Singularity – where science and spirit meet in a poem

SINGULARITY
by Marie Howe

          (after Stephen Hawking)

Do you sometimes want to wake up to the singularity
we once were?

so compact nobody
needed a bed, or food or money —

nobody hiding in the school bathroom
or home alone

pulling open the drawer
where the pills are kept.

For every atom belonging to me as good
Belongs to you.   Remember?

There was no   Nature.    No
 them.   No tests

to determine if the elephant
grieves her calf    or if

the coral reef feels pain.    Trashed
oceans don’t speak English or Farsi or French;

would that we could wake up   to what we were
— when we were ocean    and before that

to when sky was earth, and animal was energy, and rock was
liquid and stars were space and space was not

at all — nothing

before we came to believe humans were so important
before this awful loneliness.

Can molecules recall it?
what once was?    before anything happened?

No I, no We, no one. No was
No verb      no noun
only a tiny tiny dot brimming with

is is is is is

All   

everything   

home

Thank you, most sincerely, Maria Popova

… this – a prayer

As I break down in order to transform…
… this

Bakerwoman God, 
I am your living bread.
Strong, brown Bakerwoman God, 
I am your low, soft, and being-shaped loaf.

I am your rising bread, 
well-kneaded by some divine 
and knotty pair of knuckles, 
by your warm earth hands. 
I am bread well-kneaded.

Put me in fire, Bakerwoman God, 
put me in your own bright fire.
I am warm, warm as you from fire.
I am white and gold, soft and hard, 
brown and round.
I am so warm from fire.

Break me, Bakerwoman God.
I am broken under your caring Word.
Drop me in your special juice in pieces.
Drop me in your blood.
Drunken me in the great red flood.
Self-giving chalice swallow me.
My skin shines in the divine wine.
My face is cup-covered and I drown.

I fall up
in a red pool
in a gold world
where your warm
sunskin hand
in there to catch
and hold me.
Bakerwoman God, 
remake me.

Alla Renee Bozarth

 
From Wompriest: A Personal Odyssey, Paulist Press 1978,
rev. ed. Luramedia 1988, distributed by Wisdom House;
Gynergy by Alla Renée Bozarth, Wisdom House 1990;
Water Women, audiocassette, Wisdom House 1990;
Moving to the Edge of the World by Alla Renée Bozarth,
iUniverse 2000; This is My Body~ Praying for Earth,
Prayers from the Heart, iUniverse 2004. All rights reserved. 

Desiderata – No less than the trees and the stars

Once upon a time, this was everywhere – along with incense, cheesecloth and kaftans.

I was at university and, like so many people, I had a copy of it hanging on my wall.

I was in awe of it and it belonged with all that was different and a bit mystical, like incense, cheesecloth and kaftans  …  and Pink Floyd.

 

Occasionally I see this document.

It was hanging on the back of a toilet door at a birthday party we went to about 10 years ago.

Today, something brought it back to me …. with a whole new/old perspective on the wisdom.  I think it was the walk through the bush and the feeling of belonging.  “No less than the trees and the stars you have a right to be here.”

I guess we do – I do – have a right to be here.

Sometimes I wonder, as we spread across the landscape like a rash.  Sometimes I wonder as our current government seems to be putting all sorts of commercial considerations ahead of the future of our beautiful country.  Sometimes I wonder as I, personally, put my comfort ahead of the needs of my environment, and spend less and less time playing with earth and plants.

I have a right to be here.

No less than the trees and the stars.

OK, I have a right to be here – but not at their expense.  Not at the expense of the trees and the stars.

Please don’t let us want to go rape planets as we use up all the resources on this one.  Let us learn to live within our means.

“Whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.”

I hope so.

I can only hope that we all gradually get caught up in the rebellion that is called “green”, that it spreads and becomes more powerful than the commerce that currently rules the world.  It’s coming.  It really is.

Isn’t it?

Remember and repeat – Zig Ziglar

The world is mourning the loss of Zig Ziglar this morning.  It’s sad when someone dies, even if they are old and ready to go.  But there is such a warm image associated with Zig Ziglar.
 
I never heard him speak, but I have read a lot about him.  Today my social media flows are full of his quotes.  A few have mentioned his life and his inspiration, but I am surrounded by his wonderful messages.
 
And this is what I asked of my readers this morning in the Pivotal Public Speaking ezine.
 
 As a speaker, how will you be remembered?  One of the goals, is, after all, to be remembered – specifically to be remembered and repeated. 
What are we repeating today?  Zig’s “quotes”.

While there is a myriad of strategies we can use to be repeated and remembered,

one of them is creating sound bytes of our messages. 

Call them headlines if you will. 

But if we make them memorable, then we give our audiences something to remember … and repeat!