It seems we are being challenged to change direction with just a moments notice. And then change again. No one can predict what will be asked of us in the hours and days and weeks to come. Are we ready? How can we prepare? What and who can we trust? Who shall guide us?

I like these words of the poet, Lynn Ungar, as shared Parker Palmer, author, speaker and Quaker elder.

Pandemic

What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath -
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
 different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life. 
Center down. 

And when your body has become still
reach out your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)

Know that our lives are in one another's hands.
(Surely that has become clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.

Promise the world your love -
for better or for worse,
in sickness or in health,
so long as we all shall live.

​Two
old wooden deck chairs
sit side by side,
overflowing with soft pillows,
a blanket,
facing the misty dawn,
fog lifting higher through the pine trees,
the distant calm waters,
scents of salty air and forests.
 
One
steaming cup of coffee
sits alone
on the small table
between the chairs,
beside it a slender pen
keeps the place in the journal
that lies open
to an interrupted entry.
 
Everywhere
the taste of longing.
 
 
© 1 february 2020 phyllis boernke

I'm curious. When you read my poem, One, what was your experience? I don't wonder if you liked it or not. Liking is subjective. I wonder how​ you experienced it. Were you witness to it? Did you see the mist, the deck chairs, the open journal? Did you feel the softness of the pillows? Smell the coffee, the salty air? Were you standing to the side observing? Did you walk in, snuggle down into the pillows, watch the dawn as it came in, feel the mist on your skin? Can you feel the longing? Did that line evoke emotions - a longing for someone, someplace?

Maybe your reading of this poem was not at all as I have suggested. Maybe it was quite an impersonal reading of words alone. This is not a test of your reading skills or your ability to interpret the words. It can be an insight into how you witness scenes, events, people, feelings. It's an inquiry...... 

What does the word "witness" mean to you? Do you think of the noun or the verb? What meaning came to you when you read my first question? As we continue to ask "what does the word witness mean" do more possibilities come to mind?

Witness is my word for the year. When I think of what it means to me, what first occurs to me is the active form, the verb "to witness." Hmmm. Now, that brings up some interesting possibilities for exploration...…

​to be continued

Frigid air
and darkness
shattered
by hooting of 
Owl

shelter
of Spruce
Her perch

She owns 
the night
​

         I love the quiet time of Winter Solstice.   Like a child's top, the busy world winds its way slowly down to a pause, then stops completely before the child sets it spinning wildly again.  In that gap, that pause, the Winter Solstice enters, granting to all the world time once again to breathe, to cease from all activity and allow ourselves to stop doing and just be.  In that peaceful state, as the world rests, we may notice the last quarter of the last moon of the year, the Doe in the shadows, the whish of the wind in the pines, the cry of the Owl.  A priceless gift is ours!

Life moves in its own miraculous way, sometimes baffling to us, sometimes causing anxiety.
​Always perfect. Always guided by Spirit. Always for our greatest good.
A friend along the way who understands is a priceless treasure.
​

Quiet Words
 
-for d.k.
 
 
Our parallel walk began eons ago
we were infant souls meeting
instant recognition
soul sisters sharing stories of children, lovers,
dreams and inspiration,
few words,
knowing
 
She reminds me to listen
to the silent words
Spirit sends to my heart,
to invite Eva to commune
in quiet words,
trusting
 
Have faith, be grateful, let go,
she tells me when I am weak
when I fall she lifts me up
and living continues,
grace-filled as
quiet words,
cherished
 
 
 
© 28 June 2019 Phyllis Boernke
​

Today on this last day of April it’s cold and snowy. It makes me think of what I have been told about the day of my birth, cold and snowy. But that was in the city of St. Louis in February. As is often the case, this is not the poem I thought I was writing. It began with the recollection but soon took itself in another direction. I like this process of discovery, following words where they want to go. I always find what was just waiting to be found.

​
​it began deep in the heart of winter
in the city
 
but in the city
many streets crisscross,
there are so many people, so much noise,
it’s easy to get lost and
never find your way back home again
 
some people forget till
gradually home fades from their memory
and streets, people and noise
crisscross from today into the past and the future
and being lost is the familiar way
 
but if you listen, some primal voice or
re-member-ance tugs at you,
urges you to face the cold and hunger of winter
to find the hidden foot-path
that leads someplace vague, yet, comforting
 
the foot-path from the city
becomes the road across open countryside,
into the mountains and beyond to the sea,
long byways of spring and summer
farms and orchards, ever greening
 
stars outnumber people,
the wild is faithful to its native voice
and your thoughts can sort themselves out
from the crisscross
 
the city, the winter where it all began,
when you were so young and unknowing,
gave you roots and sustenance
till you were ready
to find your way back home again.

