“You are not controlling the storm, and you are not lost in it. You are the storm.” Sam Harris
Storms Storms seem to appear, the wind suddenly announcing laden clouds in convocation darkening, lightening pierces the night while thunder rattles more than windows, the ensuing deluge momentarily deafens, and just as suddenly, calm returns, as if nothing happened. Somedays my storms just seem to appear, though never suddenly leaving. Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon All rights Reserved ®️
Filed under awareness, Free Verse, life, nature, poem, psychology, quote
In this poem I have riffed on a line from ‘Sometimes’ by David Whyte the line is: “Sometimes if you move carefully through the forest.”
“If you go off into a far, far, forest and get very quiet, you’ll come to understand that you’re connected to everything.” Alan Watts
In The Forest Sometimes if you move carefully through the forest, you might just hear your own dreamings in the wind rustled leaves, or see the loud beauty of a dew drop preserved in such silence, it is pristine at noon, perhaps too the interventions of the raven's musings might raise resonance of feeling, like the touch of damp humous to the nose, or moss to the skin, eucalyptus flavoured rain drops splattering from leaves, sending memories, inspiring ideas, leading me onwards. Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon All Rights Reserved ®️ Below is Whyte's poem: Sometimes by David Whyte Sometimes if you move carefully through the forest breathing like the ones in the old stories who could cross a shimmering bed of dry leaves without a sound, you come to a place whose only task is to trouble you with tiny but frightening requests conceived out of nowhere but in this place beginning to lead everywhere. Requests to stop what you are doing right now, and to stop what you are becoming while you do it, questions that can make or unmake a life, questions that have patiently waited for you, questions that have no right to go away.
Filed under awareness, bush walking, Forest, Free Verse, life, nature, poem, quote
At dVerse guest host Jo is hosting Poetics with an invitation to write about scent.
dVerse Poets – Poetics – A World of Common Scents
“She stood for a long time breathing in and breathing in, the scent of the trees ….” Margaret Atwood
Perhaps It's The Cypress After All Cypress stirs my body memory, so too the wattle blossom of winter, ah, yes, the wet dog after rain at the salted, seaweed strewn beach remains, along with cinnamon toast on a cold night's mist, the sweat of love pulsing my inarticulate flesh, simple scents, the easy embodiments of youth. But what of the hidden things, is there a scent for wisdom or compassion, is there a scent for soul, for reflection? Perhaps it's the cypress after all. Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon All Rights Reserved ®️
Filed under awareness, Country, Free Verse, life, mindfulness, nature, poem, psychology, quote
At dVerse Linda is hosting the Quadrille (44 words) with an invitation to write using the word morning or its forms.
dVerse Poets – Quadrille – Morning Has Broken
“Every morning is a new arrival.” Rumi
What Dawns? Sometimes I wish I could hold onto mornings and slowly sift the feelings of possibility that capture a sense of being, holding them in a gentle net, rather than release them into my wild, to reflect on what it is that dawns in me. Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon All Rights Reserved ®️
“For me, the opposite of scarcity is not abundance. It’s enough.” Brene Brown
So I'll Say It Again Perhaps it hasn't been said or, if it has, then too quietly under the roar of everything, and not-with-standing all that is ill round about us, right down to the wire of possible despair, whether we're counting moments or holding the long view of it, is knowing that this is not all there is, there is always something more. Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon All Rights Reserved ®️
Filed under bush walking, Forest, Free Verse, life, mindfulness, nature, poem, quote
At dVerse Merril is hosting Haibun Monday with an invitation to look up, and write about the experience.
