Trust, Thanksgiving & Transformation (Day 14)
Today's post is a continuation of yesterday's theme of poetry as prayer and prayer as poetry:
Try to enter each day
with empty hands, trusting
you will receive
what you need
such is the richness
of spiritual poverty
Before rushing to form
further wishes,
pause to recognize
and give thanks
for all those
that have come to pass
We are not alone,
unknown friends
await us in the wings
yet, to birth a G_d,
the self must die
in the delivery room.
© Yahia Lababidi
This is my entry for Day 14 of The 100 Day Poetry Challenge. To learn more, please, visit Steemit School on discord
The part about entering each day with empty hands is quite striking, especially since I've been reading this book on prayer and it was talking about presenting an empty vessel to be filled. If you have white space, that's potential for art, but it's also potential for contrast to the worked space.
Thanks, Caleb. Yes, I, too, have been reading how the Light cannot enter our heart, so long as there is so much darkness and noise (aka Self/Ego) in a book on mystical Love. In order to purify our hearts, we must try to empty ourselves, even of all expectations... Hard, daily work, but worth it... doing our part and, then, knowing when to step back.
Wow! Yahia i was a bit down with some domestic issue and i have to do lot of work tomorrow but i was lacking a strong push. Yes your poetry provided me <3
Happy to hear, Salman, that my poetry gave you uplift you needed. Thanks, for listening, with an open heart.
The days are wiser than we are... if only we do not oppose them...
_/|\_tucked into the last verse of the last stanza, in the words "birth" I gasped - sometimes we often forget the people who have brought us this world, they risked their lives, took the time to conceive and bleed to give birth, and gave all the time to raise we ... may God love our mothers all .. thanks for sharing @yahialababidi
I did not mean our mothers by that line, at all... I was referring to a spiritual awakening. But, yes, here's to celebrating those who birthed us, literally. Happy Mother's Day (in Egypt, tomorrow :)
The thanksgiving that I’ve always known is underwent a change years ago, counteractive to the meaning of the holiday. No longer do people lie in food comas on the Friday after Thanksgiving. In more recent years, Black Friday has been very popular. One day Americans give thanks for all that they have, and the next their things are taken for granted while they shop for even more. Black Friday has been a time to switch over from the praises of thanksgiving to the corporate meanings of Christmas and sales in retail. While Black Friday defeated the purpose of the day previous, it was an accepted act to shop this day in our culture. So thank you to the stores who actually offer good deals so Americans have more things to be thankful for next year, even if they are material objects.
Thank you, for your feedback. By Thanksgiving, I was not referring to the American holiday, and its commercial devolution -- I simply meant Giving Thanks :) This is something we can continue to do, personally and any day of the year, irrespective of culture
_/|\_o really sorry ....thanks for reminding me
No worries... we're here to remind each other.
Thanks
Thanksgiving "the holiday " was appropriated from several pagan traditions. It was originally a harvest festival where the tribe/town came together to thank the divine and nature for their harvest and share some of that harvest in a grand meal for al the community. The celebration usually lasted until well in the morning , with music , dance , poetry and stories as well as some couples making love in the fields. Christians stole this and stripped it of all the fun. Modern America turned it into plastic and saddled it with a horrific lie of a feast with natives who were actually murdered in real life ...
Hello friend, @yahialababidi your poetry is philosophy of life. Thanks for sharing. I invite you to read my poem. Thank you.
What could be more important than the art of living? Thank you, for your attention. I enjoyed your poem, to the poets :)
Thanks for reading
T's, I generally have problems with the trust part. But nice one though.
Thanks, for reading. In my experience, nothing is possible without Trust.
_/|\_I suggestion was that we would be better served by three new "Stewardship T's" of Thanksgiving, Trust and Transformation. I have revisited the conversation with Tom many times and I believe we are well served by interpreting Time, Talent and Treasure through the lens of Thanksgiving, Trust
I'm sorry, I don't understand...
Religion often likes to teach us to give up our sense of self I have never agreed with the sentiment as i believe we are all designed to be the stars of our movies and send back the data of our vision of life to the source; so it through us can evaluate who she/he/it/they is as ultimately we are all parts of it. What I also believe is that until you realise that you and your choices bleed into the world, just like it bleeds into you, you will never really know yourself or the devine (should it really exist of late I am struggling ) ...
Thanks, for taking the time to share your thoughts and feelings. As I see it, it's not only religion that teaches us to surrender our self: Love and Art do, too. I have an ego, @tygertyger, a big one. And, I've found that only in surrendering it, and all the noisy drama that accompanies it, have I been able to see/be better. This is my experience also as a recovering Existentialist, who once worshipped at the alter of individuality and mind. Mercifully, I'm through doubting, and have discovered through trusting a new world of possibilities and beauty. Peace
_/|\_define self ? and I know nothing of love LOL haven't read my poetry I am a mess ;)
Giant question. To answer slant I will paraphrase a spiritual teacher who agrees with you, up to an extent, saying: Who knows him self, knows his Lord.
That said, there is a higher self, and lower self. Personality and ego, like scaffolding, are useful up to a certain point; after that, they are an impediment to our development. Likewise, we scramble the first half of our lives to assemble a self; and, in the second half, if we are wise, to dismantle it.
Love is, generally, the answer... to everything. But, again, we cannot love another truly, deeply, selflessly, until we know and heal ourself. A paradox? Life is made of them. Here's a quote that I hold in the highest regard:
—Niels Bohr
PS: Please, take this in the best possible way. Yes, I've read your poetry, but I must be careful with it... I try to no longer flirt with danger, and do my best to steer clear of all darkness or negativity.
nods, that last statement was more meant as joke but I get your honest reply. I personally have learned that if you lock up darkness it will grow and come for you when you are weak. So I acknowledge it without flinching and thus have a hell of a lot more control over my actions then most who have survived stuff then I have. For me my self, or ego as people like to call it is my anchor that keeps me sane. When I am insable the lines between me and others blurr a lot. since I was a kid when
I am in close proximity to others I can pick up on stuff I should not be able to know. The suffering and need of others often drown me and the rest of the world out so my ego is my beacon out of madness and chaos. I think that ego is important to be able to operate and without it you cannot create anything unless you let other forces create through you ... that being said those who cannot handle ego do not understand the nature of self I think ... as i said we naturally blend into the world around us and it has it's tentacles in us. To be selfish is just damaged ego as it had not discovered it's true nature...
As someone who is half clown, I take jokes as deadly serious. Also, to be perfectly clear, I do not believe in locking up darkness I just believe that we work with it, differently. My vow, to myself, is not to be a heavy person, caught up in complaining (I don't believe we grow that way). I can handle ego, and my way to do so is to treat it as servant, not master. We have different ways and different paths, but we practice the art of living by making of our lives an example or a cautionary tale for others. In this, I think, we have some choice.
As artist, and empath, I, too, receive a lot of information from others and, based on it, I'm drawn closer or keep my distance. Thanks, for this heart to heart, and I wish you wellbeing and poetry :)
Complaining never suited anyone ;) I just do not trust easily and expect little of others, thus the actions of others seldom determine my choices. That being said I want to leave a mark in this world most importantly by trying to leave it a better place than it was as when I came... and I literally have clown phobia- LOL ... I rather battle Isis then be locked in a room with a clown it is that bad ... I shall now be watching you and with the first sign of red noses and squeaky shoes I shall run LOL
haha, thanks, for chuckles :P Taking off red nose /squeaky shoes and giving you a light-hearted, ear-to-ear smile <3
Here's to leaving a mark in this world... by trying to leave it a better place than it was when we came!