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| I
draw my inspiration from a variety of sources. I love poetry,
Shakespeare, Mary Oliver. I wanted to share some of my favorites
with you: |
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"Oh
wonder! How many goodly people are there here! How beauteous
mankind is! Oh brave new world to have such people in it!" |
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Miranda
from Shakespeare's The Tempest |
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"We
must pray for strength. We must pray to come together, Pray
to the weeping earth, Pray to the trembling waters And to
the wandering rain. We must pray to the whispering moon,
Pray to the tip-toeing stars And to the hollering sun."
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Nancy
Wood, from Earth Prayers, edited by Elizabeth Roberts |
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"Please
call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and
my laughs at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are
one. Please call me by my true names, So I can wake up,
And so the door of my heart can be left open, The door of
compassion." |
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Thich
Nhat Hanh, from his poem Please call me by my true names |
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"I
will note serve that in which I no longer believe, whether
it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church….And
I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake,
and perhaps as long as eternity too." |
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Stephen
Dedalus from James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as
a Young Man |
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I
don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay
attention, how to fall down Into the grass, how to kneel
down in the grass, How to be idle and blessed, how to stroll
through the fields, Which is what I've been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything
die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan
to do with your one wild and precious life? |
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Excerpt
from Mary Oliver's The Summer Day, New and Selected
Poems |
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| I
wrote some haikus and poems after Sept 11, 2001 that I would
like to offer as a prayer to those who lost their lives |
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Twin
towers reaching |
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For
heaven in September sun |
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Windows on the World |
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Innocent
New York |
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Before
devastation |
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Sips morning coffee |
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Black
orange explosion |
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Cell
phones bid farewell |
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Before life is extinguished |
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Tuesday
Sept 11, 8:30 am |
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In
the Berkshire hills |
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Through
shell shock and horror |
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We
keep on dancing |
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Wednesday
Sept 12 |
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Toronto's
Lion King roars with fitting passion: "The Circle of
Life", |
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truly Mother Earth's theme song.
Happily I jump up and down in my seat |
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as
human puppets dance through the theatre. I can almost touch
the elephant |
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who is too wide for the aisle. He lumbers
slowly, swaying
his way toward the stage, |
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while
the birds and cheetas and lions dance into my heart. |
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Bless all the animals and actors of our world. |
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Wednesday
Sept 19 |
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Dance
sustains me now |
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Nothing
but the dance |
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At
the still and restless point, |
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There
the dance is |
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I
am home, I am alive, I am the dancer |
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And the dance |
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Oct
11 - one month later |
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May
all beings be happy |
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May
all beings be peaceful |
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May
all beings have ease of well being |
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May
all beings live in Harmony and Grace |
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May
all beings be free |
