Tweet only one koan matters you –Ikkyu Ikkyu (1394-1481) was a Japanese Zen master and wandering poet. “. . .[Ikkyu] developed street Zen, out of the monastery and into the living reality of laypeople. . . . To really wake up you have to step out of the cloistered sacred and be in the midst…
Category Archives: Poetry
Melted Snowflake
Tweet each of us like the water of a melted snowflake a tiny lake existing for a moment –Terry Chitwood Impermanence Meditating on impermanence, my ideas dissolve in the sunlight of a new dawn. My thoughts like shadows scatter before the approaching light. A temple bell rings inside my heart. The song of the skylark…
Barren Branches
Tweet barren branches bathed by moonlight light-blue sky alive in the night barren branches reaching for the mountain paths not taken –Terry Chitwood Withered Fingers The spiritual path through life has many branches. Some barren . . . withered fingers pointing in many directions. A crooked path . . . beckoning. The black,…
I am the Wind
Tweet I am the wind that moves my pen across the page I am the wind that blows letters into words I am the wind that falls like a waterfall off my mountain mind Bringing the scent of lilacs to the valley below –Terry Chitwood A Living Connection This poem is an expression of Celtic…
Silence as Shadow
Tweet “In Catholic mysticism there is a path known as the via negativa—the practice of emptying the self of its own will, desires, and even knowledge, in order that the soul may be filled by God. Poetry offers a similar path, rich with nondoing. It is found first in the relationship between speech and its…
Psyche as Poet
Tweet Speaking about the poetic psyche, Slattery writes, “The images are mindful ways of gathering an emotion into a bundle and then allowing the emotion to inform the image, even be the image.” Later he states, I learned that poetry can provoke poetic responses [from the psyche]” (“The Soul’s Claim: Choose it or Lose It”…
Follow the White Bull
Tweet Each Moment A White Bull Steps Shining Into The World If the gods bring to you a strange and frightening creature, as if it was one you had chosen. Spare no expense, pay what is asked, when a gift arrives from the sea. –Jane Hirshfield (ten poems to change your life again &…
The Wind Sends her Love
Tweet Every day, priests minutely examine the Dharma and endlessly chant complicated sutras. Before doing that, though, they should learn how to read the love letters sent by the wind and rain, the snow and moon. –Ikkyu (Zen Inspirations by Miriam Levering, p.40) Christian Parallels Ikkyu (1394-1481) was a Japanese Zen master and poet. His…
The Path through Hell
Tweet “The road of experiential knowledge that Jung spent most of his life leading people along is clearly not a road that is readily walked. As Jung relates, for many ‘the steep path of self-development is . . . as mournful and gloomy as the path to hell’” (C.G. Jung’s Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity…
The Stony Path
Tweet Your difficulties are not obstacles on the path, they are the path. –Ezra Bayda In addition to quoting Bayda, Dinty Moore states, “With that logic, even the bad days are useful, even the obstacles are part of the path. Maybe I’m not writing anything worthy of preservation today, but if I’m at my desk,…
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