Play
by
Radiance Angelina Petro

“Every work of art is a child.”
—Wassily Kandinsky

We are not here to do what has already
been done. There’s plenty of infinity to go around.
Don’t turn away from yourself, play,
and draw the world to is feet.

Morning
by
Radiance Angelina Petro

After the storm powerlines lay fallow in the trees.
Sullen clouds receive their penances in the day-breaking sun.
The withdrawing flood reveals flattened grass, and tangles of sticks.

The night digested the worst of the storm—the incisions
of lightning, the gullies of black rain. In the morning,
the glad iris spills open, it’s purple tongues thirsty no more.

Seven Little Poems in the Light
by
Radiance Angelina Petro

I am not interested in the pretense
of respectability. I see no reason
to put away childish things. Everything
is incubation anyway, and even Dionysus
played with toys.

***

Go ahead, look for what leaves the body
at death. You’ll find a child in a sun-lit field
singing, making flower crowns
for lions and lambs.

***

The masts of the trees guide the turning
of the earth. Follow the edge of the night.
The absence of shoreline creates something
immense, like a celestial agriculture
of countless stars.

***

The doctrines of the day are no longer
needed. Everything is a cipher anyways,
and you cannot flatter death by trying
to sort them out. Every child is a bird,
and unlike the deer, the soul wants to be found.

***

The crow lifted suddenly from the side of the road,
looking as if it was going to fly in front of my car,
but, instead, it banked left, and flew back into the field.

***

All heartbeats are given, and everything is the source
of everything, and everything is amenable to desire,
and the magic of farming, the magic of bridges,
and every pelican and salamander, every manta ray,
and cuttlefish amazes even the angels.

***

When we met, you broke the hour-glass
of my life and gently poured the sand
onto the center of a Chladni plate.
Then you took the violin bow, drew it along the edge,
and the sand suddenly began to lift
and dance and quiver, and all at once–
rush towards the edges, forming visible
sound-shapes, and then it settled back
in a restful sigh of bliss.

A Michaelmas
Message

From Joseph Anthony

Happy Michaelmas, the
Feast of the Archangel Michael.  St. Michael
helps bring in the harvest of the fruits of your labors–spiritual harvest–the
many ways you have grown this year. In the old legends he slays the dragon.
Some need that image of permanently conquering a foe. Others prefer new legends
in which the dragon is befriended, the destructive energy transformed into
healing, the power of fire channeled to help change the world. So instead of
battling the dragon–dance with the dragon, sing with the dragon, look into its
eyes and see yourself, and then use its gifts to help you grow in this time of
changing colors and crisp, bright blue skies, this time of endings and the
beginning of the coming of winter. What dragons in your life need attention
from an angel? Let your every step be a prayer so that you may walk side by
side with a winged fire bearer and Michael, both dragons, both angels, both
there for your spiritual harvest.

Peace, Joseph

PS: The regularly scheduled, Laura E.
Richards Story Video, will appear later this afternoon. 

Help keep the Wonder Child Blog going.  Donate today.  Thank you.

Copyright Joseph Anthony of the Wonder Child Blog

The Crow and the Pitcher:

Fables For Success, Part One

By

Joseph Anthony

So the story
goes* of a thirsty crow circling over a field on a late summer afternoon.  With rainbows hidden in its wings and drops
of blood for its eyes, the thirsty crow flew in search of water.  Its throat was parched making its caw-caw more brittle and abrasive than
usual.  Still it could find no
water.  The crow alighted on the top
branch of a tree and patiently looked around. 
There sitting on a rock perhaps left by one of the farmers who had sat
down for a break, was a pitcher.  Curious,
and with a glimmer of hope sparking through its chest, the crow flew down, gave
a few caws, and looked in.  Sure enough—water.  The grateful crow dipped its beak into the
opening of the pitcher, but it could not reach the water inside.  So close. 
So horribly close to quenching its thirst, but it couldn’t reach the
water.  The crow tried tipping the
pitcher but the pitcher was too heavy. 
It tried cawing at the pitcher with all its might and still the pitcher
did not pour its contents into its dry, gleaming, crooked beak.  The crow marched around the pitcher, looking
everything like an angry shadow.  It kicked
a stone and then, with the image of having that water flowing down its dry throat
utmost in its mind, it had an idea.  It
picked up a rock in its beak and dropped it into the pitcher.  Nothing happened.  The idea flew through its mind however like a
flock of crows at dawn and he feverishly yet determinedly added stone after
stone, rock after rock and soon, yes, it was working—the water began to rise,
rise closer to its beak until, at last, after a long time dedicated to this
seemingly pointless task, the crow with the rainbows hidden in its wings,
lowered its beak into the pitcher and drank. 
It drank until its throat was cooled, soothed.  It drank until its body was refreshed and the
space within its bones felt light again, wanting sky.  Satisfied the crow strutted away from the
pitcher and then, with a triumphant caw-caw,
it rose into the afternoon sky to go exploring and to share its joy with the
world.

