haiku: Christmas Eve
tree lights all aglow
overnight, first winter snow,
all wrapped with a bow
Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
December 24, 2022
photos by author
haiku: Christmas Eve
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Monthly Archives: December 2022
haiku: Christmas past dreams
haiku: Christmas past dreams
remembering past
family Christmases on
the farm of her youth
Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
December 20, 2022
photo by author
author’s note: Cathey grew up
on a large dairy farm in rural
Middle Tennessee in a large family
of 10 siblings with their Mom and
Dad. She left home at 19 moving to
Nashville, we married when she
was 27, and we will celebrate her
78th. Christmas this week.
tanka: winter’s feast (out of darkness, light)
tanka: winter’s feast
(out of darkness, light)
cold Advent mornings
dawn’s light shines in the darkness
winter solstice near
the star in the east heralds
earth and heaven intertwine
Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
December 17, 2022
photos by author
Author’s note:
I love the season of winter solstice,
Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany to
which I pay homage to my patron saint,
Gertrud Nelson. Gertrud has taught me
more about these traditions and their
authentic meaning than anyone. Nine years
ago, I had the good fortune of meeting
Gertrud and attending her workshop on
these traditions thanks to our dear mutual
friend, Pastor Brian Hooper. Gertrud’s
book, ‘To Dance With God: Family Ritual
and Community Celebration’, has the best
descriptions of these traditions and rituals,
and practical guidance on how to observe
them in our daily lives, than any other resource
I have seen. Her book is available on Amazon,
and I highly recommend it. Following is a
quote from Gertrud describing the workshop
I attended with her: “What could possibly be
more exciting than incarnational theology,
celebrated, taken in, lived, enjoyed, understood?
We have a great store of traditions to draw from,
as we go from darkness to light. The traditions
are ancient and have belonged to people
of all ages. We have a tendency to paint over
these ancient truths with cheap paint and tinsel.
Years of accretions plaster over the hidden
within.….let’s scrape down what dulls the
deepest truths and find the gem.”
To which I say, “Hallelujah!”
haiku: thin places and the time between now and forever
haiku: thin places and the time
between now and forever
between now and forever
wistful hoots echo
in the dark void before light
what yet comes draws near Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
December 14, 2022
in the dark void before light
what yet comes draws near Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
December 14, 2022
author’s note: I recently woke
in deepest, darkest night to a great
horned owl’s hooting and sensed
a moment of spirit connecting
the present and eternity and the
nearness of the divine. Putting this
experience into a poem has led to
much reflection and too many starts
and stops. And now I send it on its
way in hopes it speaks to you.
image unattributed
an Advent poem: making ready (what comes before)
an Advent poem:
making ready
(what comes before) sitting in the pre-dawn
darkness of this spiritually
transformative season
(what comes before) sitting in the pre-dawn
darkness of this spiritually
transformative season
silent, reflective, open,
to the Divine Truth within
and the new beginnings before us
witnessing the Universal Cosmic Christ
who came down to us, comes again,
and is always with us in eternal life
mindful of the season’s
sentimentality, nostalgia, and hubris
which comforts and distracts us
here and now in the bliss
of participating and being
in the way of Creator God of All
mutually committed in body/mind/spirit
to preparing the way and living together
in diversity, healing, and peace
we humans transformed and co-creating
the alternative neighborly community
of True Self and Authentic Belonging
a lone voice in the wilderness
crying out, make ready the way
for the in-flowing of the Great I Am
Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
December 6, 2022
author’s note: The last stanza is a paraphrase of the prophet Isaiah from the old testament found in Isaiah 40:3. The Great I Am reverences the I Am statements of Jesus in the Gospel of John, and Yahweh, God’s name in the Old Testament. It also connotes the Sanskrit mantra Tat Tvam Asi from the Chandogya Upanishad which refers to the unity of the individual Soul with the Divine Universal Consciousness. My experience is that all Divine Truth is universal, perennial, and cosmic flowing from the one supreme source which underlies all religion, spirituality, and mysticism, and which can be directly experienced by human beings who follow the way of True Self. An excellent book on this idea is “The Perennial Philosophy” by Aldous Huxley.
art image ‘O Root’ by Sister Ansgar Holmberg
