Troubled times

I have gotten back to morning meditation, a time when I allow no thoughts to disturb me and simply listen to my breath entering, then leaving my body.  If a thought occurs I erase it from the blackboard of my mind, or let a gentle ocean wave wash it off the sand and back into the sea.  When I'm done, my mind is clear so I can read something useful:  The sermon on the mount, a Psalm or two, and some of Tai Sheridan's writings.  Then I write some of my thoughts in a spiral notebook and, if I am so moved, I start scribbling the makings of a poem in a different spiral notebook.  I seem to be moved more that way than not, since I've gotten back to basics.  

About the writing:  I have done all my composing and writing on the computer for many years now, so it was very seldom I picked up a pen and actually wrote.  Since I have started writing on paper again, I've realized there is something special about watching the ink form words on a blank sheet, seeing my thoughts take form as I think them.  It's almost magical!  It's like finding an old friend, one I had lost, but now is found!  I am no longer a typist, I am a writer!  Something about the feel of the paper against the side of my hand as I write and the faint whispering sound of the pen making words is pleasurable, much more so than the tap of a keyboard.  Once I have the skeleton of a poem in the notebook, I then take it to the keyboard where it's so much easier to make corrections and move lines around.  

My thoughts in the other spiral notebook, however, shall remain forever written in my rather sloppy handwriting.  

Don't worry folks, I don't intend to turn this into a meditation blog, or even a poem blog, although... I do have a poem from this morning, a rather unsettling one caused by thoughts about things that are going on in our world these days.

TROUBLED TIMES

Donna Wood 12/12/2015

Troubled times unnerve me.

There is no peace of mind.

Terror, terror everywhere.

Small comfort can I find.

Unrest in our homeland

Where we are safe no more.

Invaders move among us here,

Not on some distant shore.

Guns and bombs and terror

The topics of the day.

Pandora's box is open now:

This will not go away.

Shades of gray took over.

There is no black and white,

No solitary answer, and

No certain wrong or right.

Worry profits nothing

I'll soothe my troubled mind

With thoughts of peace and gratitude

To keep my world aligned.