Diane Morrow

Make Your Mind an Ocean

Posted by Diane Morrow on November 2, 2014 in Blog, Healing Places, Healing Poetry

Continuing with the theme from a couple weeks ago of becoming an ever-larger body of water, I remembered a piece by Lama Yeshe called “Make Your Mind an Ocean.” Here is an excerpt from the piece which I’ve rearranged as a kind of found poem. It has to do with the mind becoming larger and larger and not depending so much on the tiny atoms of the world. The mind becoming larger and larger and in turn not being quite so disturbed by the relentless ripples and agitations of the world. If you’re all caught up in attachment to tiny atoms your limited craving mind will make it impossible for you to enjoy life’s pleasures. External energy Is so incredibly limited that if you allow yourself to be bound by it your mind itself will become just as limited. When your mind is narrow small things easily agitate you. Make your mind an ocean. I remember a time when my children were very young and I was feeling like I didn’t have any space left in my head anymore—as if I couldn’t hold any new thoughts. I got an opportunity to go away to the beach for a long weekend writing retreat and I took it. It was a weekend of just myself in a cottage next to the sound and then crossing to the ocean every day—to walk or just to sit looking out. It was September or October, quiet. I wrote a bit, but maybe not even that much. I remember the way it felt as if, walking, the ocean were literally washing my brain—clearing it, resetting it. Washing my brain, my body, my entire self. And when I returned—same young, vibrant children—same life—same ripples in that life–but I was different—and I had room for them again. I don’t live on the ocean—or have the opportunity to go there that often, but even to have been there once, gives me that image—that memory to work from. I like to imagine, especially when I’m feeling too small for the life I’m living, or too small for some problem I’m facing, the possibility of making my mind as large as the ocean. The sound of the waves and the blue stretching out to the horizon—and the depths of it—that vast and deep and large. “Make Your Mind an Ocean” is from The Peaceful Stillness of the Silent Mind which can be found for free at the Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive. More about Lama Yeshe can be found in a tribute to him by a Christian monk, Father P. Bernard de Give, written after Lama Yeshe’s death. The photo, taken near Thunder Hole, Maine is by Billy...

What to do with the salt of suffering?

Posted by Diane Morrow on October 15, 2014 in Blog, Healing Grief, Healing Places, Healing Poetry, Writing and Healing Prompts

Sometimes when I’m at a loss for words it helps to come across other’s words, and just this morning I came across a treasure trove of poems at, of all places, a website of the Frye Museum, an art museum in Seattle, where they hold a weekly mindfulness meditation session on Wednesdays, and have published some poems and pieces they’ve used at these sessions. Here is one piece that seems particularly illuminating this morning. It’s not a poem, but it’s like a poem—a healing story as short as any poem. It’s not attributed to anyone. At another source I found it attributed to a Hindu master. Here’s the story: An aging master grew tired of his apprentice’s complaints. One morning, he sent him to get some salt. When the apprentice returned, the master told him to mix a handful of salt in a glass of water and then drink it. “How does it taste?” the master asked. “Bitter,” said the apprentice. The master chuckled and then asked the young man to take the same handful of salt and put it in the lake. The two walked in silence to the nearby lake and once the apprentice swirled his handful of salt in the water, the old man said, “Now drink from the lake.” As the water dripped down the young man’s chin, the master asked, “How does it taste?” “Fresh,” remarked the apprentice. “Do you taste the salt?” asked the master. “No,” said the young man. At this the master sat beside this serious young man, and explained softly, “The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains exactly the same. However, the amount of bitterness we taste depends on the container we put the pain in. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things. Stop being a glass. Become a lake.” How can writing be used to enlarge one’s sense of things? Is it possible that the more we write–and the more we try to encompass in our writing–the larger we become? How can writing be used to become a lake? The photo is of Lake Mapourika in New Zealand and is by Richard...

