Amazingly Alive, Generously Present

This is the Oscar winning Animated Short from this year...it came to me yesterday, at The Perfect Moment, as sometimes happens with things, via a tag from a friend on Facebook.  It was a reminder I needed to hear and see about the goodness of dreaming, wandering, freeing, sharing...about the creative power of words, flying, and how the music of the relationship between reader and text can make for some liberating dancing....

I needed to hear this anew for myself...I needed to hear it again to share it with my students in a new and different way.  Today, before my first group of students went to search for their books, we had an amazing conversation about how words simply rest upon the page.  In the reading, the taking in, of the story or word, we allow it to become.  And when it becomes a part of us, it becomes part of what we share with others, gets passed on, woven in, etc.  We might take a word in because of what it means, or we might take it in because we simply like the way it feels in our mouth or the way it bounces when we drop it against another set of syllables.  When we free it, share it...that is flying time and it takes sparrows, parrots, and hummingbirds alike to fill the sky...all sorts of words for all sorts of reasons...

To that end, as they made their choices and checked out, I asked them to think about what word they wanted to set free in the world.  We regathered on the steps at the end of the half hour and the kids shared their choices.  

It was awesome...we filled the library with words and joy and the fuzz and tickle of language.  Their choices included exploration, Chewbacca, hippopotomoustache, wasabi, hibachi, read, love, freedom, qi...  They were all trying out different words and putting them out into the world...creating something new, setting it free to fly or fumble or shrug the snuffle.

To watch their delight, their realizing that yes, they have within themselves the power to create and set free with language...Augh...I was extraordinarily happy for my kids and grateful to God for being so amazingly alive in them!

So amazingly alive in them, and for four adventurous decades, so generously present to me in writing and language and Word...

Writing Spring

In the effervescent moment

of syllables passing through--

when listening wide, inside,

head just tilted 

toward the wind--

there flitters a feathery deep

knowing in my soul:

Before all else, ah!

I danced

in the heart of Word--

and Word did not forget

our shimmering delight.

c. MperiodPress

Two Poems on the Journey

c. ArtemKreo

Ash Wednesday

Let this cross be my call 

to learn from the sun

how to live

to give everything

and still let go

one more time

to bloom full,

to bow,

and offer the wind

my soft petaled spirit.

                                                                                    c. MperiodPress

Generosity

Oh, you amaze me—

what you show and teach me

and have me feel

leaves me humbled…

Humbled and nearly inside out

with a desire to

stand in the wind

where giving and receiving meet

and proclaim my love in return

with arms open wide-

reaching for the world.

c.MperiodPress

A Bag of Tricks and Good Company

After learning about light refraction by bouncing sunshine off of shiny plastic library book covers and chasing one another's  squares on the elevated ceilings, I told first graders that they could add that to their bag of tricks.  Several looked at me as though I'd gone a bit daft and one patiently said "We don't have a bag of tricks!"  "Ah, but you do!  We all do!!" was my reply.  This began a whole conversation about what each of us carries in our bag of tricks...and if it was an actual bag, what would the bag look like for each of them?  Soft and floppy?  Lots of zippers? What color?  What material?  Everybody's bag is different, and the tricks inside are different too.

This came back to me this morning as I was getting ready to head out into the day.  I had a speech tournament to attend but was leaving early enough to stop, have a latte, and write a bit first.  Into the bag went my standard two notebooks that are always with me.  Then the journal. Pencil/pen pouch.  Wallet.  Small pouch of whatnot...lip balm, bandaids, post-its, a couple twisties and paperclips, a rubber band or two, a small tin of mints.  Then, the book decision.  What book?  What book I may or may not read, but would be good company?  I was headed to a speech tournament!  Was I going to be reading while I judged?  No.  While I drove? No.  Yet, the decision was an important one.  I selected Pablo Neruda's Antología Fundamental and tucked it in carefully.  Not too big or too heavy, a diverse assortment of his writings, something for every mood, and good memories associated with the purchase of the book.

Often when I begin a day's entry, I will describe the setting where I am as I write.  Today's begins like this...On the third tier of P, a large, welcome latte in hand.  It is a misty gray morning today and I find myself welcoming it...no, that is not quite right.  I feel welcomed BY it.  It is inviting me to something.  It is a day for roaming.  For roaming and finding a small hole in the wall, tucking into a corner and opening the satchel, the ever present, satchel of essentials, and bringing something new into being.  Again, no...it isn't as though what I carry is exactly essential...it is more the opening of the bag of tricks and good company...

Yes, one of my "tricks" is writing...it is something I bring with me everywhere and can use for the good of many or offer in service in one way or another.  There is such creative power in Word and some of that lives in the notebooks of my satchel.  There is potential in a twistie--I've used them a surprising number of times to solve problems of one sort or another. And Pablo Neruda is Quite Good Company...engaging, relaxing, transporting, personal, conversational.

But, whatever creative inspiration that leads to Word being spoken through me and onto the page does not begin with me...nor does it live solely on the page. The inspiration begins with the Spirit, begins with God, begins in the Heart. And God is exceptionally good company.

When we add things to our bag of tricks, we add them to our beings-to who we are and what we can offer in the service of a greater good... And each bag is beautifully unique.

Mark Strand has a brief four line poem that touches me deeply-- "We all have reasons / for moving. / I move/ to keep things whole."

I think somewhere in there is why today brought together the idea of roaming and bringing what is in my bag of tricks and good company...which is a bag and is also the self.  In the roaming there is learning-seeing-doing-in the company of others and in the learning-seeing-doing in the company of others there is growing and in the growing there is more to share and the more that is shared, the more is received and the more received, the more whole we become...that we might give All.