Thoughts and Musings - Wisdom of Death

Wisdom of death - Toby D. Sanders     

There is a fate worse than death: We call it regret.

Regret fuels grief's hellish fire.
It corrupts the power and righteousness of mourning.
It steals the relief of true joy.

So...

Live now. Love now.
Forgive now. Speak it, now.
Know and be known.

Tell and live the truth

Sincerely, passionately, courageously.

Dance, right now. Leap to do it.

Do it. Sweetly, funkily-even if you make a mess-

Start it today for Joy's sake...

For, memory is a reservoir
That steels the soul against the great lies
the fears, the spirits of despair:

"I will not have enough."
"I am not good enough."
"I am not loved enough."

No.

We only truly regret that which we do not do or try.
When we attempt something or offend, or sin
In service of poor judgement. We do not regret.

The sorrow we feel from active mistakes is not this death...
Not that anguish of loss and wasted life.

So...

Live now. Love now.
Forgive now. Speak it now.
Risk it now.
Know and be known.

And then there will be a peace for you,
A rest that exceeds the understanding,
A joy, a comfort even in weeping, a laughter...

a harvest

Because you lived.
Because of what you do,

now.
facebook page - September 28, 2012

Wiser on Wednesday - Onyx and Ebony

by Toby D. Sanders

This morning I am a beautiful black block of wood or stone "under the care" of an "artist" reshaping me into the image, the likeness within the "Artist's" mind and inside me, this is to say, I am in severe pain.

The pain of becoming...what is intended...this IS what is really meant by the words, "living sacrifice." I am both numb and in excruciating awareness of every cut, stroke, brush burn, pull, scrape. The cuts of becoming: the serrated force of seeing, facing what is to come, the trauma of deciding is mine.

For I bear the consequences of my choices (and the choices of others) I am shaped, cut, chiseled, refined, changed. I am no accident of fate, no mere animal or inanimate thing, not a cloud shaped by a wind. I am an intention with the gift/curse of intentions, an artist myself, a maker of worlds, a destroyer, a villain, a betrayer, a hero-saint: a soul. This is my witness.

This is what it is to be a soul. Shaped both by pressures from without, without remorse or intention, and designed from within, endowed with dusty life. September 15, 2012

A Note:

This is a prayer, I guess an affirmation from beneath juniper. It is the raw stuff as prayers often are of a poem.

My love is real therefore my pain is real therefore my life is real and the truth is the only tool I will allow to shape me. I am a living sacrifice and will remove myself from any altar of lies.

My witness, my pain, honestly shared, that is, double-edged with serrated-irony is my prophesy and my counsel. We become what we hurt. We become what we love. We become what we too violently despise. We fail to become that which we desire, even passionately, but reject the pain of creation.

facebook - September 26, 2012

Thoughts and Musings - On Trouble

No Trouble don't last always...But Trouble doesn't wait for us to feel better either. Not quite as pithy but just as true. We often must do our best when we don't feel our best. This is surest way to break the momentum of evil, disorder and the spirit of fear: Striving when we should falter; speaking when grief and weariness would silence us; and loving when we should hate; forgiving when rage is justified; singing when we could be crying; and laughing in the face of utter despair.

 
Trouble don't last always because love is the only indomitable force in the universe. - Toby D. Sanders

Facebook - September 25, 2012

Samburu Hills Game Reserve

Samburu Hills - Game Reserve