Flow With Your Go | Life-Built Poems

STOP PUSHING THE RIVER — Part 2

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I am re-reading Rachel Naomi Remen’s book, MY GRANDFATHER’S BLESSINGS: Stories of Strength, Refuge and Belonging. This lyrical book of the collected, very short musings and reflections by a born storyteller and wounded healer who has spent much of her life as a holistic medical counselor for people with chronic and terminal illnesses is one of my go-to books for getting myself back to clarity about how to deal with the vagaries of Life-Its-Own-Self and with our own mortality. The…

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turtle climbing onto a computer keyboard on a desk

YOU TOO CAN PLAY IN “EVENT TIME”

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Elon Musk is probably right. Remote work (formerly known as “telecommuting” or “working from home”) is a challenge…for corporations and other organizational entities. It can cause massive headaches for managers and human resource people trying to round up and ride herd on all the “wild” spirits who want to do their own kind of different and were given an opportunity to try it when the world got hit by a massive pandemic that made the corporate culture standards of behavior…

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tree in foreground decorated with painted dots and clocks in neighborhood with similarly decorated houses

TIME AS A SHAPING TOOL (An Overview)

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A really smart somebody or other once opined that time is what keeps everything in a story from happening all at once. Since we humans are all engaged in making up some kind of story or other, this is an important concept. I know. All kinds of people have weighed in with opinions – esoteric, scientific, and mundane – about Time. You have probably heard them all before. Basically, under all of that pretzel-brain making cascade, we are told that…

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display of old rifles

OTHER VOICES: Brendan Constantine

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There is a poem written by a much-respected performing poet and the author of at least five collections of original poems, Brendan Constantine, that captures an exploration of the power of language and the creation of meaning quite beautifully. The poem, “The Opposites Game,” arose out of a writing exercise for Constantine’s elementary school creative writing students at Windward School in Los Angeles, California. It is also a powerful look through the eyes of children about a perennial and perhaps…

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HAWAII ON A LARK (Memories of Flight)

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As you know, if you’ve spent some time rummaging around in this blog, I’ll ask my readers to share a self-made poem that has meaning and mana for them. I am always surprised and pleased by the work of the people who take the time to respond to this request. This latest lovely is a story-poem by fellow online entrepreneur Donna Holberg (a.k.a. “Deelilah”), a wonderfully down-to-earth storyteller who has lived a lively and adventuresome life. She has, she says,…

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metaphor for Seeger and his influence

BLESSING FROM AN ELDER (Pete Seeger)

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There once walked a gentle, funny, and very stubborn man, a musician who believed passionately in the power of people singing together out loud. It was his skill to induce crowds of friends and strangers to join their voices together and create transcendent harmonies that lifted up the people’s hearts and spirits and set the world to shining for a while, cloaked in visions of belonging, of unity, and of peace. With his long-necked five-stringed banjos, his 12-stringed guitars, and…

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illustrates point

CHECK YOUR FILTERS: Roadmaps and Story

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The thing about living your life as a poem or a story or any other kind of art is that there’s got to be a theme to the thing. (It’s one of the rules, according to grade school English and art teachers when it comes to analyzing some bit of self-expression.) This online dictionary I am looking at tells me that a theme is “an idea that recurs or pervades a work of art or literature.” It’s how you make…

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balancing rocks illustrating the theme

OTHER VOICES: Grace Iwashita Taylor

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New Zealand’s Grace Iwashita-Taylor is a Shaper and a poet. She lives her life as a single mother, as a loving daughter trying to deal with the realities and challenges of her beloved mother’s decline into dementia and as a youth worker in a place that is one of the most expensive places to live on the planet. She is also an award-winning spoken word and published poet, playwright, and performer. The poet’s upu (words) circle around and around the…

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LEGACY-SCHMEGACY, KEEP ON WALKING

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Lately I keep tripping over people who are either “building a legacy” or are trying to convince me that I should be doing one too. It’s beginning to make me all kinds of grumpy. These strangers are telling me that my life will only have “meaning” if I do stuff that will somehow “impact the future” after I’m long-gone. That one makes me scratch my head. It’s even a bit intimidating. Me, I’m still walking towards my dream and I’m…

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old rustic park bench in tall grass with backpack set on it

MAKE ROOM FOR CHANGE (Another IPS)

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New year, new start, new plan, but same old you. Ai-yah! It’s the perennial conundrum that! At the start of every new year, it’s “traditional” for those of us who follow the 365-day Gregorian calendar to make some sort of list of resolutions at the start of the new year. Many of us do. We start the process by reviewing our actions and our lives over the past year. Self-flagellation ensues. Some of us pull out special whips for the…

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