Courageous engagement

Breathing in and breathing out

knowing I am

breathing in and breathing out

remembering:

This blog is a place to cultivate conversations that matter and to re-imagine work, together.   

Again,

wishing you a new year filled with the nectar of enough.

I have been working with a poem

from Acorn, Yoko Ono’s book

of exquisite drawings and

conceptual instructions—we might understand them to be “poems;”

whatever they are called, they are doing work—

in the artist’s words, “planting the seeds.”

It has been a really illuminating way

to leave one year and enter a new one.

It is my pleasure to invite you

into the journey of Yoko Ono’s poem:

YOUR PIECE

Name (Including all the names you are called by):

Address (past, present, future):

Age: I am at the age where . . .

What you like:

Place:

Time:

Weather:

Colour:

Sound:

Smell:

Taste:

Describe your world as you see it.

a) inner:

b) outer:

Your regret:

Your pride:

Your attachments:

a) animate

b) inanimate

Your wish:

1)

2)

3)

As all good poems do,

this one worked on me while I worked on it.

It took me, early in the poem,

to the address where I first read

Derek Walcott’s “Love After Love.”

(If you have never heard or read this poem,

here is a link.

This is a poem not to miss.)

As I see the story from the loom of memory

I understand Love After Love as a poem

that helped me imagine the possibility of

courageous engagement

as a practice.

Working with Yoko Ono’s conceptual instructions,

YOUR PIECE,

has been like dancing in Derek Walcott’s poem,

engaging courageously—from the heart—

with my own life.

Believing the poet’s promise

“The day will come…”

Heeding the poet’s words

“Sit. Feast on your life.”

Enjoy the poem(s)

and the journey.

Be well.