Application:

Know what
you desire.  Know what you are thirsty
for.  Then go get it.  Keep the image of your desire upper most in
your mind and when you get close, and something seemingly goes wrong, or
presents a block, stick with it.  Don’t
give up.  You might be seconds or inches
away from success. Hold the vision.  Let
your thirst inform your imagination. 
Examine your surroundings.  Vent
if you need too.  Sometimes it feels
frustrating.  Go ahead, kick up some dust
(just not in anyone’s eyes, especially your own); whine if you need to–but
keep dreaming.  Know that no matter how
dark you may feel, no matter how many doubts flock towards you, there are
rainbows within the secret folds of your doubts and fears—they are the keys to
your courage and faith.  They are the
wings that will carry you in the direction you must go.  Use your head, and heart.  Think. And when the solution comes, because it will,
be ready for the inspiration, be ready to act—no matter how seemingly small the
action—pick up the stone, and then keep going. 
Stone by stone, do the little things. 
Stay devoted to the thirst, to your desire, and watch success rise to
meet you.  Delight in that success
too.  Drink your fill.  Let it flow through you and lift you to new
heights.  Let it soothe your voice, and
then, know this: The world is waiting.  Share your triumph. Share your joy, your
success.  Tell the world how you didn’t
give up.  Be an inspiration to someone
else, and soar, soar with the water of life flowing through your veins.

*This post is based on Aesop’s fable, the Crow and the Pitcher

Help keep the Wonder Child Blog going.  Thank you.

Copyright Joseph Anthony of the Wonder Child Blog

So now what?

Mind-full?  Mind-empty?

Mindfulness means a mind full of meaningful things. 

That implies space—space to empty and space to fill.  Space to let be.  Space to expand and space to contract. 

So let the thoughts come.  Simply let them float in that same open window that the sounds and fragrances are swirling through.  Let them in like the scent of honeysuckle from the vine on the fence outside or like the hum of the computer fan. 

Most of our troubles come from thinking about and judging the thoughts that come. 

So let the curtains of your judgments simply settle or rustle gently.  Let them wave over one another—all of those judgments, simply let them judge.  Trying to deny them is like trying to stop the curtains from spilling through your hands while you are trying to stop them from moving. 

All of the judgments about judgment strain the brain and the body.  The judgments about the body, the finances, the car inspection appointment, the grocery list, and soccer practice, the dying uncle in Sandusky, Ohio—let them all come.  Befriend them.  If you view them as wrong, or as enemies, or as bad, they will grow like the darkest of shadows and eventually fill the space with darkness dotted with many menacing yellow eyes.

Let the mind fill—sense after sense, thought after thought.  Let the mind empty–sense after sense, thought after thought.  Let the thoughts and sense impressions stream in and out, like your breath.  Attach your attention to none of them, or let your attention attach to all of them. 

Practicing mindfulness makes us aware of the mind’s comings and goings.   And if we can love the awareness without concern over whether or not we are judging, then our practice will be emptied of care and filled with wonder and serenity.

And we can do all of this while walking as well.  We do not need to be sitting to be mindful.   Try it.  Slowly stand.  Revel in the sense of balance as you step–little triangle by little triangle–out of the house and into the woods, or into town, or simply across the room to sit closer to the window.  Absorb every part of the ground that your feet touch.  Absorb what the hands brush or tap as you pass.  Absorb what the eyes touch.  Resist nothing. 

See if you can feel the air passing through your fingers as your hands do their sweet—really, if you think about it—sweet–pendulum dance as you stride.  Sure it’s all about balance—the way the arms sway in time with the legs, but it is really all a lovely orchestrated excuse to swoosh air around like a walking bird, and plus it propels you through space, as a fish through water.

You can walk mindfully, knit mindfully, wash the dishes mindfully–even suffer mindfully. 

