Wizened, Wisened
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Category Archives: healing
quote: becoming the light when facing dark times
For you all, my dear friends! Loving one another 💓
quote: Friend, this world breaks us all
quote: in challenging times
Reflection: On Aging’s Bad Breaks
Reflection: On Aging’s Bad Breaks
My first two thoughts: we get plenty of ‘em, and aging is not for the timid.
My beloved wife fell this past Monday and fractured her ankle. A stumble and a fall in the blink of an eye. A good thing we were home, and she fell on the carpeted floor.
It is a bad break to fall in the fragility of our aging, and breaking a bone is just plain bad anytime. After writing my poem for Cathey, ‘I got you,’ suddenly I did not as I was too far away to catch her.
With the strength of our love, our deep trust in one another, and critically, a resilient sense of humor, we meet these challenges and those to come.
I love what Anne Lamont recently said on her Facebook page about turning 68. After opining what is left for those of us aging who have witnessed the foolishness, evil, tragedies, and suffering of the world, she says: “So what does that leave? Glad you asked: the answer is simple. A few very best friends with whom you can share your truth. That’s the main thing”, and “we look up. In 68 years, I have never seen a boring sky. I have never felt blasé about the moon, or birdsong, or paperwhites.”
Ah yes, in our aging, we cling to a few dear friends, sharing our truth and belonging, and looking up and around at the beauty surrounding us. Please send prayers and healing energy for Cathey and a good recovery for her.
We send each of you our love, gratitude, and appreciation!
credo: resisting Empire and raising up Beloved Community
poem: a lament for when loss and chaos overwhelm us
poem: a lament for when loss
and chaos overwhelm us at times we find ourselves
struggling to follow that string
which runs in and through
the losses of old age, illness,
loneliness, and change, and
the worldly chaos of power,
control, violence, war, greed,
injustice, pandemics, and
calamitous uncertainty trying to maintain hope
over the fear and anxiety
of personal and collective angst
rendering the mind
like runaway horses pulling
a chariot, the body like a
bag of bones, and the spirit
like a ghost, we are reduced
to a frazzled remnant of wholeness until that time we turn around,
softly and gently opening our soul,
heart, and hands, carefully looping
that string which runs freely through
the loss and chaos of our lives
leading us to return to that place
which is our unchanging connection
to eternal Truth, Wholeness, and
Belonging Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
March 14, 2022 image: block print, ‘Mary, the Untier
of Knots,’ by Kreg Yingst
and chaos overwhelm us at times we find ourselves
struggling to follow that string
which runs in and through
the losses of old age, illness,
loneliness, and change, and
the worldly chaos of power,
control, violence, war, greed,
injustice, pandemics, and
calamitous uncertainty trying to maintain hope
over the fear and anxiety
of personal and collective angst
rendering the mind
like runaway horses pulling
a chariot, the body like a
bag of bones, and the spirit
like a ghost, we are reduced
to a frazzled remnant of wholeness until that time we turn around,
softly and gently opening our soul,
heart, and hands, carefully looping
that string which runs freely through
the loss and chaos of our lives
leading us to return to that place
which is our unchanging connection
to eternal Truth, Wholeness, and
Belonging Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
March 14, 2022 image: block print, ‘Mary, the Untier
of Knots,’ by Kreg Yingst
haiku: old man dreams
haiku: old man dreams
old man dozing off
sun beams in his smiling face
balancing his chi
Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
February 19, 2022
photo by author
‘a place in the sun’
poem: soliloquy on aging
poem: soliloquy on aging
lately finding myself
taking some time off, slowing down,
being quieter, more still,
disengaging from daily routines,
in need of a hae’lan
it has been a long, harsh winter,
worldly challenges of apocalyptic malaise,
the ever present change of
aging, illness, loss, relationships,
community, belonging
not a single thing but a whole thing
needing time to face, and including
my shadow, imperfections, dis-ease,
slowing it down, fitting it all together
forming a new gestalt of Life (and death)
beloveds, yearning for restoration and
re-engagement, from this exilic journey,
to a new complementary perfection,
of authentic wholeness and holiness,
belonging together in radical grace and love
Herb Stone
here&now working poetry
February 10, 2022
photo: writing at my desk