Ninth Holy Night 2007-2008 ~ Order & Chaos
It's pouring rain today...
the biggest storm of the year, they say,
to hit the West Coast of the Americas...
And day Nine was yesterday...
Order & Chaos...
So... I've had a bit of time to think about these two...
For quite some time after my first marriage and a very solid way of life ended for me in my late twenties, I clung to order like a person who can't swim out in the middle of a vast ocean holding on to a small plank of wood... I needed structure and order in all areas of my life... the slightest whiff of chaos could send me careening over what seemed to be the ocean turned into Niagara Falls... When I entered my forties, I flipped the other way... structure and order made me crazy, I felt as if I would burst from my skin and could not make a commitment to hardly anything...
As I near being on this planet for fifty years, I am finding a balance between order and chaos, and even question my concept of just what chaos might really be...
This was one of the tasks offered by Lynn...
She invited us to make a list of 25 verbs, place them on slips of paper, torn or cut (and to notice how we did those slips!) and place them in a bowl/chalice.
and then pull three and apply them to a routine in our lives... I realized as I did this task that other than sleeping, there are very few routines in my life! So, I changed it a bit. I pulled five verbs (on "torn" pieces of paper!) and will make a poem, right now out of words that seem to have no connection or order at all...
Flap my arms
Float
Turn around
Type
Laugh
This rain pours...
I flap my arms
as if I can fly
when instead I must float
allow myself to turn around
and let this wet,
wet river flowing carry me
even as I type...
and type...
and type as if these words were
a life raft,
I laugh
that I might think I could
hold on to any one of them...
Ninth Holy Night of Inner Christmas
with Lynn Jericho
Lea, order and chaos have been so relative to all of us, what appears orderly now might have been chaotic some years back, I guess the greatest thing is with age you have developed more peace with the self, and tend to see things more orderly..amazing feeling to have isn't it
Posted by:Rambler | January 04, 2008 at 01:25 AM
shivers rippling skin
order and chaos
chaos and order...
I am fifty three
and I am the mother
of a twelve year old
Sage - my teacher...
guiding me along
a path of ecstatic
chaotic order...
orderly chaos
and I...
sometimes kicking and screaming...
we - like two siblings
each wanting our own
chaos and order
order and chaos...
I am learning
to flow - to dance
leading then following
following then leading
skipping down this
joyous path...
xox - eb.
Posted by:eb | January 03, 2008 at 10:46 PM
Hello Lea,
what a wonderful post,I have to say I am not very structured at all and yes I must find a middle ground, I thought we all did, Ha Ha just
kidding, boring if we were all the same Pinkie Denise
Posted by:Pinkie Denise | January 03, 2008 at 06:06 PM
that exercise with the verbs is very innovative.. and i so relate to the feeling of order before and the need to do away with it later in life...
only difference is you have put it across so well...
Posted by:Thinking aloud | January 03, 2008 at 05:41 PM
You teach with grace.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with light and gentleness.
Posted by:tongue in cheek | January 03, 2008 at 05:21 PM
I can so relate to your comments about life changing when you were divorced. I totally lost myself for many years after my 23-year marriage dissolved. Only recently can I see a path, and still it's shrouded in fog.
I have yet to complete this exercise -- chaos still in control here -- but I have gained much insight from your post.
Posted by:Leslie M | January 03, 2008 at 05:09 PM
Spectacular, Lea. You have greated something so complete from just a few small words. How rich and full of life this poem is.
Posted by:annieelf | January 03, 2008 at 03:40 PM