Big Creek vs Pigeon River

water wild, water tamed

Big Creek is larger than many rivers in the these mountains—

clear as water gets,

letting loose the green and black of its depths,

the white, where, dropping, it froths after rocks,

just downstream a hydroelectric plant sits

and forces the Pigeon River to flow through its turbines

and transform dropping water into electricity

for our microwaves and electronic tools,

how challenging it is to need water tamed

and to also need water wild,

we struggle to balance those needs.

by Henry H. Walker

May 16, ‘16

the awful glory within

to see, and know, the other

I see people:

I then know them well enough

to glimpse the awful glory

of who lives within them,

for a moment I see the power of who they are,

a power that needs to be known,

for then we are not alone,

and we are greater for now we know

that we can connect and become large.

by Henry H. Walker

May 13, ‘16

to act from fullness

how to stand, to act well

moments, years, thoughts, worries, buffet at us,

as if to tear us from the moorings,

taking us out to where it’s hard to act,

the anchor’s loose,

there’s no firm surface upon which to stand,

a challenge for the teacher

is both to help enable the leap forward

into what the young adult should know,

then figure out how to act,

and also to help enable that same learner

to remember their foundations of belief, 

maybe in the magic of fairy and unicorn and Santa Claus?

certainly in the rightness they can bring to bear

upon their world, their birthright from their faith,

I seek to remember that I should act

from out of the overflowing fullness of my love for the other,

for the student becoming,

and to not be too hard on myself, 

for, if I do, then I can feel adrift,

and forget where and how to stand 

in order to act from out of my vision

of what can be, what should be, what will be.

by Henry H. Walker

May 13, ‘16

a Native American prayer: the cardinal points

Once again, I share a meditation I really like.  It's also from Eknath Easwaran's book God Makes the Rivers To Flow: An Anthology of the World's Sacred Poetry and Prose.

Great Life-Giving Spirit

Great Spirit of Love, come to me with the power of the North.

Make me courageous when the cold winds of life fall upon me.

Give me strength and endurance for everything

that is harsh, everything that hurts,

everything that makes me squint.

Make me move through life

ready to take what comes from the North.

Spirit who comes out of the East,

come to me with the power of the rising sun.

Let there be light in my word.

Let there be light on the path that I walk.

Let me remember always that you give the gift of a new day.

Never let me be burdened with sorrow by not starting over.

Great Spirit of creation,

send me the warm and soothing winds from the South.

Comfort me and caress me when I am tired and cold.

Enfold me as your gentle breezes enfold your leaves on the trees.

And as you give to all the earth your warm, moving, wind,

Give to me so that I may grow close to you in warmth.

Great life-giving Spirit,

I face the West,

the direction of the sundown.

Let me remember every day that the moment will come

when my sun will go down.

Never let me forget that I must fade into you.

Give me beautiful color.

Give me a great sky for setting,

and when it is time to meet you, 

I come with glory.

And Giver of all life, I pray to you from the earth,

help me to remember as I touch the earth

that I am little and need your pity.

Help me to be thankful for the gift of the earth

and never to walk hurtfully on the world.

Bless me to love what comes from mother earth

and teach me how to love your gifts.

Great Spirit of the heavens,

lift me up to you

that my heart may worship you

and come to you in glory.

Hold in my memory that you are my Creator,

greater than I,

eager for my good life.

Let everything that is in the world

lift my mind,

and my heart, and my life to you

so that we may come always to you 

in truth and in heart.

Native American Tradition

a sharing from a great poet, from the Sufi tradition of Islam

here is something different from me, a meditation I am using a lot these days, hope it speaks to you, too

A Garden beyond Paradise

Everything you see has its roots in the Unseen world.

The forms may change, yet the essence remains the same.

Every wondrous sight will vanish.

Every sweet word will fade.

But do not be disheartened,

The Source they come from is eternal—

Growing, branching out, giving new life and new joy.

Why do you weep?—

That Source is within you,

And this whole world is springing up from it.

The Source is full,

Its waters are ever flowing,

Do not grieve, drink your fill!

Don’t think it will ever run dry—

This is the endless Ocean!

From the moment you came into this world

A ladder was placed in front of you 

that you might escape.

From earth you became plant.

From plant you became animal.

Afterwards you became a human being,

Endowed with knowledge, intellect, and faith.

Behold the body, born of dust—

how perfect it has become!

Why should you fear its end?

When were you ever made less by dying?

When you pass beyond this human form, 

No doubt you will become an angel

And soar through the heavens!

But don’t stop there, even heavenly bodies become old.

Pass again from the heavenly realm

and plunge into the vast ocean of Consciousness.

Let the drop of water that is you 

become a hundred mighty seas.

But do not think that the drop alone

Becomes the Ocean—

the Ocean, too, becomes the drop! 

by Jalaluddin Rumi

quoted in God Makes the Rivers To Flow: An Anthology of the World's Sacred Poetry and Prose, by Eknath Easwaran, pp.246-247, available through Amazon

soon can come absence

a slip with age

to step here and there

and expect that muscles and balance

will know just what to do,

know how to compensate for anything irregular on their own,

small tricks of the body that can slip with age,

to start a sentence

and expect that the mind will retrieve

name and word as needed,

the neurons within firing clear,

how wonderful such commonplace abilities are,

though it’s only their absence

that allows us to realize their presence,

on a recent trek in New Zealand

I lightly wrenched a leg

and I had to compensate 

by thinking out each step for days,

let me appreciate all that is present,

for way too soon can come absence.

by Henry H. Walker

May 8, ‘16

revealing more than feels comfortable

from out of the exuberance of my love?

why not retire?

why not quit making the effort?

why not go gently into denouement?

why not use time and energy still left to me

for callings that do not demand so much of my self?

I remember my mother describing my father

as readily persevering when he was exhausted,

her judgment readily visited upon another

who would quit the effort when he got too tired,

I know I have a mighty super-ego in me,

a driving conscience that brooks no slackness, no lesser, 

that is, to the child in me, a father harsh in expectation,

harsh in demand, harsh like a slap to the slack,

my tentative self needs reassurance,

so I crave acknowledgement, unqualified approval and support,

and I fear to be found lacking, lesser, late,

diminished from what I could and should be,

before I got fully into teaching, 

I wrote of the importance of making teacher self dispensable to the learner,

of not inculcating dependence upon teacher as guide,

now I feel I need to not just be dispensable

but also to be as invisible as I can be,

like an enzyme that allows change, while standing aside,

so that the learner rightly takes credit

and fully owns the emergence into power,

much of me is an introvert, one daunted by the social,

exhausted by the dance

where my moves must find and follow 

the moves of the others,

I am good at the extrovert,

for I care and know well who the others are, and can be,

yet I need to be there for others

from out of the exuberance of my love,

not from a checking-off of duties imposed upon me

by a desperate need for overt approval,

I am who I am,

and I need to work more to get right

with whom I feel God to be

than to get right with the super-ego within me

who feels itself to be the voice of a judging God,

and drives me to clutch at affirmations

to balance how diminished I can feel myself to be.

by Henry H. Walker

May 1, ’16