Say ‘pomegranate’ in French

the anger is there, it’s always there

like a glint on the slide of a knife blade

thinner than a fire pin running through a grenade

(have you ever noticed, by the way, a grenade shape?

curved in like a fig leaf, wired with veins of a maze)

you know, you could hold them both in your palm

I once asked someone, “can you imagine? Holding a heart?”

he said without blinking, “as long as it’s still beating.”

What if a heart had seeds? could bear fruit,

die and be reborn in its own acorn and own accord?

the fruit of the seed is the fruit

the fruit of the grenade is the blood

the fruit of the heart is the same

“People need wild places. Whether or not we think we do, we do. We need to be able to taste grace and know again that we desire it. We need to experience a landscape that is timeless, whose agenda moves at the pace of speciation and glaciers. To be surrounded by a singing, mating, howling commotion of other species, all of which love their lives as much as we do ours, and none of which could possibly care less about us in our place. It reminds us that our plans are small and somewhat absurd. It reminds us why, in those cases in which our plans might influence many future generations, we ought to choose carefully. Looking out on a clean plank of planet earth, we can get shaken right down to the bone by the bronze-eyed possibility of lives that are not our own.” Barbara Kingsolver

Bhakti Yoga

Saturn Lessons

A pic of me when I was sick, under-slept and accidentally put hand sanitizer on my lips thinking it was lip gloss. Saturn lessons are fun. Just kidding, but you don't forget them.

Saturn is the six of swords,
waking up in a cold heat,
the kaa of the carrion crow –
solitary, slow with swift wing-beats

the guttural growl of a Viking
returning from war, with nothing
but a flag held loose like a sapling

It’s you on your knees on the cold earth,
iced grass cutting into your skin through your red skirt

It’s iron-nickel, metallic rock,
negative 8 degree wind-chill shock
in between buildings on a city block

It’s the worn horned hoof of a stallion,
the peak of a mountain, viewed from the top

Little Musings

Picture I took of some sunbabies and peep the heart cloud

Every day I walk to 16th and south to see the wild city garden that grows in a 5 ft. wide, city-block-long crevice space – in between the brick wall of the parking garage and a sling of tiny row homes all packed together like cakes in a glass case. I am not sure who keeps the garden, perhaps the row home owners, but somehow the not knowing is part of the allure. This little slice of magic. In the summer it throbs and drips with color: lavender rose of Sharon, hot pink and orange sherbet hibiscus, full-bushy-blushing pale pink peonies, rainbow colored zinnias, simple Shasta daisies, poker pineapple lilies, blood red dahlias, magenta ruffled irises, violet lily of the Nile, stiff and proud orange gladiolus, light coral trumpet-looking things I don’t know the name of, fluffy aslan marigolds, pure white anemones with polar bear black pupils – all of it grows here, side by side. Like the city itself, filled with a Thai restaurant here, an Italian pizza place there, the Israeli bakery and the Indian food cart all happily coexisting as if the continents never divided anyway. The bees buzz in between the flowers, who, if not for some careful gardener’s hands, would never have known the taste of hydrangea so close to frangipani. But what I come for every day is the water lily. It floats in a small man-made pond, no larger than the width of an arm chair. It peaks its lemon yellow face out of its white flame petals as if to say to me, “hello. I have been waiting for you.” And I smile back and whisper, “thank you for blooming here. Through the soil. In the water. In the city. On this street. In my eyes.” 

Links I Love

Been a minute, but it's back...

Toni Morrison quotes (rest, rest, rest in your powerful peace) also this article about her and this one written by her

What is non-violent communication? Probably the answer to everything

How to suffer like a champ by comedian Pete Holmes (also love of my life)

Why 99% of us don’t fill our true potential… (and no, it’s not because we don’t have Beyonce’s genes... or this girl's)

This Instagram account. That’s it, that’s the description.