 
© 30 april 2019 phyllis boernke

 Years ago when I was a young woman
in the prime of my life,
I dreamed a sacred dream of all my ancestors
connected to me by a golden cord
generation upon generation
to the beginning of time
connected to one another by the golden cord.
 
There was a hush all around us
the color of pearls
warmed by thousands of celestial voices
softly humming,
‘This is Eternal Life!’
 
Now I am an old woman
weighing the meanings of all things
I see again all my ancestors
bearing the gift of the golden cord
to me and into the future beyond me
to my children and their children and their children
yet unborn.
 
The hush still fills the sacred space around us,
the colors melt into the voices as before
proclaiming in reverent whispers,
‘This is Eternal Life!’    

 
+ © 2019 phyllis boernke +

​it’s april but winter still
reaches her long icy fingers
across the calendar
into drafty corners of my rooms
and deep inside to my bones.
 
when will she loose her grip,
allow the ground to thaw
and wakening buds to end
their hibernation
and triumphantly
greet the warming sun?
 
all creatures share
in their longing for spring
to bring forth her glory once again,
for gentle rains to whisper promises
of new life arriving with each dawn,
for rivers to fill the days with songs of joy,
and trees to sway in response.
 
all of life pauses, holding its breath,
waiting as winter completes her work
of granting snow covers and
            rest for the ending of things;
            food for beginnings of things;
            patience for each of us
in the between of things.
 
 
© 10 april 2019
phyllis boernke

Promise
 
Promise rises with each dawning
brushing away shadows of the night
She opens the curtains to fingers of
peach and lemon stretching wide on
eastern horizon
She raises her arms in praise
unto the firmament
Turning to face me
She beckons, then whispers
a word across Time:

    Begin
 
 
- © pab 2019 -
   
 
 

          "the child in us always knows the act, the thing, the understory to transform darkness into light, even in the darkest parts of whatever the old growth forest may be, until the last image of something changed or gone becomes the first image of something still standing, transformed, and newly found."
                                                                                                 -Candace Lee Street

     I have been struggling with writing this next segment of my story. It's so personal and in the telling, thus far, I have been reliving the past. Living in the past comes with a heavy price tag. The words of my friend Candy (above) speak of a more sacred way of holding the past. Her words touch me deeply and directly address my reluctance to share more details. The child in me knows. I also think, and Candy would agree, that what one of us experiences can be of benefit to us all. So I've decided that a short summary is enough to tell my story and trust that you will take from it what you will.

• what I think I know and believe intellectually is mutable and fleeting and is secondary to what I have learned experientially and proven with my whole being and now live with certainty;
• the mind is unquestionably the leader, the body always follows what the mind teaches;
• healing is of the mind, there is no other way.

In my case, my stroke had no physical cause.

• Blood tests following my stroke were consistent with results over the past twenty years: all measurements are right in the middle of normal.
• CT scan, MRI, ulrasounds, EKG, all tests of heart, blood vessels and brain were all clear - no blockages or damage of any kind.

And yet, a stroke happened. Warm and loving conversations, sharing personal stories years after they were experienced, recovering missing pieces to make sense of the whole and then a very natural response of empathy precipitated a spike in my blood pressure - the body follows the mind. Broken heart syndrome too strong for my body to handle. Damage to my brain created right sided weakness of my body. A two week hospital stay including speech therapy, physical and occupational therapy, was necessary to assess my condition and begin the healing. I graduated from each of those therapies sequentially; lastly, occupational therapy to regain strength and mobility in my arm and hand was completed in March. I was blessed with an extraordinary occupational therapist whose rigorous training and experience in Japan as well as his personality matched my needs precisely. His faith in my complete recovery lifted me up and inspired me. 

Pharmaceutical drugs are part of the protocol for stroke patients and those with high blood pressure. Nine categories of those specific drugs were tried, one after another, to lower my blood pressure. They didn't work for me. I experienced terrible side effects but none of the benefits. My blood pressure kept climbing dangerously higher; higher than at the time of my stroke. My innate wisdom knew a better way to heal; my body was attempting to communicate that better way. In February, with the concurrence of my doctor, I stopped all medications. I'm lowering my blood pressure through a functional medicine approach addressing causes not just symptoms. Combining the use of specific herbs, vitamins, a life enhancing diet, and adequate exercise, with a quiet mind, meditation and prayer, my days are unfolding in peace and gratitude. Above all, trusting in spiritual principles and practices developed over decades, I know for certain the purpose of this event in my life, the power and the redemption.

And so my healing process contines. My occupational therapist and others are confident that full recovery is possible. While I do the work, I'm treasuring the insights still being revealed, relationships deepened, serendipity, and frequent "aha" moments. All is well!

                       "The song I came to sing remains unsung to this day.
                        I have spent my days in stringing and in unstringing my instrument." 
                                                                     -Rabindranath Tagore