dVerse Poets – Haibun – Look Up
“Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances.” Maya Angelou
The Whole View My experiences of looking up are experiences of momentarily leaving myself, placing myself in the cosmos, letting go any singular rootedness and finding community with all things and all beings, animate and inanimate, rocks and trees, mountains, the sky and all it holds. I don't feel diminished by the bigness of it all, I feel included, and I feel moved to include all things. In that sense of acceptance comes a deep sense of harmony and belonging for me. To look at the grandeur of a tree and trace its linear circuitry, to reach out to the sky and know its infinity, to view the mountain and feel its strength and presence, are deeply moving for me. Looking up at this mountain reminds I am not the centre of life, not even my own, I am simply a part of the whole that seeks life together. To look up at this mountain is a reminder that I have no control over it and no need to do so. The call of this mountain is to take pleasure in its gift of diverse experiences that enable me to know a little more about life and who I am and a lot of letting go and not knowing. Looking up the mount I saw the heavens opened jasmine tea goes cold Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon All Rights Reserved ®️
Filed under bush walking, ecology, Haibun, Haiku, life, meditation, mindfulness, Mountaineering, nature, quote
“A very faustian choice is upon us: whether to accept our corrosive and risky behaviour as the unavoidable price of population and economic growth, or to take stock of ourselves and search for a new environmental ethic.” E.O. Wilson
The Moment The moment between asking and answering a question is the moment of significant weight waiting to shift, one way or another to fall or to rise, to the left or the right, and in the moment identifying our own game of denial. Is the moment of significant weight waiting to shift merely a trope of the human imaginative longing, one way or another to fall or to rise, to the left or the right, or is it perhaps a significant axial irruption in our midst? Merely a trope of the human imaginative longing, suggesting that there is no salvific moment beyond dreams, or is it perhaps a significant axial irruption in our midst, at best our childish myths deserted our desperate need. Suggesting that there is no salvific moment beyond dreams, one way or another to fall or to rise, to the left or the right, at best our childish myths deserted our desperate need, the moment between asking and answering a question. Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon All Rights Reserved ®️
“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” Arthur Ashe
Change That Diet Yelling red hoarse at the news, wrenching gut papers shredded, blog rolling, twitter clicking, opinions strewn and spewed, ambulance delays, police inaction, political corruptions a constant, wars, safety, guns, policies, hanging expectations on solutions while lakes and rivers dry before our eyes. Crime waves roll over cities as heat waves arise uncommonly, race, place, identity, all ignored, only money, that old time religion killing everything in its wake, step back, just a little, change that diet, leave the negative behind, harness the good and build a future quietly, softly, a little at a time. Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon All Rights Reserved ®️ Note: there's nothing wrong with being informed and keeping up with the news, but if it is brining you down and it is all you do, you need to get out more.
Filed under community, environment, Free Verse, life, nature, poem, quote
“A seed neither fears light nor darkness, but uses both to grow.” Matshona Dhliwayo
This Way And That The wind took the seed and played it along, this way and that, the seed seemed not to mind, as I followed its flight for a while, this way and that, wondering what it would be like to float along, this way and that, until the wind slowed and the seed lodged in the earth, an epiphany, this way and that, of my flight. Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon All Rights Reserved ®️
At dVerse Merril is hosting the Quadrille (44 words) with an invitation to write about Celebration.
dVerse Poets – Quadrille – Let’s Celebrate
“Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one’s actions.” Abraham Joshua Heschel
Have You? Have you smelled the sun or felt the stars, touched the moon in the early hours, stuck your tender toes in salted sand, watched egrets dance the lake, listened to waves kissing the beach, taken a lover with whom to celebrate these easy joys. Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon All Rights Reserved ®️
Filed under awareness, beach, bush walking, Free Verse, life, nature, poem, Quadrille, quote
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Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. - Edgar Allan Poe
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poet and author of The Light in the Cave
A place to freely express emotions and ideas.
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Man is a self-conscious nothing. ~Julius Bahnsen
"That I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all thy wondrous works." Psalm 26:7
Welcome to poetry and poetic imagery
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Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. - Edgar Allan Poe
Korean cooking, restaurants, and delivery foods
poet and author of The Light in the Cave
A place to freely express emotions and ideas.
Home of Democracy Jones
Man is a self-conscious nothing. ~Julius Bahnsen
"That I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all thy wondrous works." Psalm 26:7
Welcome to poetry and poetic imagery
📍enthusiasm runs the world
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