I gotta talk to you for a minute about Andrea Gibson. I’ve got talk about her, because I don’t know if I have ever, ever been so moved by the work of a single individual.

Andrea Gibson is a master of spoken word, an award winning slam poet.

“Gibson is also among the nation’s most admired and emulated poets. Her verse is at once personal and political, concrete and abstract, feminist and universal, filled with incinerating verbs and metaphor and delivered with gut-punching urgency. You can hear the ache in her soul every time she utters God’s name, and even her inhales sound desperate. It’s not uncommon for audiences to gasp at some of her turns of phrase or rise to their feet when she finishes a poem.” MATT PEIKEN

She is a woman of uncommon passion, her performances lit by an internal fire that powers her through her poems with the force of a freight train, slicing through lines with the sharpness and precision of sword. She spits her words out like bullets – hitting me right in the gut, and in the next second changes course and breaths out her message with a gentle caress that makes her words drift to my ears like leaves falling softly to the ground. Every word carefully chosen, unflinchingly delivered, cutting through bullshit and convention with the energy of someone determined to create change but also with the tenderness of someone whose heart is so big she has to hurt more than most of us. She performs with ferocity and with compassion and with so much feeling that I am left raw and exposed by the power of her honesty.

I want you to watch these videos. I want you to close your eyes and absorb her words, her passion, her activism, her fire. I want you to feel her work with every fiber of your being. I want your toes to tingle and your heart to pound and for you to feel changed by what you hear. I don’t know exactly why I’m telling you this, why I think you need instructions or set expectations. I can’t quite imagine that you could listen to these words and not do all these things. I don’t know that it is possible to be fully present and aware and NOT be wholly moved by the spirit and soul of what this woman creates in the performance of her art.

Blue Blanket
I am moved by every single piece I have heard her read, but this one – this one more than any other – brings me to my knees. It slams into me and makes my breath feel tight in my lungs and my heart thud in my chest. If you have ever been violated, if you have ever sat and held a woman who has been violated while she cried or sat in horrified numbness, then you will feel this poem with every last cell in your body and the final line will remain a part of you long after you have finished listening.

I do.
Love poem and political statement all at once, this is just one the millions of reasons why it matters that love just be love, without restrictions, or inequality or limits on who and how and why.

“i never needed more
than the stars on your grin to lead me home
for fifty years you were my favorite poem
and i’d read you every night
knowing i might never understand every word
but that was okay cause the lines of you
were the closest thing to holy i’d ever heard
you’d say this kind of love has to be a verb”

Dive
Life dosesn’t rhyme. Paradox, irony, mirrored reflections - it’s all the beautiful grey between stark black and white, it’s the ambiguous spaces between absolutes where the brilliance of life resides.

“”it’s your worst sin saving your fucking life
it’s the devil’s knife carving holes into you soul
so angels will have a place to make their way inside
life doesn’t rhyme
still life is poetry — not math
all the world’s a stage
but the stage is a meditation mat
you tilt your head back
you breathe
when your heart is broken you plant seeds in the cracks
and you pray for rain
and you teach your sons and daughters
there are sharks in the water
but the only way to survive
is to breathe deep
and dive”

Say Yes
The world needs us right now more than it ever has before…this poem is hope - empowering, uplifting hope. This poem is the life I want to live.

For Eli
This is how I feel about war – not just the one we’re in now – but every last one of them.

““one third of the homeless men in this country are veterans
and we have the nerve to Support Our Troops
with pretty yellow ribbons
while giving nothing but dirty looks to their outstretched hands
tell me what land of the free
sets free its eighteen-year-old kids into greedy war zones
hones them like missiles
then returns their bones in the middle of the night
so no one can see”

I found this poem today at 37 Days(a soul awakening, heart inspiring, spirit lifting place that you all should visit regularly).

Most of you know how I love poetry; am touched by it and moved by it on deep, vibrational level. Reading - or rather experiencing - a good poem is an intense, transcendent journey for me. My response is visceral, I feel more profoundly awake and aware after absorbing the words than I did before. Every now and then I come across a poem that hits me as much intellectually as it does emotionally. My body tingles and my brain hums with the truth contained within the lines. This poem hit me there, deep in my gut AND deep in my head at the same time.

Invisible Work

Because no one could ever praise me enough,
because I don’t mean these poems only
but the unseen
unbelievable effort it takes to live
the life that goes on between them,
I think all the time about invisible work.
About the young mother on Welfare
I interviewed years ago,
who said, “It’s hard.
You bring him to the park,
run rings around yourself keeping him safe,
cut hot dogs into bite-sized pieces for dinner,
and there’s no one
to say what a good job you’re doing,
how you were patient and loving
for the thousandth time even though you had a
headache.”
And I, who am used to feeling sorry for myself
because I am lonely,
when all the while,
as the Chippewa poem says, I am being carried
by great winds across the sky,
thought of the invisible work that stitches up the
world day and night,
the slow, unglamorous work of healing,
the way worms in the garden
tunnel ceaselessly so the earth can breathe
and bees ransack this world into being,
while owls and poets stalk shadows,
our loneliest labors under the moon.

