "He who works in marble, and finds the shape   of his own soul in the stone, is nobler than he who ploughs 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 sandals for our feet."
But I say, not in sleep but in the overwakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks no 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 a 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 distils 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.

Poem: Quantum Is Where We Notice Love

Quantum Is Where We Notice Love

Love is not a sectional line -
    some great divide to ponder.
Rather, Love is a non-denominational, non-dimensional sphere.
There is no beginning or end -
    truly no alpha/omega in Love.
The points of recognition have occurred
    in axis, in equator
    inside, on surface,
    in atom, in between,
    atmospherically and celestially.
Love is infinite - immeasurable.
Love is even beyond quantum,
    yet quantum is where we notice Love... for now...

Angela Loëb; January 2008

Poem: Simple Steps to a Better Business Plan

Simple Steps to a Better Business Plan

 

What business is this?

It is the business of Humaness

     and a sacred look within this body phenom.

You’d think there’d be an action plan when things go gushing insane –

    one, two, three, and you’re right as gentle rain.

Reality check...

A linear equation?

Neither the Heart nor the Brain

     does anything that way.

A Chaotic Pattern exists, and,

     given enough time

     for the super computer computation,

     it will be found someday.

The coping leans toward bestial

     and the logic is fluidic in nature.

To be human is to be largely liquiform.

Saltwater is the solution of tears

     and covers most of this body celestial.

Simple Steps to a Better Business Plan ...for the business of Humaness?

Some say (and not necessarily in this order):

Step One: Love Yourself

Step Two:  Love the Creator

Step Three:  Love Others

Some say it’s even simpler than that:

Step One:  Love Yourself to Love All

But if your Heart and Brain rejects

The simple in favor of the complex

It doesn’t really matter...

Yours is just another business plan for the business of Humaness.

--Angela Loëb

October 2007

Poem: The Passing Phase

A friend, who read my last piece, suggested I share one of my poems.  It sounded like a good idea and so I pulled out one that I feel really fits the spirit of this blog... Namaste.

The Passing Phase

Say goodbye to the passing phase

the one where you were stuck for so long

   it became you

              and you became it.

Can you name it?                                             

Do you need to?

Analyzing…Thinking…

Why do it?

Say goodbye to the passing phase.

Let it go like it was a passing phrase

–like it was small talk

        at a party you overstayed.

Are you afraid?

Will you walk the walk?

Accepting…Surrendering…

Yes, do it!

Say hello to this present moment

– the one you’re in right now.

You bet it’s real.

Savor it 

– flavor it yourself

        because you own it.

…Just Be.

--Angela Loëb