Displaying items by tag: river writing

From _laurenstern_ (On Instagram)

May I remember to remember ~ why I am here who and what I serve and why. May I be free to renew that vow ~ that willing choice each day. May I surrender doubts, fears, preconceived notions, limiting thoughts of self and others. May I open to the beauty that is this moment ~ as each moment blossoms into a never before seen moment. May I continue to receive and accept invitations such as this one from @nan_seymour to serve her #riverwriting community this morning ~ to be bathed by the honey dripping hearts and mouths of 11 women that bowled me over, blew my heart wide open, and lifted this morning through their wordsung prayers. May I remember to remember ~ a life of deeply nourishing pleasure in service ~ creating sacred spaces, witnessing holy moments, slowing down enough to hear each leaf's song as they sing their story of becoming and unbecoming ~ all while being held by She... Tea. May I be interlaced, intertwined, deeply rooted, remembered, and returned in-my-turn by the ancient-futuring ancestors that guide my hands and whisper ways forgotten but no longer lost in my ear.

From Marybeth Jarvis-Clark:

What I would like to remember from this morning:
Clouds of steam.
Drips.
The markings on the bowl I drank from.
Gesture and stillness.
Bare toes.
Order.
Reverse order.
The way I thought of my children and their births. Sarah loves tea. Would she sit with me in ceremony? Would I be woke enough for her principled youth?
Twelve hearts beating inside twelve skeletons, stripped down to elemental nature, fragile and tough.
Tears.
The thought of tea mates. We are now tea mates.
The vision of a Polynesian soccer team sitting in ceremony together, silently passing bowls and tasting damp earth before rising to go outside and shout ferocity in a haka dance.
Calmness in calamity.
A steady hand gently hovering a cup above its spot on the low table, not losing attention there, while a flame jumped and a kettle hissed and attention was needed on that side as well. The way it was no big deal. The way the ceremony continued, perfectly flawed.
The way I have come to meet calamity in silence, not exclaiming over the shattered glass, but simply going and getting a broom and a dustpan and setting the world to rights again, minus the valued object to which I had long been attached. It is sometimes good to meet pain with stillness.
Two birth stories. One about a mythical mother who labored and birthed without making a noise, as if that were the most praiseworthy way. The other, my own story, about moaning and humming and grunting pouring forth as powerfully and involuntarily as the new human emerging from my dark interior.
Honoring the serene stillness.
Honoring the sacred shouting.

Tea Ceremony
by Jeanette Snyder

The first bowl lives only on the roof of my mouth, in the soft part towards the back. This is where my father lives weeping his faith over a pulpit to a full congregation, the fullest it ever was because he was the bishop. This is also where my father lives weeping his faith at Christmas to his inattentive and unresponsive children in semi-darkness with candles illuminating our impatient faces.
The second bowl of tea lives only in the cup of my jowl along the inside of my jaw, where my father’s father’s barn lives full of musty hay, slowly rotting in August heat, with my grandpa’s banjo and other antiques and mysteries.
The third bowl of tea lives only on the underside of the tip of my tongue, where my mother’s father’s office sits shaded and still behind the garage, where the red tiles are always miraculously cool, impervious to Arizona sun. Where bougainvillea bloom near his workshop.  With the wood dust in small piles, with old tools, with a faint diesel smell, with half-finished projects.
The subsequent bowls softened and spread. They live further south, down my throat & in my belly, greeted by my universe of gut bacteria groaning and sighing and chattering.
-Like birds early in the morning
-Like old movies about Godzilla
-Like the mud pots at Yellowstone
-Like my mother’s potato soup coming to boil
Ceremony makes me weep. I can’t seem to help it. Tears find their way into my eye sockets before the ceremony has even begun. Tears drain onto my cheeks in slow motion, hot and bitter. Tears are smeared all over. Tears gush, and if I wasn’t in a room full of other people, my tears could easily turn into sobs.
I deny myself tears because I reject the tears of my father, deny the trace of him in me. But that’s the thing about ceremony. Maybe that’s the thing about tea. You can’t help but acknowledge the ancient becoming of you, the mud to which you are always returning.

Ceremony
by Diana Hedlund

Along the garden path, I find myself connecting to the land beyond the ocean’s span.
Peoples of different experience, all connected by the circle of the cup, the swirl of the tea, the potter's hands upon the clay, the earth beneath his feet.
Life filled, void of mind.
Motion, captured in the iridescent glow of the flames carressing the iron pot.
The connections of this sacred space are bathed in sunlight, streaming across the ceiling height, sheltering us.
Each soul is drawn here by a calling, channeled through the treasured soul who connects us all.
I am filled with gratitude for the circles that connect us.
The wheel that turned the cups we drink from, feels present to me in this room.
The hands that formed the earth into a vessel, for holding that which comes forth from centuries long since past.
I am enriched by the spiral of time that brought forth this morning.  Taking me out of the thinking mind and returning me to this ancient earth of stability.
Connection returns again and again, in this space of warmth.
The tea, with it’s earthen vapor, warming my throat, continuing down to it’s final destination, and only then, to be returned to the earth.
Circles fill the space, as I close my eyes to a quiet mind of connection.