There are mothers
for everything, and the sea
is a mother too,
whispering and whispering to us
long after we have stopped listening.
I stopped and let myself lean
a moment, against the blue
shoulder of the air. The work
of my heart
is the work of the world’s heart.
There is no other art.
Alison Luterman-

Invisible work. As mothers we do a hell of a lot of invisible work. Invisible, underappreciated, tedious, fulfilling, mindless, inspiring, unrecognized, beautiful, focused, back breaking, heart lifting, meaningless, life-altering invisible work.

Invisible work so often forms the fabric of our days and knits together our increasingly fragmented experiences. It’s the way I just stopped writing these words for the third time to fill up a yellow plastic watering can so that Julie could carry on her gardening without interruption. It’s the fourth load of laundry today waiting to be moved from washer to dryer so there will be clean towels for the weekend. It’s the dried up toast crusts that I scraped into the garbage can after breakfast so I could begin the day with a clean kitchen and calm mind, and the way I ruffle Bella’s hair and whisper in her ear that she’s the bestest kid ever when I pass her in the hall. It’s the way I put off all the important things I had to do to paint my toenails orange just now, just because I knew it would make me smile. It’s the way I’m writing this while I hold the phone against my shoulder - on hold with Dell for the eight hundredth time this month, trying to fix my laptop so that I can proof photos and be outside with my kids at the same time. It’s those constant unseen attempts to balance their needs with my own commitments and desires.

Sometimes it is the invisible parts of my work, not just as a mother - but as a doula, photographer, woman - that I find the most meaningful. The behind the scenes, the scut work, the down and dirty nobody-cares-but-it-has-to-be-done work. Sometimes that’s where the magic lies, where the Zen hides out, where our most honest contribution to life is found. Sometimes though, to be perfectly honest, it’s soul weary, back breaking, boredom inducing bullshit. But somebody’s gotta do it, and so I do – as we all do - every single day of our lives.

It’s making the millionth peanut butter and jelly sandwich, proofing images from a recent photo shoot (when you’d rather be drinking tequila), untangling hopelessly tangled jump ropes, composing (hopefully) insightful and witty blog entries in the school pick up line, pushing a toddler on a swing higher-higher-higher so they can feel the exhilaration of the freefall. It’s keeping track of doctor appointments and when the mortgage is due and what the heck you’re going to need at the grocery store so you can make dinner for friends on Tuesday night. It’s all the stuff that exists between mundanities of life and transcendence of art, and it’s the achingly simple beauty of the spaces in between.

We all do this stuff. We do it over, and over, and over again. People rarely notice us doing it, because they have their own invisible work to focus on. There are no Nobel Prizes for the invisible work of humanity, no Academy Awards, no kudos’ being shouted from mountaintops. All there is is the quiet satisfaction we get from living the results of our work. The sense of rightness you get from seeing the strong, vibrant and secure children you are raising, the maybe-not-sparkling-clean-but-at-least-not-embarrassingly-dirty house at the end of a crazy day. It’s the to-do list with more things crossed off than not. It’s putting your aching feet up and cracking open a cold beer in front of a movie you’ve been dying to watch. It’s knowing that you are far from perfect, and you probably fucked up a time or two, but you got through the day and at least nobody got seriously injured…

What is your invisible work? What work “stitches up your world day and night”? Remember, even though parts of your work are invisible, all of your work is invaluable. Tell me about the work of your heart…

I just stumbled on a treasure trove of peace, grace and inspiration. This blog, Evenstar Art, is a magical, comforting, soul-filling space…

It Is Enough

“Today, it is enough. It is enough to know the sun awoke. It is enough to know my waning cats stayed one more day. It is enough to know I am loved.

There is no wanting. There is no yearning. Passion settles. Peace floats. My walk is grounded, steady. I am loved. And it is enough.”

Right now, in this very moment, I am soaring high on possibility and potential. After months of transition and uncertainty, equilibrium is finding me again. It’s not over yet, changes and endings and beginnings are still rolling through. But I’m not resisting, not putting up walls, not trying to control. Right now it just feels good to drive down the street with the window down, music blasting, a smile on my face and peace in my heart.

No, nothing is perfect. My life is still more upside down than right side up, and there is a long road ahead – but I am full of hope, full of optimism, full of faith that it will all be as it should be.

Yes, it is enough. It is more than enough.

Check out Catherine’s lovely post today over at Everyday Life As Lyric Poetry. She talks about perspective, and these quotes in particular reached me;

After you soak in Catherine’s wisdom, take a quick peak over at Jen Lemen’s again and see a small sampling of the love notes she made to leave around her city. She is a woman who takes action instead of just talking - any wonder she’s one of my heros?