Report from a Far Place by William Stafford

Posted by Diane Morrow on September 28, 2014 in Blog, Healing Poetry, Writing and Healing Prompts

I’ve never thought about words as snowshoes. I’ve never even walked in snowshoes—or seen them up close—I’ve only ever seen them in pictures—but I do love the connection William Stafford makes here in his poem, “Report from a Far Place.” When I was a kid and we lived in Michigan we used to walk to school often in snow. When the snow was very deep I would walk behind my brothers–they would break the snow first and I would step into their footprints. That memory is very vivid. Following became a way to navigate the snow. We could call words anything, I suppose–anything that might become meaningful–but here he’s calling them snowshoes: Making these word things to step on across the world, I could call them snowshoes. They creak, sag, bend, but hold, over the great deep cold, and they turn up at the toes. In war or city or camp they could save your life; you can muse them by the fire. Be careful, though: they burn, or don’t burn, in their own strange way, when you say them. Words as a way to navigate the “great deep cold.” What great deep cold needs to be navigated? This week? This year? This lifetime? What words could make particularly good snow shoes? The poem, “Report from a Far Place,” is from Someday Maybe, 1973 The photo is by Kim...

Satellite Call by Sara Bareilles

Posted by Diane Morrow on September 14, 2014 in Uncategorized

A couple weeks back I wrote about William Stafford’s poem, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other,” and those lines that seem like such clear instructions: the signals we give—yes or no, or maybe— should be clear; the darkness around us is deep. After writing about the poem, this song, “Satellite Call” by Sara Bareilles, came to mind. Itself a poem. It seems to me as if in these lyrics Bareilles is following William Stafford’s instructions. Sending out a satellite call into and across the darkness: You may find yourself in the dead of night Lost somewhere out there in the great big beautiful sky You are all just perfect little satellites Spinning round and round this broken earthly life This is so you’ll know the sound Of someone who loves you from the ground Tonight you’re not alone at all This is me sending out my satellite call I also think it’s just such a pretty song. The video here is a live version, her singing at the piano in Indianapolis. I’ve also included a link below to a video version with lyrics. I love the idea of writing going out like a satellite call. So that we can become both receivers and senders. If you could send out a satellite call what would you say? And if you could receive one, what would you most like to hear? The song is from her album, Blessed Unrest. A video of the song with lyrics is here. The piece about Stafford’s poem is...

A Ritual to Read to Each Other by William Stafford

Posted by Diane Morrow on August 30, 2014 in Uncategorized

I came across this poem thanks to Daniel Sperry, a cellist who has been working on a CD of William Stafford poetry combined with cello music. In his Kickstarter campaign, which I stumbled across (and which is now fully funded) he includes a few lines from William Stafford’s poem, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other,” which I don’t believe I’ve ever heard before. It inspired me to go find the whole poem. The poem begins: If you don’t know the kind of person I am and I don’t know the kind of person you are a pattern that others made may prevail in the world and following the wrong god home we may miss our star. I like the way this poem calls us to responsibility. We may not know much, but the little we do know we have some responsibility to share, if even in conversation—to share something of ourselves, at least now and then—to say something true, perhaps, rather than what is expected, or might be approved of. Or to simply make the effort to show kindness. Even when it’s a risk. Even when we can’t know how it will be received. The poem continues: For there is many a small betrayal in the mind, a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood storming out to play through the broken dyke. Here he seems to be talking about the listening piece of conversation. How we receive what is offered to us—what is shared with us in conversation. a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break. How important it might be not to shrug or look away in response. How fragile the sequence can sometimes be. The pain that can be let loose on the other side when we turn away—those horrible errors of childhood storming out to play through the broken dyke. And we are the ones, at least some of the time, who can keep that dyke from breaking? Simply by paying attention? And looking for opportunities to keep the sequence from breaking? Two more stanzas and then the poem closes: For it is important that awake people be awake, or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep, the signals we give—yes or no, or maybe— should be clear; the darkness around us is deep. Ah, such urgency. I appreciate that. And I’m wondering now why he gives this poem the title he does. So that we might realize this is something we may need to read and understand not once, but over and over, like a ritual, or a practice? Maybe? Daniel Sperry’s Kickstarter can be found here. The photo was found at morningmeditations.com See also: A piece on Kindness by Naomi Shihab...

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