The silence came
And within it
I knew
Nothing
Would ever be the same
Poem by Athey Thompson
Photo by Enchanted Seashells
Silence
Reply
Tag Archives: Poetry
Books: All About Love
I’m reading bell hooks (yes, all lower case) All About Love.
To truly love we must learn to mix various ingredients—care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication.
“The wounded child inside many males is a boy who, when he first spoke his truths, was silenced by paternal sadism, by a patriarchal world that did not want him to claim his true feelings. The wounded child inside many females is a girl who was taught from early childhood that she must become something other than herself, deny her true feelings, in order to attract and please others. When men and women punish each other for truth telling, we reinforce the notion that lies are better. To be loving we willingly hear the other’s truth, and most important, we affirm the value of truth telling. Lies may make people feel better, but they do not help them to know love.”
All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks
A Secret Path
Even if all the doors are closed…
A secret path will be there for you that no one knows.
Shams Tabrizi
Back to self, back to joy.
According to Google, Shams Tabrizi (c. 1185–1248) was a wandering Persian Sufi mystic born in Tabriz, Iran. While he traveled extensively, he is best known for being the spiritual guide of Rumi in the 1240s. He later lived and died in Khoy, Iran, where his shrine is located.
(I figured this was more positive than commenting on current events.)
Life Imitates Art
Or is it the other way around?
I’ve been trying to capture this photo for a few days and my patience and persistence finally paid off. I think she’s searching for a suitable nesting site, or maybe she really thinks this hummingbird wind chime is a cousin, I dunno…
I had to snap the pic through the screen door so I wouldn’t scare her off, but I’m completely happy with the result. It’s these little joyful moments that make life worth living, don’t you agree?
I discovered a poem written by D.H. Lawrence about hummingbirds:
Humming-bird
I can imagine, in some otherworld
Primeval-dumb, far back
In that most awful stillness, that only gasped and hummed,
Humming-birds raced down the avenues.
Before anything had a soul,
While life was a heave of Matter, half inanimate,
This little bit chipped off in brilliance
And went whizzing through the slow, vast, succulent stems.
I believe there were no flowers, then
In the world where the humming-bird flashed ahead of creation.
I believe he pierced the slow vegetable veins with his long beak.
Probably he was big
As mosses, and little lizards, they say, were once big.
Probably he was a jabbing, terrifying monster.
We look at him through the wrong end of the long telescope of Time,
Luckily for us.
When I Am Silent
“When I am silent, I fall into the place where everything is music.” Rumi
Wild Darkness
There in the wild darkness
Is the silence
And, after the darkness
Comes the Light
A Little Poem by Athey Thompson
Lost
Tell her to hold on. Tell her to hold on tight. Even through the darkest of night.
Sometimes
When we’re lost
We have to light our own candle
And find our way
Through the loneliest of places
Through the darkest of places
And when we’ve learnt from those places
Only then
Do we find our way
Back home to ourselves
Athey Thompson
What Do You See
(It’s time to block out harsh reality for a while and return to pretty pictures and words.)
You see
We are all
Nothing but Stars
Passing each other
In the night.
A Little Poem by Athey Thompson
Art by Tijana Lucovik
Winter Solstice and Mother’s Night 2025
Mother’s Night (Mōdraniht) is an ancient Germanic/Anglo-Saxon tradition, celebrated on the eve of the Winter Solstice, marking the first night of Yule to honor ancestral mothers, female deities like Frigg, and the divine feminine, to focus on nurturing, protection, and rebirth. It’s a solemn yet festive night for remembrance, offerings, and connecting with life’s cycles, often involving candles, feasts, and rituals for the “Disir” (mother spirits).
The first thing that comes to my mind is to honor my very own Mother Spirit with some yummy chocolate, so I will!
Winter solstice —
the farthest touch
of dark.
The sun’s been
arching back,
breathing behind the clouds,
taking its time,
waiting
for you, too. –Tanya Markul
❄
Here are a few positive affirmations to greet this winter solstice:
❄ Embrace the Darkness – I welcome the darkness, for within it lies the seeds of new beginnings.
❄ Find Inner Light – I am a beacon of light, radiating warmth and positivity even in the coldest of times.
❄ Release and Renew – I release what no longer serves me, making space for growth and transformation.
❄ Connect with Nature – I am attuned to the rhythms of the Earth, finding harmony in its cycles.
❄ Cultivate Gratitude – I am grateful for the lessons of the past and the opportunities of the future.
Curated from rebeccadouglas.co.uk
Ode To Our Ocean
This photo was taken at the beach on a spectacularly warm December afternoon. The sky was blue and the Pacific Ocean was full of sparkles; a magnificent day.
Ode To Our Ocean
The sea sings out to its many saviors:
Teenagers with fists thrust into the air at climate strikes,
Scientists converging around their data,
A child who stoops to scoop up a piece of trash.
The sea sings out for its singular subjects:
Arching whales that wave from their waves,
Turtles that teeter down their shining shores,
Coral reefs shining brightly as cities.
The sea sings out its suffering,
Knowing too much of waste, screeching sounds
And pernicious poison, its depths bruised by
Atrocities in the Atlantic,
Misery in the Mediterranean,
Its tides the preservers of time past.
The story of the ocean and the story of humanity
Are one and the same, a Great River that
Knows no borders and notes no lines,
Only ripples.
While we might call it the Seven Seas,
Today we sing out your true name:
The one ocean.
For no matter how we try to separate your waters,
You are the colossus that connects us.
Water makes up 70% of Earth,
70% of the human heart,
And 70% of the human being,
All of us, bodies of water,
For we, too are oceans,
Or at least beings bobbing in the same boat.
To stand up for for our ocean
Is to stand up for our own ship
The sea is a restless, strong collective of many pieces.
So are we.
The ocean can recover.
And so will we.
Let us not divide the tides,
But discover all they have to teach us–
Green meadows of sea grass that survive pathogens,
Blue-bloodied marine snails that can fight off viruses.
There are more lessons to learn,
Still more work to be done.
So we lift our faces to the sun.
May the seas help us see healing and hope,
May we sing out the ocean’s survival and revival.
Being the people of this blue planet is our most
Profound privilege and power,
For if we be the ocean’s saviors,
Then it is surely ours.
Written by Amanda Gorman for World Oceans Day. Harvard graduate Gorman is an American poet, activist, and model. Her work focuses on issues of oppression, feminism, race, and marginalization, as well as the African diaspora. Gorman was the first person to be named National Youth Poet Laureate.
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