part 2 The Song I Came to Sing
 
What is real? Is absolute reality limited to that which we can know through our five senses alone? We all can agree that what we see, taste, touch, smell and hear is undeniably real. But there is so much more that constitutes reality and that can be proven to be real even though we may not understand it.
 
Quantum physics is one "newer" branch of science that is questioning our certainty, stretching our possibilities, bringing old beliefs into alignment with new realities and giving us evidence based research to support its discoveries. A primary teaching from quantum physics is that our thoughts, although they can’t be seen, are none the less real and produce results.  Early experiments with plants demonstrated that two plants of the same kind, size and health are influenced by the thoughts of people. When plants are exposed to positive thoughts and positive words, they thrive. But when plants are subjected to negative thoughts and words, the plants fail to thrive, become smaller, spindly and wither and die. Even if the plants are in a different room from the people!
 
In other experiments, athletes were divided into groups for practicing before a game. One group practiced all of their skillful moves and performance 75% of the time and visualized their moves and successful performance 25% of the time. A second group practiced 50% and visualized 50%. And a third group practiced just 25% and visualized 75% of the time. When it was game time which group performed the best? The third group with only 25% of their time spent in practice and 75% of the time spent visualizing had, by far the best performance! These results have been replicated over and again since those early days of experimentation to improve performance in sports, music, public speaking, drama and the arts.  And we commonly use visualization and meditation for relaxation, to slow heart rates, lower blood pressure, reduce anxiety, and heal wounds.
 
Last October I had an experience that cleared up any doubts I may have had regarding the nature of reality. And now I have no question about The Song I Came to Sing………
 
to be continued
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Rod McGuiver wrote a book titled "The Song I Came to Sing" filled with his watercolor nature paintings and inspirational quotes by many of his favorite writers. That is, for me, a touchstone book that I return to again and again. It soothes and comforts me, lifts me up and inspires me. It's ever timely for every need. Do you know the song you came to sing? It's not the same as your life purpose. It's the soul message that informs your life, every second of it; every deed that you do, every thought that you think, every word spoken. We often don't realize that a uniquely individual song is being sung through us. And maybe recognizing that fact requires some maturity. But, one day we have an "ah ha" moment and we know the song and we see that it has been singing, just below the surface of our awareness, guiding us through all of life's twists and turns, waiting for us to know that it is there!

​into the parched hinterland
​upon thirsty plains
a single drop of rain

- pb 2018 -

​I came to know my song over the past months beginning last October with "the event." Unexpected, unpredictable, it came like a whirlwind, seeming to upend my familiar world. It was the branching of the road....ACIM, Text Chapter 22..... "when you come to the place where the branch in the road is quite apparent, you cannot go ahead. You must go either one way or the other. For now if you go straight ahead, the way you went before you reached the branch, you will go nowhere. The whole purpose of coming this far was to decide which branch you will take now. The way you came no longer matters. It can no longer serve. No one who reaches this far can make the wrong decision, although he can delay."

​....to be continued....

As we unwrap our gifts, may we find.....

Love in our hearts
Peace in our families
Tolerance in out communities
Compassion in our world 

For how many decades we have been singing these familiar words, hearing them playing in the deep and quiet night, going about our hurried lives, rarely pausing to think about their meaning.....

until we find ourselves coming round to this season again.....

facing all of our loves and our losses,
our moments when we were our best selves and when we could have done better....

and hoping for more,
more chances, more dreams to fulfill, more happiness.....

until we find ourselves coming round to

a greater awareness of all the gifts we have received
through the years of coming to know ourselves
being born anew everyday with
just those very same chances.....

and the eternal invitation
to partake in the glory that is within and all around!

Sailing
 
 
 
Once you have learned
The Way
sailing is easy;
the path you took,
if you nearly,
but couldn’t quite
master it,
if time was spent
and spent again,
all was worthy
 
all was Grace
teaching you
trust the wind
and the sails
and learn to chart
your course by
the Sun
focus
 
and
surrender
 
 
 ©18 november 2017  pab 

A constant barrage of news - real, fake, biased, slanted, opinionated, slandering, demanding, slamming, degrading, opposing, blaming, infammatory, violent.

STOP!!!

A renewing of relationships - attentive, respectful, insightful, kind, patient, compassionate, inclusive, forgiving, consoling, understanding, spacious, quiet, restorative. 


                                                    There are no unsacred places;
                                                    There are only sacred places
                                                         And desecrated places.
                                                             
                                                                          --  Wendell Berry


                                                My friends, the choice is in our hands.   

                                                                         - paboernke, oct 6, 2017 -
 
                                                          O  O  O  O  O  O  O

​

    I was born and raised in St. Louis and I grew up appreciating all that the city had to offer. My grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins were nearby; involvement in our church was the center of our lives and the source of many deep friendships; recreational and cultural activities were abundant.  The St. Louis Zoo, the summer Municipal Opera in Forest Park, Shaw's Garden, the downtown historic area, Cardinals baseball games; department stores and theatres, Mississippi River cruises on The Admiral are a few of the many activities residents and visitors enjoyed. After high school graduation, I left for college. A year after college graduation, I married and moved to South Dakota. Here I found a home, a place, that satisfied a longing that I didn't know I had. I felt settled. I loved the slower pace of smaller towns, open spaces, ready access to lakes and forests and mountains. 

    People here were different than city people. They were easier to be around and appeared more relaxed and open. They seemed as natural as a thunderstorm, as much a part of nature as snow and wind. They were resilient and hearty; they seemed to accept whatever came next and to help each other meet unexpected challenges. They seemed to be old souls, wise and steady. They were settled.