Came across this video today on yet another wonderful blog - Diamonds In The Sky With Lucy.

I’d like to think I’d be one of the people who would have gone up to this guy without hesitation or reservation and given and received a hug. But would I? Would I have gone with my gut, or would I have been so tied up in social convention and our ‘don’t touch’ society that I would have passed him by with a snicker and a look of amused condescension on my face. And if I had done that – what would I have lost?

Nothing perhaps, after all it would have just been a random moment, quite likely quickly forgotten as I got swept up in the all-consuming mundanities of daily life. But I would have lost something, something small but profound. I would have lost the infinitely precious opportunity for real connection with another human being.

The seclusion and separateness with which we live our lives creates a seemingly insurmountable division between us. And if this distance often seems too wide to cross with people we love, it seems near impossible with the countless people who pass in and out of our lives on a daily basis.

We can’t connect with everyone, of course, but how many potentially magical connections – large and small – do we miss because we’re not open to noticing and receiving them? How often do we not notice, not reach out, not connect simply because we are too busy, too shy, too scared, too distracted to reach out and grab the opportunity?

How much more richness might we claim in this existence if, ever once in a while, we took a day and vowed to live it in awareness. If we decided to boldly claim each and every opportunity that came our way, no matter how seemingly bizarre or random or inconsequential. What sort of things might we learn? What sort of bliss might we encounter? What sort of growth might come our way?

Think about moments like this one from the same blog.

Or these two stories of connection from the ever wise Jen Lemen

Or this story from Krystyn Heide, who just yesterday found a negative rant left in a coffee shop and used it as inspiration to write and leave random love notes around the city for people to find.

What would you have done if you passed a long haired, bearded stranger in the mall holding a sign offering “FREE HUGS”? What would you have done with the stranger on the bus, or at the gas station or at Trader Joes? What would you have done with that noxious note in the coffee store?

Every second of our existence is created by and carries the potential of our choices. The choice to connect or disconnect. The choice to reach out or close off. The choice to notice and be aware, or the choice to shut down and look away. The choice to not only accept, but to seek out and create new opportunities for connection with the people surrounding us.

Lets just think for a moment about what could happen if we all took a day and made the choice to connect, to notice, to reach out…can you imagine the power in that?

So what do you say? I say lets do it.

I believe…

…that everything is a form of energy, especially our words and thoughts…

…that this energy is transmitted from us and through us every second of our lives, and that it shapes our experiences and our relationships and our perceptions of the world around us…

…that if I exist in a place of gratitude and generosity that the universe will care for me as I need to be cared for – even if I don’t always recognize it at the time…

…that a long, hot shower is perhaps the sweetest form of therapy in the world…

…that compassion is the greatest gift I have to give…

…that music is power…

…that I could exist without a house or a car or even community, but I would surely cease to exist without the company of words…

…that I could happily drown in a good poem…

…that what I put out into the universe will come back to me…

…that I only have one life, but that it is awfully easy to forget to fully live it…

…that I need to have better personal boundaries…

…that silence shared between two deeply connected people is perhaps the most blissful sound in the world…

…that a two year old has the power - in the span of mere moments - to inspire (or incite) every single emotion that exists inside me…

…that love is everything, but that it is not always enough…

…that our only real job on this earth is to be who we are, and to be that person as completely as we can be…

…that singing Patsy Cline at full volume can heal my battered heart better than anything else (except perhaps copious amounts of rich dark chocolate)…

…that the ocean has the power to instantly calm my weary soul…

…that life is a series of choices…

…that laughter really is the best medicine…

….that if I am obsessing about something I need to take a long, hard run to get myself out of my head and into my body…

…that periods of essential learning and growth often make me feel like absolute shit when I’m in them…

…that I often find my gurus in the strangest places…

…that loving touch given freely and without reservation has the power to sustain me…

…that my new red heels really are made of magic, even if they do hurt like hell after an hour…

…that love only finds it’s true strength and power when it is both given and received…

…that opportunities for peaceful solitude should be cherished…

…that sometimes the only way to get through a difficult situation is to lean into it, and lean into it hard, even when what you most want to do is run back to bed and pull the covers over your head…

…that American Idol truly is a great example of quality television programming…

…that I manifest my own blessings quite easily, but that I need to be conscious and aware to recognize them when they appear…

…that sometimes it’s harder to see the good in some people than others, but it’s also almost always worthwhile to take the time to look…

…that sometimes, when I most feel the urge to run away, I probably most need to sit still and wait for further directions…

…that there is beauty everywhere if I only remember to keep my eyes wide open…

…that if I am true to myself, eventually all the pieces will fall into place…

…that the center of my existence is my breath…

…that the best part of life is the delicious knowledge that magic might fall into your lap in the very next moment…

What do you believe?