e. e. cummings on thanks giving

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginably You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

alchemy & inquiry on wave hill

On Mother's Day, Jennifer, Magnus and I saw a painting we liked a lot called "Aspidium, Aspenium, Pteris," (2011), at the Wave Hill Glyndor Gallery by the artist Philip Taaffe. The painting is part of a three-man show called 'Alchemy & Inquiry' Philip Taaffe, Fred Tomaselli, Terry Winters, (through June 19th). Jennifer has an affinity for nature and plants, which are sometimes my muse. The painting depicts an array of ferns in various sizes and colors ranging from shades of green to rust. The ferns sway elegantly layered atop one another, cohabiting in a simple familial nature. I looked up the meaning of the title and found aspidium to be a male fern, aspenium, a mother fern, and pteris to mean "with children."
Jennifer took me to Wave Hill on my birthday a few summers ago where we walked through scenic grounds, and where I did this drawing of a Dawn Redwood tree (a Metasequoia glyptostroboides).

permitting mettā

I fell out of headstand in yoga class the other day, and rolled over onto the mats of the persons practicing in front of me. I had been nursing a cold and breathing inconsistently through a runny nose. My concentration was challenged, and I uttered "Jesus Christ!" unconsciously as I toppled, and then apologized to the folks I nearly fell on. Embarrassed, I crawled back on my mat and into child's pose where I silently lectured my ego for letting me get carried away in over ambitious variations of the pose. Neck pain and humiliation set in as I answered the instructor when she came over to ask if I was alright. "Ah-huh," I replied. But I was hurting. Instead of leaving I decided to finish the class since it was winding down, preparing for relaxation pose.
Lying on our backs, the instructor began a Dharma talk about mettā, loving-kindness. But my mind was arrested, battling for relaxation and stuck questioning how I let myself get injured in yoga. I was able to let go of the pain a bit and my thoughts caught up to some of what the instructor was saying. She was suggesting sending mettā to the people in Haiti as a whole; to those that are struggling and suffering, as well as to those that have gone on to another plane. I visualized the earthquake victims' bodies streaming over us, passing through the room, on their way to their next lives.
It occurred to me that this was what death was like; the act of losing a faculty to a natural occurrence. When it was time to come up to sit, my neck was stiff. Temporarily discomforted, I thought of how many people in Haiti lied their after their lives were ravaged by the quake, unable to move, praying. There was no getting up for a moment, only empathy.