From Lrobpoet at sonic.net Mon Dec 15 07:53:02 2025 From: Lrobpoet at sonic.net (Lawrence Robinson) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2025 07:53:02 -0800 Subject: A Neo-pagan Buddhist at Christmas - Shawna Swetech Message-ID: A Neo-pagan Buddhist at Christmas Holidays are here again so I put on my Christmas mask scurry around picking presents visiting friends and family late night after late night I purposely turn from thoughts of war, the economy, people going hungry, the blare of newspaper headlines turning quickly and pushing on despite the pull of long darkness, shortened days the foggy lull of winter?s moonstone nights and cold drizzle when what I really, really want is to just curl up by the fire like the cats, and thumb through the seed catalogs dreaming and dreaming of spring. - Shawna Swetech -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Lrobpoet at sonic.net Tue Dec 16 06:26:09 2025 From: Lrobpoet at sonic.net (Lawrence Robinson) Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2025 06:26:09 -0800 Subject: Some Hour - Gail Onion Message-ID: <006B576E-96FA-4FEE-8303-671FF0FF7B5F@sonic.net> Some Hour The old horse grazing in the meadow looks up ambles over to the gate and waits for you, and why not greet love another time, what?s love if not a meadow, a sea shore, a mysterious path into the forest, a cottage, or at the end of a lane open to travelers to share their tales, a library of room after room shelves of books offering themselves into your hands, a way station on a mountain where a stranger sitting alone beckons you to take the empty chair, a rowboat docked at the pier, you climb aboard, it rows you out to sea, a dream where a talking raven says that the sacred is a little farther, a little brighter, a ladder of starlight where the moon steps off and you follow the moon, a little deeper, a little darker, until you are where love is, where the old horse is waiting. - Gail Onion -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Lrobpoet at sonic.net Wed Dec 17 06:44:57 2025 From: Lrobpoet at sonic.net (Lawrence Robinson) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2025 06:44:57 -0800 Subject: Goodness Will Be Goodness - Kalia Mussetter Message-ID: Goodness Will Be Goodness Tyrants will roar their victories, painting red dreams on the lids of the nation? And kindness will be kindness. Sharp-spooned greed will scoop out the soft places leaving only hunger? and mercy will be mercy. Fear will cry its hot misguided wrath, shocking sleepers into dread? and courage will be courage. Brutality will shake its tiny fist gloved thick with power; people will be killed in shameful ways, the storms of grief and rage will howl? and goodness will be goodness. In the end, no matter the deceit, no matter how compelling, we can?t be broken from our truest selves? we always circle back around and find our honor where we left it. Our people, our whole world?s people, our many-colored threads stretched tight in warp and weft between that which knows its own goodness and that which does not? will claim the land again for our children and the enemy?s children, too, mending finally all the tears in the cloth of who we once and still so dream of being. - Kalia Mussetter -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Lrobpoet at sonic.net Thu Dec 18 06:42:12 2025 From: Lrobpoet at sonic.net (Lawrence Robinson) Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2025 06:42:12 -0800 Subject: December Night - W. S. Merwin Message-ID: December Night The cold slope is standing in darkness But the south of the trees is dry to the touch The heavy limbs climb into the moonlight bearing feathers I came to watch these White plants older at night The oldest Come first to the ruins And I hear magpies kept awake by the moon The water flows through its Own fingers without end Tonight once more I find a single prayer and it is not for men - W. S. Merwin -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lrobpoet at sonic.net Thu Dec 18 07:26:20 2025 From: lrobpoet at sonic.net (Lawrence Robinson) Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2025 07:26:20 -0800 Subject: Save the date: Rumi's Caravan returns to the Sebastopol Center For The Arts - Saturday, February 7, 2026 Message-ID: <511E4F59-0794-4AFB-89C5-375826C3DDC8@sonic.net> Tickets are available here: https://www.sebarts.org/classes-lectures/rumis-caravan-2026 ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: RUMIScaravan26_flyer.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 1774943 bytes Desc: not available URL: From Lrobpoet at sonic.net Fri Dec 19 05:48:32 2025 From: Lrobpoet at sonic.net (Lawrence Robinson) Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2025 05:48:32 -0800 Subject: Winter Solstice - Barbara Armstrong Message-ID: Winter Solstice Winter lifts her sleek baton poised for the prelude but for now her orchestra lies dormant in the chill. Bushes dressed in crystal chimes stand ready for their cues. Staccato rhythms printed on the gelid lake mark time in silence. At the south end of the slide suspended pleats of snow begin to shrug and glide teetering toward glissando. The darkest nightfall of the year no moon or galaxies appear. Watch as flawless snowflakes drift by on a raft of porchlight. They will transform to simple water spots before too long but how they dazzle before they run. Listen the overture has begun. - Barbara Armstrong -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lrobpoet at sonic.net Fri Dec 19 06:17:00 2025 From: lrobpoet at sonic.net (Lawrence Robinson) Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2025 06:17:00 -0800 Subject: =?utf-8?Q?I=E2=80=99ll_Sing_Hallelujah_-_bruce_silverman?