Mindfulness involves loving the body and not resisting it, or pretending it isn’t there.  Be hungry, sleepy, awake–full of light.

And fear not, all this liberal-anything-goes-attitude doesn’t have to color the rest of your life.  Form rigid boundaries elsewhere if you like to do that sort of thing.  Boundaries have their place, just as the unyielding metal rail along the high winding mountain road in Jerome, Arizona has its shepherding, guarding place.  Make all of the judgments and rules you want—just take the time to get to know them—intimately know them, like Adam knew Eve.  Know that there will be judgments about the judgments.  If you get to know them well enough, perhaps you will want to let them go.  Perhaps you will stop blaming them for nibbling on the fruits of your meditation.  Perhaps you will stop looking for their ultimate cause.  Perhaps you will learn to love them for who they are and what they are trying to do. 

Whatever you do, I encourage you to keep the windows open.  You could shut them, but that would close out the fresh-aired adventures. 

This being human is such tender, delicate work.  It is also powerful and strong enough to forge the steel of the guard rails along mountain roads. 

You may as well surrender into who you are at the core, the quick, the shining center.  You might as well let the softest of crimson lights seep into your every cell and thought.  You might as well dive into the love of who and what and where and why you are.  You might as well.  The sun rises and sets with you or without you sitting cross-legged by the window, or walking outside, deep into the woods. 

PS: I took the photos in today’s entry whilst up in the Adirondack Mountains.

Copyright Joseph Anthony of the Wonder Child Blog

“Life is a series of surprises.”–Emerson

I propose we throw out all the text books in all of our nation’s high schools and make Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essays required reading (alongside the poetry of Mary Oliver).  Have every student create a story or play, a song or a dance, or a mural based on their understanding of one of Emerson’s essays.  Have them write their own essays and speeches modeled after Emerson’s.  Not only would the drug and crime rates drop in our country, but the country would blossom in unimaginably beautiful ways when our young people are infused with such depth and breadth of wisdom as Emerson’s words contain.

One essay I would have every high schooler read would be the one entitled, “Circles.” It is challenging and inspiring, moving and frightening, poetic and profoundly wise.

It begins:

“The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end.”

In this masterful essay Emerson uses the form of circles to describe the nature of human progress, and the course of our conversations.  He uses the image of circles to describe relationship between friends.  He uses the circle to describe our religious longings and leanings. He employs the image of ever widening ripples to challenge our experience of permanence and the efficacy of our ideas.  He uses the circle to describe the growth of a person’s life.

“The life of man is a self-evolving circle, which, from a ring imperceptibly small, rushes on all sides outward to new and larger circles and that without end.”

We find even the poets (whom Emerson both values and writes as) use this image.  Here’s Rilke translated by Robert Bly:

                        I live my life in growing orbits
                        which move out over the things of the world.
                        Perhaps I can never achieve the last,
                        but that will be my attempt.

                        I am circling around God, around the ancient tower,
                        and I have been circling for a thousand years,
                        and I still don’t know if I am a falcon, or a storm,
                        or a great song.

                        –Rilke

In his essay Emerson also prefigures what we call today the Law of Attraction when he says:

 “Like draws to like; and…the goods which belong to you, gravitate to you, and need not be pursued with pains and cost.”

Moreover Emerson tells us the only reason we are aware of this movement of circles in our lives is because we have “some principle of fixture of stability in the soul.  While the eternal generation of circles proceeds, the eternal generator abides.”

And to me, that “eternal generator” of new horizons is our Heart’s Desire as spoken by God into our very souls–it is the fixed point from which we move.

But following our dreams can be difficult.  We will need to change and to rise up from where we are presently.  We must accept that life changes, that life is indeed cyclical in nature:

“Thus there is no sleep, no pause, no preservation, but all things renew, germinate, and spring.”

Emerson encourages us to challenge the idea that we even need to grow old—spiritually, that is.  He says we should, “grow young.”  For it is the state of infancy Emerson suggests that is “receptive, aspiring, with religious eye looking upward…and that abandons itself to the instruction flowing from all sides.” 

And how do we become like little children?  What do we seek in this life full of circles?  Emerson puts the answer this way:

“The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire, is to forget ourselves, to be surprised out of our propriety, to lose out sempiternal [eternal, unchanging] memory, and to do something without knowing how or why; in short, to draw a new circle.”