Morning Tea and Words
Tiffany Burns
May 5th 2017

Like a brush stroke, the sultry curves of the flawed wooden table welcomed me first.... then the quiet, the simmering sound of water warming in kettles, the feeling of my mom in every corner of the room. She would love this. She sent me here again.
In this place, I wonder how I have been lucky enough to be part of this morning, this ceremony, and these beautiful women.
It is a large world and being right here is such a brilliant, life-altering gift.
My heart is full; my cup runneth over and pours like the tea, from bowl to bowl, swirling softly around the pearly bottom of each hand crafter cup. Yet gratitude feels like such a small word in comparison to the feelings churning through my veins. What a cherished morning.
The taste and scent of the tea takes me back to childhood. I think I was around 3 years old, playing in the dirt in a small town that we would visit on weekends. Clean, fresh, stick in your fingernails dirt! That home had a cellar that was cold, damp and dark. Potatoes and canned goods were stored there. The floors of the cellar were also made of this same kind of dirt.
Each cup of this tea held a different memory, a different journey back in time. Yet with each sip, I was present, here in this room, watching the steam rise from the bowl as it was nestled in our cupped hands.

Tea is a Long, Holy Moment
by Nan Seymour

What we share with sacred attention creates communion.

Tea is the light through the window glistening along the rims of the bowls.
Tea is steam rising.
Tea is listening to water pouring and then dripping—the sound of the last drip.
Tea is trying to taste each leaf, trying to hear each drop.
Tea is the taste of earth and decay and trees—the taste of tannins cleansing my mouth. Tea is a sparrow taking a dust bath.
Tea is Lauren’s gracefully tapered fingers and articulate hands fully engaged.
Tea is the work of making an offering.
Tea is the warmth of the bowl in cupped palms.
Tea is flame meeting water meeting earth.
Tea is a miracle of twelve souls assembled in an ordinary room—known and unknown to each other—in true communion.
Tea is a response to the call of ceremony and sacred attention.
Tea is the pace of Bison walking the road in their own rhythm.
Tea is an island of silence which is not silent, a refuge amidst sirens, traffic, and daily confusion.
Tea is a long, holy moment—stretched out and suspended in a true realm, uninhibited by time.

I hope to remember our sense of communion.
I hope to remember that twelve of us gathered, that my sisters came—that we drank together from a common cup.
I hope to remember the clarity and connection we shared in silence.
I hope to remember how I readily Lauren and recognized each other as daughters of cracked alchemists.
I hope to remember how my fourth grade love of rocks came pouring back—how Mr. Fornelius had filled our broad classroom windowsill with a display of fossils and stones.
How once I was rewarded for an A on a test with a piece of Snowflake Obsidian.
I remember the black gleaming mystery and the contrast of white crystals—
I hope to remember how I again felt the small heft of it, how solid it felt in my palm.

Our prompt poem:
Tea Garden
by Barry Sternleib

Perfectly flawed,
so heart and mind
find nothing beyond
being deep in the mountains,
this garden draws breadth
like a brushstroke.
Open the gate
and take the mapled path.
A thousand miles
fill each step
toward emptiness
until you hold no more
than a weathered scroll
of moss over granite.
Here, the sword passed down
through routes of blood
serves only to cut
a delicate stem,
narrow branch or bamboo shoot
whose balanced arrangement
illuminate strength.
Before long,
what grows from quiet
gains such beauty
in light of forgetfulness
the oldest line of sight
comes close enough
to dream, and makes it easy
to see yourself
in the darkened hut, nameless,
high on tea,
gathering all you are.

Siblings in All Things
A collective poem written by Moudi, Scott, Amy, Nan, and Becky on 3/23/17,
loosely informed by the Japanese form Renku.

Attentiveness
opens us to the world
like a prairie unfolding
like earth responding to rain
drinking in life and growing.
I plan to go drinking. I can taste
writing and whiskey.

Bumping into drunken hours
of dinner parties
I tell people my name.
the one I chose for myself,
not the one given to me.
Once something is given to you,
it is yours. What you do with it
depends. Intentions can be deceptive.
Be honest, entirely honest!

I love sleeping on the ground,
something shifts before I sleep.
I feel my feet.
Feet have intelligence
I ask them for help
when I’ve lost something
they walk me there!
Walking is dreaming
dreaming is half of life.
We dream together
this shared life.

A notebook with a purple cover,
the choice was mine, a reflection of me.
I recognize my reflection.
Mirrors sometimes show
siblings and friends.

I find the ground again
and give her my weight.
The ground supports me,
connects me to all beings.
We are community,
the very essence of we.
We are siblings in all things
but most of all in dreams.

Five Poems from Rough Shared Pages
by Thursday night River Writers

Bumping into people with their own needs.
I’m just not sure what needs I can get met tonight,
but something needs to shift before I sleep.
Before I sleep, I’ll find the ground again
and give her all of my weight,
the ground who supports me
and connects me to all beings.
We, above all, are a community of support,
the very essence of what makes community
about we.

Our attentiveness together
seems to open us up to the world.
We open like a prairie unfolding
like the earth responding to rain.
Responding with thirst,
drinking in life and growing from experience.
What I plan to do after class
is go drinking. I can taste it
that smooth strong brown whiskey.
We feel that the cure for what ails us
is writing and whiskey.

In the final drunken hours of intimate outdoor dinner parties
I would tell people my name.
My name, the one I chose for myself,
not the one given to me.
I feel that once something is given to you,
it is yours. What you do with it
depends on your intention and strength.
I feel that intentions can be deceptive
when you are not being honest with yourself.
We can be entirely honest!

I love sleeping on the ground.
I feel the ground pressing up on my feet.
My feet have an intelligence
that I love to honor by asking them for help
when I’ve lost something
They walk me there!
Walking is a form of dreaming
and dreaming is more than half of life.
We dream together of this shared life.

I chose a notebook with a bright purple cover,
the choice was mine, it was a reflection of me.
I remember the moment I didn’t recognize my reflection.
My reflection in mirrors sometimes
shows my siblings and friends
more than me.
We are siblings in all things
but most of all in dreams.