MOMENTS OF THOUGHT

A long time, I know. Betwixt and between I've been in my thoughts, deeply; moving between what I know, what I thought I knew, and what is. Spending time in the space where plans and words burn up; where names fall away, and with them the divisions that modern life enforce. The space where there are no distinctions; where Life and Truth simply are; the space where the Heart and the Head are one.

In this time, the death of a colleague and the remembrance of impermanence. The gentle reminder to savor every moment and the awareness of how quickly each moment passes.

And also, the call from a friend taken to her home, struggling to understand the meaning and the cause and the reality of suicide. Her own refusal to leave until she sorts out the reasons that her friend, a young and very talented woman, would hang herself to death at the side of a mountain, where, in summer, the horizon is lilac mixed with the softest shade of pink and cows graze and moo and slap the gentle breeze with their tails. It seems the woman had been having an affair. Married less than a year, she became pregnant with the man's child and then, after his curt refusal to leave his wife, refusal to "mess up his happy home" had an abortion. I imagine the pain of rejection, the pain of loss. The pain of loving. I ask myself, Why? Why such a tenuous line between Joy and Pain? Is it we humans, with such a limited and warped understanding of what love is, or is it simply the nature of Love itself? Is it us, misusing and abusing what Nature gives us so freely? Or is it the nature of Nature itself?

My friend asks, Why didn't I know this? Why didn't I know she was suffering this way? We were friends, Angel." But I respond, "What do we ever know of anyone? In an age of overt and unconscionable consumerism and materialism, where image and truth are seperate realities, what do we really know? What are we able to know? Who is able or willing to take down the guard long enough for Truth to make itself present?"

And so here I am, in my contemplative life, trying to understand the questions themselves; trying to embrace the questions for what they are. Seeking less for answers and more for the right questions to be asking in the Ebb and Flow of my own existence. I'm reminded of the advice of poet, Rainer Maria Rilke:

I beg you...to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without ever noticing it, live your way into the answer..."

In my other world, don't know how often I'll get around to updating. I'm preparing for a television taping on Monday the 14th. I've been invited to appear on
The Writer's Tale, a literary arts production of the esteemed Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland. It will be televised on The Research Channel so if you have Dish TV (satellite) you'll get it. But if you don't, you can also check it out through their website: The Writer's Tale The host is Dr. Judith Paterson, well known in writing and journalism and teaching circles, whose books you can easily look up on Amazon.

Also, I've been invited to speak at a women's conference this fall, hopefully the keynote address, but at the very least, about poetry and writing. We'll see.

I'm crafting an essay about maintaining balance in our lives (at least my attempt to do so) and how I've found some very useful tools in yoga that make that goal a little bit more real. I trust it'll find a home since that seems to be what most of us are searching for.

Poems have come (several good ones, for which I am always thankful) for my next volume of poetry. Also, waiting to hear from an anthology editor, hoping my set of war poems find themselves a home.

Working, always, on the novel. This summer, I'll be in beautiful Cape Cod, Massachussetts, studying under the tutelage of A.J. Verdelle, author of the acclaimed, The Good Negress at The Fine Arts Work Centre in Provincetown. Hence, the obvious need to get the manuscript (at least the first ten chapters or so) as tight as possible.

Lastly, waiting ever so patiently for Spring and the first break in the cold so that I can begin to prepare my flower beds for new life.

So, lots going on. But Life is good.

Angel