Do not trespass upon my goldmine
try to uncover, take or polish my gems.
It is my shaft of discovery
waiting only for me
It is my quarry.
Why attempt to tend,
cultivate, till, harvest,
tame a terrain not your own?
I planted the seed
It is my terra firma.
Why mold a clay
with fraudulent hands
spinning, forming
on a potters wheel meant solely for me
when I am the potter of my destiny?
To understand my true legend,
I must do these things on my own.
Daily word prompt: Tame
they knew it wasn’t hard to believe in something greater than themselves.
art my CD-W
Daily Word Prompt: Believe
The vastness of the wheat in field
Rich soil lies beneath?
No, Layer upon layers splay
To cover up the heath.
Who knows the truth I ask of you
Profound, I tell you this!
Uncovered, unexpected,
Lies a masquerade of bliss.
poetry and painting by CD-W
Daily Word prompt: Superficial
We didn’t know it at the time. It wasn’t planned. But it happened.
On the walk home from our second grade class, my best friend, Vanita, and I took a wee bit of a detour. We walked down the creek bed and into the drainage tunnel. After an immediate right, we discovered a new way of looking at things.
The sight (and site) was pure magic! Whoever thought to build this foxhole was a pure genius!
From inside the gutter, at ants view, car tires whizzed past, feet with voices attached walked above us. Yes, we would be late coming home from school. But the newness, the discovery, the giggles, made it worthwhile.
I’m not sure how much time passed before we saw the car pull in front of us. We recognized the shoes. We definitely recognized the angry voice.
Can you imagine this mother’s horror at seeing our heads in the gutter?
A silent car ride later, Vanita’s mother pulled into my driveway, spoke a few words to my mother, and drove away with my best friend in tow.
Over fifty years later, this brief moment in my life still makes me smile. The world, I’d learned, was not mundane after all. It was filled with shared bonds no one could ever take away and discoveries waiting to be found.
As the world turned, the small heads of two young girls were filled with a new perspective on life.
Vanita and me – obviously photoshopped. Her mother wasn’t packing a Polaroid at the time.
Daily Word prompt: Genius
Is it high fashion
if my hairdo is green
or the pig purse I carry
is aquamarine?
Do you care if my hat
doesn’t match with my shoes,
If I hula my hoop to
a song meant for blues?
“Ma’am do you mind? Get down from that cow!”
“Yes, sir. I do mind. I’m writing right now!”
Is it high fashion
wearing miss-colored socks,
put shoes in a drawer
instead of their box?
Who in the world
wants to follow a crowd?
It’s boring and fruitless
and often too loud.
Unfashionable fashion
it suits me just fine
Keep up with the Jones’s?
A dull story line!
Rebellious? Creative?
You’ve nothing to fear.
Confirm your grandeur
and read article here.
Daily Word Prompt: Fashionable
Top Photo: Artist Zurab Martiashvili: “Unusual ride”
Will you deny me the right to talk about our right to “bear arms?”
I believe the first big mistake politicians made was the coining of the word “gun control.” No one wants to be “controlled”.
What if our politicians had, instead, talked about gun safety? Maybe NRA members wouldn’t have balked. Perhaps, even they would have been open to listening instead of simply reciting the second amendment.
The right to bear arms, adopted into the U.S. Constitution in 1791, evolved from the Revolutionary War experience when colonists needed to fight for their liberty.
It took the shooter in Las Vegas between 9 and 11 minutes to kill 59 people and injury over 500 people. The shooter had put “bump stocks” on his rifles which had turned them into fully automatic machine guns. How did he get bump stocks? From his local gun store? And why would any civilian need this kind of weapon? To mow town a herd of cattle for his Sunday dinner?
Come on, politicians! Stop saying, “yes, we’ll talk about gun control.” But when? After the next shooting or the one after that?
Yes, America has the right to bear arms. But I don’t think the bears like it much. They need their arms to climb trees.
photo credit
daily word prompt – Deny
I have no interest in who wins a national game.
I have no interest in popularity or fame
I have no interest in taking aim
Mostly, I have no interest in the mundane.
Daily word prompt: Interest
Unless we train that heady organ of ours, it remains on autopilot and could lead us down a destructive course. The subconscious parts of our brain automatically guides our behavior. Sometimes, we can’t let go of negative thinking or past negative experiences.
So, if that happens, it’s time to make obstinate brain pull over, make it sit in the passenger seat and force it to listen.
(Brains are stubborn and stuck in their ways so try to be patient as you pull out the new script you have written. Read it aloud.)
You: Brain, here’s what’s about to happen and I need you to go along with me. After all, you can’t get along without me just as I can’t get along without you. So, every time you try to cover me in self-doubt, I’m not going to listen. Instead, I’m going to concentrate on all the things right with me. I’m going to force us to think positively and compassionately.”
Brain (frowning): You want to break my patterns? I like my patterns and I’ve done nothing wrong.
You: I didn’t say any of this is your fault. I’m just telling you how we are going to proceed from here on. Here. Lift these barbells. We are going to make new patterns. And to make these new patterns, sometimes we are going to be very still and very quiet. You listening?
Brain (huffing): No comment.
You: I’m going to show you a picture. Tell me what you see.
Brain (forming a smile): Different on the outside, same on the in? We talking about compassion now?
You: At’a girl. (boy)
Brain (nodding slowly so no jarring occurs): Can we start training now?
photo credit
photo 2 credit
related article on meditation and the brain here:
Daily Word Prompt: Athletic
Some people are popular. Does that make them leaders? Nope, not necessarily. Maybe they’re just “cool.”
An anthropologist proposed a game to the kids in an African tribe. He put a basket full of fruit near a tree and told the kids that who ever got there first won the sweet fruits. When he told them to run they all took each others hands and ran together, then sat together enjoying their treats. When he asked them why they had run like that as one could have had all the fruits for himself they said: ”UBUNTU, how can one of us be happy if all the other ones are sad?”
‘UBUNTU’ in the Xhosa culture means: “I am because we are.”
For ways to help your child lead, read here.
Daily word prompt: Popular
“What are you going to do? Run around naked and chant?”
When my husband had asked me that question years ago, I laughed. When I returned from the Hilde Girls women’s retreat, I laughed more when I said, “Yes, we did!”
What is a “Hilde?”
Hildegard of Bingen, a German Benedictine abbess, was born around 1098. She first began experiencing visions at the age of three.
It wasn’t until she was 42 years old that Hildegard received a vision she believed to be an instruction from God, to “write down that which you see and hear.” And that is when she became a writer and a healer through her knowledge of tinctures, herbs and precious stones. But that’s not all! She also became a composer, philosopher, polymath, and illustrator.
In this mandela, Cultivating the Cosmic Tree, the elements of fire, air, water and earth are seen in this “quartering of the circle.”
Back to the retreat – Yes, some of us stripped off our clothing but all of us stripped down to our core being. What’s not to like about drumming and singing around a fire under a full moon?
For “8 Reasons Why Hildegard Matters Now”, read here.
Daily word prompt: Circle
Carolyn Dennis-Willingham 