Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, February 9, 2012

Take everything easy
and quit dreaming and brooding
and you will be well guarded
from a thousand evils.

Amy Lowell, Lecturer, critic, poet;
she was born on this day, 1874, in
Brookline MA.

OK. Yes, I know. One can’t always “take it easy”. Yes: one has to “dream”. Yes: sometimes it’s hard not to brood ….. though actually, brooding can be a form of meditation, I’ve discovered.

But. It is amazing how a “thousand evils” can so easily swamp your Life! If we let it happen. I think what Amy is saying is “Live the present moment”. And I think she is right. Living in the Past or the Future eviscerates the gift which the Present offers us ….. and the Present is really all we have, trite as that might sound.

I have my dreams ….. which I may or may not seek out. I do think about the Past, and what I failed to do that I “should” have done. But I think Madame Lowell is wise. Being vitally present to the Present will indeed “will guard us from a thousand evils”.

Here’s a poem of Ms. Lowell’s. She reminds me of just how much I want to experience the “glory of great suns”!

BLOCKHEAD

Before me lies a mass of shapeless days,
Unseparated atoms, and I must
Sort them apart and live them. Sifted dust
Covers the formless heap. Reprieves, delays,
There are none, ever. As a monk who prays
The sliding beads asunder, so I thrust
Each tasteless particle aside, and just
Begin again the task which never stays.
And I have known a glory of great suns,
When days flashed by, pulsing with joy and fire!
Drunk bubbled wine in goblets of desire,
And felt the whipped blood laughing as it runs!
Spilt is that liquor, my too hasty hand
Threw down the cup, and did not understand.


We could all do with being saved from a thousand evils ….. and knowing the “pulsing with joy and fire”.

Brian+