    In time, I came to know people who had deep roots in the Dakotas. They are ranchers, farmers, small business owners, neighbors whose ancestors have been here for generations.  They embody a sense of belonging that I have come to know. They are made of the dust, the rains, the sun. They struggle and persevere. They know the seasons and signs as intimately as they know their own spouse and their children and the neighbors down the road. All of the elements of life are present here, inseperable. The land and sky, the climate, the seasons that shape us, inform us; it is difficult to distinguish people apart from place. It's hard to describe and perhaps easier to feel; it is a sense of belonging, of peace, of deep satisfaction. Kathleen Norris, in her book, "Dakota, a Spiritual Geography," captures that essence that seems too large to define. A very good read!

    South Dakota Magazine published my poem "dust of creation" in the March/April issue this year. I wrote it to honor a rancher who lived on the land his grandfather homesteaded. He was of the land. His wife grew up on a nearby ranch and she, too, was of the land. Today the land is loved and worked by a son and grandson. Though ranch life has changed, those who are "of the land" have not. My poem is dedicated to one rancher. And it speaks of a way of being of many who have chosen Dakota as home. 

​dust of creation
 
 
he writes each morning,
this poet who says he is as old as dirt,
 
up before dawn
pulling on cracked leather boots
caked with red mud
stuffing weathered hands deep into pockets
of tattered brown sweatshirt
hood pulled up tight against the chill,
slowly he walks the windrow
 
stooping now and then
plucking a blade of grass
calculating the season
by the rising of the river
the budding of the willow
 
with each measured foot fall
dust clouds rise up in his wake
salutations to the morning sun
 
his life the poem,
permanence of the land,
these fleeting days
 
- for RA, 1923-2006
 
  
pab  © 2017

Spring storms are not usually a surprise to most South Dakotans. But today, I was so unprepared to greet the morning snow showers. Yes, they were predicted. But winds can change and forecasts can be wrong. Not this time!

All weekend the sound of lawnmowers dominated our neighborhoods. Sunday and Monday were perfect days for clearing dead stalks from the beebalm, coneflowers and blue flax. And for digging out all the pretty yellow dandelions. Plenty of other flowers were in bloom so I knew the dandelions could go and the bees would not be deprived of their first food of the season. On nearby ranches, calves born in February and March had a good chance to grow stronger and fatter. All was well.....

It started as rain last night and still I did not think the snow would really follow. This morning we woke to about an inch on the ground, bushes covered, tree limbs drooping. When the sun returns, we will celebrate the freshness of it all, the vibrancy of color, the return of warmer days. For now, we are grateful for the gift of moisture to the thirsty plains. 

Demeter’s Lament
 
 
days heavy with fragrance of lilac,
crab apple blossoms and wild plum,
easy nights of starlight
sparkling till dawn
whispers of feathers
in slow motion
then
​snow this April morn
dashing all my hopes
that your return
is nigh
  
 
©25 april 2017
phyllis boernke

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            “When I am with you, no matter where you live, I feel at home.” - CW, 2017
 
The plumber finished reconfiguring the pipes and connecting the new sink on Friday. After months of doing dishes in the utility sink in the laundry room, the kitchen of my dreams is almost finished.  It’s not a model you would find in “Architectural Digest Magazine” but one you might see in “Country Sampler.”  My eldest daughter asked what inspired my design and I told her about the summer kitchen at my grandparents’ home in the country. Their wood burning kitchen stove/oven made the dining room and kitchen cozy and warm with the aroma of pot roast and pies and homemade bread in the winter. But day after day of temperatures in the 90’s and humidity nearly the same in Missouri in the summer, wood stove cooking was a torture.  So all cooking and baking was done on the smaller wood stove in the attached screened in porch to keep the inside kitchen and dining room relatively comfortable. My grandparents died before my daughters were born, so they never knew the country place. Nevertheless, when I told her about the summer kitchen, my daughter was astounded.  “That has always been the kitchen of my dreams! It feels like it’s in my bones!” she said.  
 
And of course she is absolutely right.  Not only do our ancestors give us our blue eyes just like grandma’s and our laugh like Aunt Wilma’s, our passion for gardening or cooking and our love of piano music or animals comes along as part of the genetic package. We have an innate sense of rightness of the environment, the paint colors of the rooms, the furniture placement.  The food cooked in this kitchen gives us comfort, the view through the front window soothes and inspires us. Diana Butler Bass, in her book “Grounded” tells of inadvertently finding the exact place where her ancestors began their life in America.  Diana had an internal feeling of belonging when she stumbled upon a tiny church at the end of a dirt road in rural Maryland. The Book of Records in this Quaker meeting house bore the names of her ancestors, married here in 1678.
 
Even when we don’t know much about our origins or when we cannot trace far back to discover our roots, we somehow know when we feel at home.  We often recreate that which gives us a sense of belonging.  It may be that a geographic location calls to us, or the design of a house like the one I’m living in now, or the scent of flowers in the garden, the rush of the nearby river, that tugs at a memory.  It is all of this and more that makes for home.  The people we love and those who love us, the  stories we are creating and the memories we share with those living and stories about those who have passed out of our lives, create the generous environment that is home.  This is where we return again and again to know who we are.  And here we may receive a blessing such as the one spoken by my dear friend -

                     “When I am with you, no matter where you live, I feel at home.”

                                           +   +   +   pab 2017   +   +   +