Loose Leaf Notes

1. Every time something goes wrong with my computer (which has happened a lot these days), I think it’s the Russians.

2. Quote seen on Facebook: Don’t trust everything you see. Even salt looks like sugar.

3. When one door closes another opens HERE.

4. Sometimes I get my blog categories “poetics” and “politics” mixed up. Some poems are political but politics are never poetic.

5. After saying in last week’s 13 Thursday that I’d get up and dance to Aretha Franklin’s RESPECT anywhere and how a friend got me to class reunion by promising that the DJ would play it, guess what they played at the iBme-Uk Teen Retreat Community Share dance party?

6. This is the poem I read at the retreat Community Share night:  Don’t over water / Please climb / Take time in the dark / Some roots / collide with cement / and win the battle against it / Some insight comes / from closing a door / and looking out for others / Don’t underestimate / The weight of a petal / What we see / and what we don’t / are equal

7. I can write a poem. But I don’t want to write that poem. I want to write the poem I don’t think I can write.  Writing poetry, by its nature, is to bypass the intellect, but the mind keeps wanting to go to the intellect.  So, to find a deeper essence of meaning in the practice of writing poetry, I have to keep bringing my mind back to one-pointed attention and steering it away from the intellect, just like I do in mediation.

8. In many ways, Kench Hill Centre is like an old farmhouse B&B in the English countryside.  There are apple trees, ponds, vegetable and flower gardens and green places to stroll. From August 18 to 23 there were also lots of young people there, learning contemplative mindfulness practices, playing games and building a community of trust and sharing… Along with the mindfulness program, teens and mentors took a guided walk in the woods, had a tea ceremony, participated in a drumming workshop, listened to wisdom talks by the teachers and shared noble silence together. There was yoga, guided loving kindness meditations, walking meditations, wholesome food served throughout the day and regular small group discussions that deepened the support and caring the group members felt for each other… Read more about the Inward Bound Mindfulness Education teen retreat Joe taught at and I documented HERE.

9. In the three weeks we were in Europe – Paris, Italy and England—I didn’t meet one person who hasn’t horrified about Trump in the White House.

10. On the plane to Paris, we opened up a magazine and found a story about our hometown of Floyd! (See right.)

11. Homesteading, homeschooling, community, beautiful land and good water were some of the reasons a wave of new pioneers began settling in Floyd throughout the 1970s and ‘80s. Some lived in tents or off-grid and some rented old farmhouses for as little as $100 a month, while creating new foundations for more self-sufficient lifestyles and raising their families… so begins my story that recently appeared in a Floyd Press magazine insert called A Place Called Home (first photo) about the influx of back-to-the-land alter-natives who started moving to Floyd in the ’70’s and how that tradition continues today.  –  More HERE.

12.  My life was very different while on vacation. For one thing, I wore lipstick almost every day.

13. “When hate and fear have been politicized and weaponized, kindness and thoughtfulness are acts of resistance. Resist, persist, insist on honesty, truth and justice for all.” – My Dharmacratic friend Will

_________Thirteen Thursday