Mindful Connections

REMEMBER Remember the sky that you were born under, know each of the star’s stories. Remember the moon, know who she is. Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the strongest point of time. Remember sundown and the giving away tonight. Remember your birth, how your mother struggled to give you form and breath. You are evidence of her life, and her mother’s, and hers. Remember your father. He is your life, also. Remember the earth whose skin you are: red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth brown earth, we are earth. Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them, listen to them. They are alive poems. Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the origin of this universe. Remember you are all people and all people are you. Remember you are this universe and this universe is you. Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you. Remember language comes from this. Remember the dance language is, that life...

We own the Forests By   Maria  |  April 12, 2021  |  0  Poem by Hans Børli Tanslated from Norwegian by: Louis muinzer 1952. I have never owned a tree. None of my people have ever owned a tree – though my family’s life-path winds over centuries’ blue heights of forest. Forest in storm, forest in calm – forest, forest, forest, through all the years. My people were always a poor people. Always. Children of life’s hard, iro-frost nights . Strangers own the trees, and the soil, the stone-heaped cleared by the light of the moon’s lamp. Strangers with smooth faces and pretty hands and their car always waiting outside the door. None of my people have ever owned a tree. And yet we own the forests by our bloods red right. Rich man, you with the car and the bank book and stock in Borregaard timber company; you can buy a thousand acres more, but you can’t buy the sunset, or the whisper of the wind, or the joy of walking homeward, when the heather blooms along the ...

  Lost Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here, And you must treat it as a powerful stranger, Must ask permission to know it and be known. The forest breathes. Listen. It answers, I have made this place around you. If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here. No two trees are the same to Raven. No two branches are the same to Wren. If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you, You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows Where you are. You must let it find you. -- David Wagoner