I, like you, am feeling the loss of Mary Oliver...and thinking about which of her poems have touched me over the years. Today I am moved by this one in particular:

Therefore, dark past,

I'm about to do it.

I'm about to forgive you

for everything.

Moving into the new year: What is your holiest desire?

Incorporating 

art by Hilma af Klint

and quotes from Rob Brezsny and Elizabeth Gilbert

Welcome 2019! I look forward to your unfolding surprises!

A Community of Swans

Last year when I came upon a beautiful translation of Hans Christian Anderson's story "The Ugly Duckling" I found myself moved, entranced and inspired.  I related to the longing to be a part of such a beautiful bevy:

      The birds uttered a very strange cry as they unfurled their magnificent wings.  He craned his neck to follow their course, and gave a cry so shrill and strange that he frightened himself. Oh! He could not forget them – those splendid happy birds. He did not know what birds they were or whither they were bound, yet he 

loved them more than anything he had ever loved before. 

   *                                   *                                      *

     Before he quite knew what was happening, he found himself in a great garden where apple trees bloomed. The lilacs filled the air with sweet scent and hung in clusters from long green branches that bent overa winding stream.  Oh, but it was lovely here in the freshness of spring!

     From the thicket before him came three lovely white swans.  They ruffled their feathers and swam lightly in the stream.  He flew into the water and swam toward the splendid swans. They saw him and swept down upon him with the rustling feathers raised. "Kill me!" said the poor creature, and he bowed his head down over the water to wait for death. But what did he see there, mirrored in the clear stream? He beheld his own image, and it was no longer the reflection of a clumsy, dirty, gray bird, ugly and offensive.  He himself 

     was a swan!  

He felt quite glad that he had come through so much trouble and misfortune, for now he had a fuller understanding of his own good fortune and of beauty when he met with it. The great swans swam all around him and stroked him with their bills.

          *                     *                     *                      *

The story inspired me to try to create my own Community of Swans through a blog! 

• A place where we can support each other into what is wanting to unfold in each of us.
• A place where we can encourage each other to unfurl our unique visions and passions and offer them to each other and to the world.
• A place where we can share meaningful and inspiring quotes and books that are helping us along this journey.

So I am sending this blog out to a few of you.....feel free to invite others whom you think might be interested in joining in the conversation, or even just dropping in occasionally:)

THE SWAN

Across the wide waters
     
something comes
          
floating—a slim
             
and delicate



ship, filled
     
with white flowers—
          
and it moves
             
on its miraculous muscles



as though time didn’t exist,
     
as though bringing such gifts
          
to the dry shore
             
was a happiness



almost beyond bearing.
     
And now it turns its dark eyes,
          
it rearranges
             
the clouds of its wings,



it trails
     
an elaborate webbed foot,
          
the color of charcoal.
             
Soon it will be here.



Oh, what shall I do
     
when that poppy-colored beak
          
rests in my hand?
             
Said Mrs. Blake of the poet:



I miss my husband’s company—
     
he is so often
         
in paradise.
            
Of course! the path to heaven



doesn’t lie down in flat miles.
     
It’s in the imagination
          
with which you perceive
             
this world,



and the gestures
     
with which you honor it.
          
Oh, what will I do, what will I say, when those
             
white wings
           
touch the shore?

Mary (of course) Oliver

Rilke for the new year!

The Swan 

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music – like the rain pelting the trees – like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?

- Mary Oliver 

(thank you Anne, for showing me this.....)

Hidden Treasures!

I just started reading Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic.  There is a story in there about the poet Jack Gilbert that is worth sharing:)

Jack Gilbert taught at the University of Tennessee just before Elizabeth Gilbert took a post there.  A young woman recounted to her that "one afternoon, after his poetry class, Jack had taken her aside.  He complimented her work, then asked what she wanted to do with her life.  Hesitantly, she admitted that perhaps she wanted to be a writer.

"He smiled at the girl with infinite compassion and asked, 
          'Do you have the courage?
           Do you have the courage to bring forth this work?
           The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say YES.'"

Working With Intensity, an amazing book by Daniels and Piechowski

Thank you, Melissa, for recommending this book.  Like finding the Myers-Briggs when I was 19, or The Highly Sensitive Person at 29, this book is affirming and encourages me to stop fighting who I am.  Funny how we circle back over and over through that lesson, huh?  

By the way, I am an INFJ....what are you all???  

Here are some quotes:

Intensity, Sensitivity and Overexcitability

Dabrowski explained the sensitivity and intensity experienced by these individuals in terms of overexcitabilities – a greater capacity to be stimulated by and respond to external and internal stimuli.  Overexcitability permeates the person’s existence.  Whether it’s music, language, physical sensing, kinesthetic activity, imagination, or something intellectual, an overexcitability orients and focuses them.  Overexcitability gives energy to their intelligence and talents.  Like a plant turns toward light, overexcitability draws out a their thoughts and behaviors.  An overexcitability is a temperamental disposition toward a class of stimuli that the person notices and responds to.  It is a lens that opens, widens, and deepens their perspective.  They receive and respond to signals that many others don’t even know or can’t imagine might exist.

Overexcitabilities are “original equipment.”  They are innate predispositions.  We are born with them.  Although everyone is born with basic modes of experience, persons with overexcitabilities are unusually intense in their experiences.  They react to lower stimuli than others – that is, one’s reactions may be higher or greater than others’, but also one’s threshold for reaction may be lower, and a person may react strongly to what others perceive as a non-event.

The five forms of overexcitability are: psychomotor, sensual, imaginational, intellectual, and emotional.  People often hear:  “You are just too sensitive.”  Our goal, with children with overexcitabilities, should be to nurture our children’s genuine self-expression – to support each individual child along his or her unique developmental path.  In terms of expression of overexcitabilities, we must guide our children to express and release their intensity and energy in safe and gratifying ways; and to help our children learn strategies to modulate the expression of their OEs.  To modulate means:

1.     to regulate or adjust

2.     to alter or adapt according to circumstance

3.     to change or vary the pitch

To ask a child to completely quiet or squelch expression of their OEs can be damaging to the child’s development.

PS - you can get directly to the blog from the link at the bottom of the email....

If you scroll to the bottom of the email that comes to you when someone posts, there is a live link that will take you directly to the blog - how easy it is!!  love Catherine