Category Archives: healing

tanka: the murmuring of flowing water

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tanka: the murmuring
of flowing watersitting by the stream
silently in solitude
with mindful presence
water’s memory runs deep
flowing home to ancient seas

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
January 16, 2022

video by author

Author’s note: I wish to thank
my English friends,
Emma Hepburn and Rosie Dowbekin,
for their love of the beautiful
streams in England, which
inspired me to write this tanka
poem. I am forever grateful
for your inspiration.

Click on video and turn up sound to hear the murmuring stream

Jesus, the Universal Cosmic Christ, is a revolutionary

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Jesus, the Universal Cosmic Christ, is a revolutionary
please visit my web page for more of my poetry, reflections, and quotes @herbstonejr.com
Thank you for your support and happy reading
click image to see it in full 

Christmas Morn Reflections: The Cosmic Christ comes into the world in the way of weakness, vulnerability, and need and a mission of radical grace and love for healing the world of power, oppression, and violence and lifting up the oppressed

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Christmas Morn Reflections: The Cosmic Christ comes into the world in the way of weakness, vulnerability, and need and a mission of radical grace and love for healing the world of power, oppression, and violence and lifting up the oppressed

“God entered into our world not with the crushing impact of unbearable glory, but in the way of weakness, vulnerability and need. On a wintry night in an obscure cave, the infant Jesus was a humble, naked, helpless God who allowed us to get close to him….The Bethlehem mystery will ever be a scandal to aspiring disciples who seek a triumphant Savior and a prosperity Gospel.” – Brennan Manning, Shipwrecked at the Stable

“The whole point of the kingdom of God is Jesus has come to bear witness to the true truth, which is nonviolent. When God wants to take charge of the world, he doesn’t send in the tanks. He sends in the poor and the meek.” – N.T. Wright
art by Gari Melcher ‘The Nativity’

Blue Advent reflections: The lowly, the imperfect, and the wounded shall be lifted up in dignity and rejoice

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Blue Advent reflections: The lowly, the imperfect, and the wounded shall be lifted up in dignity and rejoice

God, by whatever name you know, chooses the lowly, the imperfect, the wounded to do God’s work in this world!

This season of our different faiths and spiritual traditions can be a challenging time for many of us this time of year.
However, my dear brothers, sisters, siblings, we must always remember that none of us is too ‘lowly’ to do the work of God, too imperfect do be loved by God and the Godly, too wounded to not be healed in this Divine radical acceptance and love!

Just consider the birth of the Universal Cosmic Christ in that dirty stable and on the run from the Roman empire!

And consider the words below of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, pastor, saint, and martyr, as he preached in his Christmas sermon in his homeland of Germany during the reign of the Nazis.

And yes, we live again in the time fascist tyrants, dominant empires, pandemics, and violence and many are heartbroken, wounded, marginalized , oppressed, and neglected.

Let us remember, we are all children of a Universal God, a Cosmic Christ, and a pervasive Spirit, who belong together in diverse, authentic, neighborly communities of grace, love, mercy, justice, and hope

For God’s love for us, we love one another now and always!

Let us love one another during seasons of the Spirit, the Holy Days, the not so Holy Days, and all year around eternally as we are called to do by the Cosmic Universal Christ consciousness at its dawning!

“Lo, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” Jesus, the Cosmic Christ, to the disciples, as reported by Matthew in his Good News

Authors note: My use of the ‘Universal Cosmic Christ’ designates an incarnate principal of consciousness grounded in radical grace and radical love for one another which extends beyond a single religion or spiritual tradition and therefore is universally available to all beings here and now always.

poem: the intensity of now (where am I and how did I get here)

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poem: the intensity of now
(where am I and how did I get here)

yesterday a shadowy memory
tomorrow unimaginable
there is only the intensity of now
stuck in the present moment

past experience unretrievable
and unavailable in creating one’s future
thus stuck in the eternal present
necessarily filled with questions

answers: you are at home
where we live husband and wife
together for fifty years
now elders to a younger generation

we humans carrying on our Earth journey
closer to its end than its beginning
Cosmic Love reigns Supreme: we remain
grateful, in awe of the mystery, hopeful

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
December 18, 2021

Author’s note: The poem reflects my experience caring for my beloved wife with
Alzheimers. As memories become murky and unreliable and the future
unimaginable, the present is filled with questions and takes on a new intensity of
being stuck in the present. What remains is love, gratitude, awe, and hope on the
journey.

photo by author
‘Gulfview Heights Beach on the Gulf of Mexico, 2017’

poem: beauty’s healing hope rising

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poem: beauty’s healing hope rising

recalling the beauty of life
amid the roses and the thrones
always pulls me back
to the both/and wholeness
of here and now

thus remembering

that late Fall light in the Hudson Valley
a favorite literary quote
a snippet of poetry or music
loves most pure moments shared
the haelin of True Self
belonging and walking each other Home

take a deep breathe
loosen your grip
open your hands
opening and turning around
fully embracing and sharing
beauty’s healing hope rising

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
December 4, 2021

music by Ennio Morricone
and performed by Yo-Yo Ma
‘Giuseppe Tornatore Suite’

poem: a thief in the night (stuck in time)

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poem: a thief in the night
(stuck in time)

in her lucid dreaming
she returns to the
farmstead of her youth
with her family
every night as she sleeps

each morning upon
her awakening she ask me
‘how did I get here,’
‘who brought me here,’
‘what is this place”

never mind that
we have been married
50 years, lived in this
house for 35 years, or never
been apart in the last 5 years

sitting on the bed’s edge
looking into her eyes
I remind her she has
been on the farm all night
while she slept

now back home with me,
that we have not been apart
for a second for many years,
in our house where we raised
our family filled with love

a thief in the night,
stuck in space and time,
the dementia confounding,
now each moment together
all the more sweet

Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
November 29, 2021

Image by author
“just resting my eyes”

Author’s Note: A poem
about our life together, my
wife and I, and our experiences
living with Alzheimers.