And if you ever watch a young child drawing, one of the first things they ever scribble, perhaps the very first—are circles—in the sand, on the wall, with finger paint, on paper—young children adore drawing circles.  We must regain this innocence and ability to create.

To do this Emerson says we need enthusiasm.  For “nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”  When we are following our dreams, pursuing and dancing with our dreams right to the utmost horizons we are driven by passion and enthusiasm.  For, “the way of life is wonderful…it is abandonment.”  We must abandon ourselves to our dreams, to the drawing of new circles—which is exactly the way a child draws.

But there is a warning.  There is one thing Emerson says that can be almost as intoxicating as following our dreams, something that if we become ensnared in it, our dreams can easily die.  Something teenagers need to be truly educated in–in terms of the consequences and horriffic effects it causes. What is it he refers to?  Addiction.  In particular he mentions opium and alcohol, but we could add all the myriad of addictions that were not officially named in Emerson’s time, but that our young people are subject to.

The point is addictions “ape in some manner the flames and generosities of the heart.” They allure us with promises, counterfeit promises that once we touch them they dissolve in our hands, but as they do so they cast a spell which makes the addict crave more promises—the next one will be different. 

Emerson actually ends his beautiful meditation with the somber, frightening warning to steer away from the drugs that make our passions “wild.” 

But luckily, if we are astute readers, he gives the cure earlier in his essay:

Copyright Joseph Anthony of the Wonder Child Blog

Dear Readers,

http://www.bradyates.net/wonderchild062411.mp3

Copyright Joseph Anthony of the Wonder Child Blog

In a letter to a young, idealistic poet, Rilke writes:

“You are so young; stand before your beginnings…Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart.  Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language…Live the questions…Perhaps gradually you will, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.  Perhaps you are indeed carrying within yourself the potential to visualize, to design, and to create for yourself an utterly satisfying, joyful, and pure lifestyle.  Discipline yourself to attain it, but accept that which comes to you with deep trust, and as long as it comes from your own will, from your own inner need, accept it, and do not hate anything.”

From, Letters to a Young Poet (See all Letters & Correspondence Books) , by Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. By Joan M. Burnham

This is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful and profound things I have ever read.  The whole book of letters Rilke wrote should be read at least once a year by every serious writer and lover of the world.  It is seasoned with wisdom and gentle encouragement.  And it definitely holds up well to repeated, devotional reading.

This passage holds many keys to living your dreams.  First, Rilke reminds the young poet (the author, which we all are—we all author our own lives) to have patience in regards to the questions.  We tend to want answers now.  We want the knots loosened immediately.  We want the finish line now, or better yet, we want it yesterday, because then we wouldn’t’t be in this mess of not knowing today—or so we imagine.

Not only does Rilke suggest having patience with the questions, but to learn to love them.  I know for myself I often become frustrated when things don’t go my way.  And when things pop up on the road to my dreams that I don’t understand, I tend to hate them—or at very least, become annoyed by them. 

Rilke encourages us to love the unknown instead of fearing it.  And when we do this, hidden rooms open their doors, foreign books translate directly into our heart, and then, the answers themselves appear as experiences—not simply intellectual, head-knowledge. 

Rilke proceeds to humbly tease out of his young reader the question of whether or not he carries within himself the ability to manifest the answers he seeks, to manifest his dreams.  Rilke, I believe, knew the young writer had the ability, for we all have the ability.  But Rilke also knew that most of us do not use it, and thus, he floats it out there as a question—very nearly a challenge…”Perhaps you are indeed carrying within yourself the potential…” 
And then Rilke gives him the key to the attainment of the answers—discipline his thinking to able to imagine and visualize the lifestyle he desires and needs.

Finally, Rilke ends this passage with a radical statement, one that might sound completely impossible—“and do not hate anything.”  Now that is different.  We are all so conditioned to view everything as good or bad, but Rilke not only says to love the uncertainty, but to not hate anything—even the uncertainty.  In fact, he says to accept everything that comes to him “with a deep trust.”—not just any old trust—a deep trust.  For that’s what it takes when things come to us we are afraid of, when the future seems almost threatening, when you’re trying not to fan the flames of a fear-frenzy, or when something comes to us that seems tragic, painful, or disappointing.  Trust, he says, implying there is a greater Author at work, one that wants to use him for His purposes.  One that wants to be the Ultimate Answer to every question the young poet can ever have.

Copyright Joseph Anthony of the Wonder Child Blog