= Message-ID: <51FB560D-ED0D-4A67-A452-394A0E76B6E5@sonic.net> I?ll sing Hallelujah. Say what you want. I?ll still sing, Hallelujah, Even with a body politic inane, humanity in boundless pain, a world certifiably insane, I will continue to sing because you and I still romp within this cosmic thing that?s still in swing. So yes, I?ll sing Hallelujah. I?ll join in the song, I?ll even play along as so many who live in despair and have little reason to care or dare to aim their eyes on the prize, I still choose to believe that the force that welcomes our gifts and prayers reminds us that this cosmic thing is still in swing. So yes, I?ll sing Hallelujah. Even this body I see, that I believe to be me, as I gaze past the haze of what I feel with my hand I understand that buried within cells of my being are the ever sacred scribes of ancient tribes that are yet writing the tome of my journey toward a home that has yet to be fully known. The wind song of this truth reminds me that this cosmic thing is still in swing, So I?ll continue to sing Hallelujah. What I think was the past is not really so, the last is first, the first is last, and this moment is all there is, as you surely know. Now I can rail against the universal tide or hermitize the light the light inside, but I?ll still hitch my ride to that cosmic thing that?s still in swing and I?ll continue to sing Hallelujah. But for now, let?s put the world?s troubles aside, and let?s be held by the three-quarter time of Leonard Cohen?s rhyme, for the music of the universe is comin? right at us, so let?s spread the word that this cosmic thing is still in swing, and the great pendulum movin? through me and you is inviting us to sing: Hallelu?yeah! - bruce silverman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Lrobpoet at sonic.net Sat Dec 20 06:05:04 2025 From: Lrobpoet at sonic.net (Lawrence Robinson) Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2025 06:05:04 -0800 Subject: This Long Night - Lisa Shulman Message-ID: <06FC2AD7-D77F-4495-8A1E-2615FAA5A7C0@sonic.net> This Long Night The bad do not win?not finally. -Alberto R?os You awaken in darkness damp chill shivers your bones makes you curl tighter beneath the threadbare blanket you believed could keep you warm Know in your flickering heart it cannot know it is time to throw it off to step barefoot onto cold floorboards and fling open the window to this long night It is dark, yes, but see there are stars pricking the black sky a pale smile of moon peering out behind the clouds You gather up what small magic you can? bright stones, dried petals, the memory of trees and rivers blow a tiny flame to flickering and step outside There is faint light on the horizon and to your left and your right the star-like sparks brought by the others all moving with you toward dawn - Lisa Shulman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Lrobpoet at sonic.net Sun Dec 21 06:02:27 2025 From: Lrobpoet at sonic.net (Lawrence Robinson) Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2025 06:02:27 -0800 Subject: Beatitude - John Keene Message-ID: <1EC9533A-0DDF-46F9-8EA0-4FA89FC2E0E4@sonic.net> Beatitude Love everything Love the sky and sea, trees and rivers, mountains and abysses. Love animals, and not just because you are one. Love your parents and your children, even if you have none. Love your spouse or partner, no matter what either word means to you. Love until you create a cavern in your loving, until it seethes like a volcano. Love everytime. Love your enemies. Love the enemies of your enemies. Love those whose very idea of love is hate. Love the liars and the fakes. Love the tattletales and the hypercrits, the hucksters and the traitors. Love the thieves because everyone has thought of stealing something at least once. Love the rich who live only to empty your purse or wallet. Love the poverty of your empty coin purse or wallet. Love your piss and sweat and shit. Love your and others? chatter and its proof of the expansiveness of nothingness. Love your shadows and their silent censure. Love your fears, yesterday?s and tomorrow?s. Love your yesterdays and tomorrows. Love your beginning and your end. Love the fact that your end is another beginning, or could be, for someone else. Love yourself, but not too much that you cannot love everything and everyone else. Love everywhere. Love in the absence of love. Love the monsters breeding in every corner of the city and suburb, all throughout the soil of the countryside. Love the monster breeding inside you and slaughter him with love. Love the shipwreck of your body, your mind?s salted garden. Love love. - John Keene -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: