Presidential seal of approval
A few clicks into the bookshelf to the right of this blog post, readers will find among the books I heartily recommend is Life of Pi by Yann Martel. So I was heartened to see that President Obama sent some fan mail to Martel after reading it with his daughter. The author’s reaction makes it even more special.
Channeling art
Saw my friend and poet, James Nave, on Friday and he “channeled” this poem right on the spot from a necklace I was wearing, a treasure I picked up in a flea market in Rome.
Tears do not know their names. They fall because they must.
Dreams swallow air, become mist, then vapor, then swamp.
Inside all of this, angles tumble like dominos, add nothing
to everything. Why can’t you march around in a circle forever?
Possible? Impossible?
True? Untrue?
Forced? Released?
Dreams are desires wrapped up in bundles of cotton.
I wipe the field clean; brown earth spreads to the horizon.
These are the days when the sun knows my skin and my skin is wet
and oily, back bare to the air that breathes 24 hours a day.
It is, after all a circle. My tears do not know their names.
The angles stand up again. The dominos are right.
The ivory keys play long night songs. It’s blues time along
the Mississippi. We’re going to walk that river hand in hand.
When we say Amen, somebody will say Amen back.
And the river takes us to the sea.
Against Hesitation
The beginning part of this poem by Charles Rafferty is in the February issue of O, The Oprah Magazine. Loved it enough to find the whole thing:
AGAINST HESITATION
If you stare at it long enough
the mountain becomes unclimbable.
Tally it up. How much time have you spent
waiting for the soup to cool?
Icicles hang from January gutters
only as long as they can. Fingers pause
above piano keys for the chord
that will not form. Slam them down
I say. Make music of what you can.
Some people stop at the wrong corner
and waste a dozen years hoping
for directions. I can’t be them.
Tell every girl I’ve ever known
I’m coming to break her door down,
that my teeth will clench
the simple flower I only knew
not to give . . . Ah, how long did I stand
beneath the eaves believing the storm
would stop? It never did.
And there is lightning in me still.
Completing ‘Committed’
Having had some downtime on a train yesterday and having carved out a piece of this holiday for reading today, I have finished Elizabeth Gilbert’s new book Committed. I already wrote in this space about being enticed by her observations that were excerpted in O, The Oprah Magazine.
I so enjoyed the book. As I noted in a recent Game Plan column, her writing is a balm to me. It’s engaging and real.
But what sticks out for me right now is the validating feeling — and I’m kind of surprised I still need validation on this — of reading her thoughts on being childless by choice. It is so rare that anyone understands this and so I am incredibly moved by passages I relate to such as:
” … while the vague idea of motherhood had always seemed natural to me, the reality … only filled me with dread and sorrow. As I got older, I discovered that nothing within me cried out for a baby. My womb did not seem to have come equipped with that famously ticking clock. Unlike so many of my friends, I did not ache with longing whenever I saw an infant. (Though I did ache with longing, it is true, whenever I saw a good used-book shop.)”
” … as I aged, I discovered that I loved my work as a writer more and more, and I didn’t want to give up even an hour of that communion.”
And finally this, which I long to experience:
“That relief — the great thrumming relief that we both felt when we discovered that neither one of us was going to coerce the other into parenthood — still sends a pleasant vibrating hum across our life together.”
Thanks again, Liz, for laying down your truth. It is no wonder you looked up at me at your recent book signing in New York and said, “I know you, right?” The answer, I now see, is ‘yes, you do.’
Quotable
Before I switch over from reading one book to another, I must share my favorite passage from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature:
The misery of man appears like childish petulance, when we explore the steady and prodigal provision that has been made for his support and delight on this green ball which floats him through the heavens. What angels invented these splendid ornaments, these rich conveniences, this ocean of air above, this ocean of water beneath, this firmament of earth between? This zodiac of lights, this tent of dropping clouds, this striped coat of climates, this fourfold year?
Jolt your creative juices
Just received The Open Center catalogue in the mail and I must recommend to anyone who has considered reading The Artist’s Way the 12-week course with author Julia Cameron herself. It begins in February. She is teaching her book Walking in this World in six sessions, also beginning next month.
Cameron’s work in the area of creativity is unparalleled and helped put me on a more fulfilling creative and spiritual path over a decade ago. One of the highlights of my writing career was interviewing her for a Game Plan column in 2008.
The gift of Marianne
Went to see Marianne Williamson at an Open Center event tonight and I couldn’t possibly do it justice here. But what I can say unequivocally is that the $30 I paid for the ticket felt like a steal. What a gift she is.
I saw Williamson speak a few years ago and, while I enjoyed some things about those appearances, I don’t think I was ready to “hold” her message back then. She communicates on a whole different level than most of what we’re exposed to. Williamson is big, big picture.
One comment alone was worth the price of admission to me. Leading up to it, she talked about how so often we all feel like we’ll do something for others once our own financial, emotional or sexual lives are in order. And then:
Give yourself over to divine service while you are still a mess.
Amen, Marianne.
October forecast
From Susan Miller’s AstrologyZone for October, part of my Capricorn forecast:
This is a key month when so much of what you have worked toward will be rewarded. For decades, Saturn has been inching toward your mid-heaven, which is located at the very top of your chart, and will reach this pinnacle point on October 29.
It is also important to note that Saturn does not come by this part of your chart very often, only once every 29 years. The last time you hosted this planet in your tenth house of career achievement was 1980 to mid-1983.
What particularly hits me about these two sections of my forecast is that it was between 1980 and ‘83 that I quit college and later returned on my own dime. It was a huge turning point in my life.
Bring it on 
The tale of the manifested shoe
I am the queen of manifesting!
Back in March I wrote this about Diane von Furstenberg in a Game Plan column:
Truly, I could write this entire column about the shoes Diane von Furstenberg was wearing at Florence Gould Hall Monday night … From the third row in the auditorium, dead center, I could see her well-defined cheekbones, a black-and-white butterfly print dress of her own making, her long perfectly crossed legs made even longer in smooth black tights, and those delicious shoes. Let’s at least give them their own sentence. Picture sleek, black suede slingbacks with a red platform and a dizzyingly high red octagonal-shaped heel.
Fast forward to today and me in Manhattan running an errand in T.J. Maxx. My mission is the housewares department and then out. I am right on course heading for the exit when I take a tiny detour into shoes. Immediately I see a pair and think, “They look like the shoes Diane von Furstenberg was wearing that day, but they can’t be … ”
I pick them up. They are indeed DVF and they are an all-black version of the ones I drooled over in March. My size. Seriously good price. I try them on and despite their towering heels they are easy to walk in.
You know I own those shoes. It was like The Universe hand delivered them. And for that, I say thank you!
The always insightful Paulo Coelho
Terrific quote from author Paulo Coelho, taken from his book Warrior of the Light: Short Notes on Accepting Failure, Embracing Life, and Rising to Your Destiny, which came to me courtesy of my friend Kathi:
“When I draw my bow,” says Herridel to his Zen master, “there comes a point when I feel as if I will get breathless if I do not let fly at once.”
“If you continue to try to provoke the moment when you must release the arrow, you will never learn the art of the archer,” says his master. “Sometimes, it is the archer’s own overactive desire that ruins the accuracy of the shot.”
A Warrior of the Light sometimes thinks: “If I do not do something, it will not be done.”
It is not quite like that. He must act, but he must allow room for the Universe to act too.
