Empowering Play

So many are now earning political points by asking , "What world are we leaving to our children?" We would be better off asking, "What world are we now offering our children, and the children of others?"

What we have to offer our earth is our time and our attention to the tiny details of life. Only by slowing down and being fully in each moment do we come to appreciate anything, and only in this aware way can we pass on our ethics of what is important. Are we even overloading ourselves with children to where we have no time for each of them as a uniquely gifted (and challenged) individual?

Observing the universe without disturbing it is the only way to learn the true nature of a person, place, or thing. How many of us are willing to observe without adding our input? How many of us actually want to know The Sacred Spirit of anything on earth?

When my grandson was a toddler, he ran to touch the big red ball, as he called the setting sun. In his beautiful baby mind, he was absolutely certain this could be done with his tiny reaching hand. Perhaps he will be a cosmologist and learn to actually touch the sun. He loved listening to the seagulls, and would turn to me and say, "Listen, Granny, the seagulls are laughing." It turns out that they are called "laughing gulls." Perhaps he will grow up to be an ornithologist and identify species of birds. This is the magic in a child's heart that we attempt to explain away with our greater "knowledge." Parents are to assist them in learning, not squelch their curiosity and wonder with our limiting "facts."

Why must we always choreograph every moment of our lives and those of the world's children? Would we be wiser to learn attentive appreciation from them? A small child needs nothing more to play happily than his or her own powers of observation and his or her own imagination, with inclusion in our work. Most of what I know of The Sacred Spirit, I learned watching small children simply live.

Touching the warm, wet earth and tasting blades of grass are too often interrupted by an adult's disgust or calls of danger. Can we not teach them science as easily by letting them experience it out in the fields among nature or in the great science labs of our own kitchens? And wouldn't the questions they asked bear more interesting answers that what some scientist put in a dusty book?

Some of the most remarkable memories I made with my children and grandchildren were catching, growing, and cooking our food, building a brick and board bookcase, painting a door, and identifying edible wild plants. In each endeavor, we all learned much from each other and from the effort itself, not the least of which was cooperation and appreciation.

To watch as a child learns is the best way that I have come to know what's sacred. Unchain them from their desks. Help them plant a field or milk a cow while we teach them about what they ask. Teach them to count as they walk beside you, carrying groceries or laundry. Let them learn colors from the earth's beauty. Help them play at important empowering work for themselves. The lessons will be forever placed in their very spirits, not only in their brains. That on which we expend our energy, we won't soon allow to be destroyed. Stop protecting them from what is most precious in life, wonder at being open to whatever is happening around us, in the here and now, and their power to affect it.

Hoping to Define Humanity

I wish humanity would realize that we're still following wild animal paths
Instead of honoring The Scared Spirit of our special powers, at last.
In the wild animal kingdom, it is survival of the physically strong;
We have the ability to push for survival of those who reject wrong.

We continue to offer our young males as animal breeders,
And elevate them, without judgement, to act as our leaders.
The excess males in the animal kingdom were sacrificed;
War and killing is the way we continue paying this price.

The birthing bed was changed to an altar for sacrificial virgins,
As a way for society, to the gods of war, make societies' amends.
It is time that we come to universal definitions of personhood,
Through common definitions of what separates evil from good.

Why do we continue procreating, when we have naught to give?
Do we believe it's a gift to share lives even we don't want to live?
The birth of an innocent child to a known abusive parent
Is collusion with the abuser, to the innocent child's detriment.

My angry outbursts at my baby girl had naught to do with her;
They were frustrations that abuse of my spirit did spur.
I sought counseling and began seeking paying work,
But my pregnancy with a son, my duty to my children, shirked.

I was becoming the abuser; this was very clear to me.
I ran to where I thought my spirit and children would be free,
But the opportunities presenting themselves in that social clime
Made no provisions for our most important family time.

We struggled as family, and we did make it through whole
It's time that the story of the complicity by me be told.
I was not strong and ready to lead before I became a mother;
This is why I could be destroyed by the opinion of another.

Children deserve to be born to mothers who will protect them.
Unless a woman has become able to stand eye-to-eye with men
She is not ready to take the reins of another's motherhood.
A child is not a puppy to make the community feel good.

I see too many women living in abject poverty
Showing off their offspring as a prize for all to see.
Society has no compassion when we have none ourselves;
The Sacred Spirit is the free will that, in humanity, dwells.

Responsible compassion for all life in the universe
Is a topic on which humanity may want to converse.
We have come to a point in competition for tribal territory
That we are in danger of ending, forever, the human story.

I am old, and I would gladly give my last earthly days
To mediate the discussions in which our leaders engage.
Continued life, without peace, seems pointless to me;
Beings without compassion are not my vision of humanity.

Sacred Spirits that I See

What if we saw the mission of humanity to, first, do no harm?

Would this serve the purpose of getting nations to disarm?

What if we saw the purpose of humanity to protect

The vulnerable that others of the animal kingdom reject?

What if we saw each other as collections of sacred talents,

Instead of looking for ways to perfectionism's pretense?

Would we then seek, on earth,  to incorporate everyone,

Instead of teaching our children, from the different, to run?

It is one of the earth's greatest sadnesses to me 

That so many have taught their children false humility.

As long as we know where our talents come from,

We should celebrate what eternity allows us to become.

It destroys The Sacred Spirit to deny special gifts;

To act as we deserve them also forms human rifts.

Seeing gifts as sacred duties to improve the universe

Is a value system that, to many, seems perverse.

I was told not to see the gifts by which I'd been anointed,

And told to hide them, as if my parents were disappointed.

I was offered up in marriage, to supposedly protect me,

But, he too, was threatened by what he could clearly see.

I thought my mission as parent was that my children exceed

The apparent values of the time, that seemed to be greed.

Perhaps I erred in my pursuit; maybe it was arrogance;

Perhaps many generations will suffer from my pretense.

My children are long-since adults, with their own families;

They have made it clear that they no longer need me.

Though my mother thought me arrogant, as do many;

I am long-since ready to give myself over to eternity.

My continued input into my children's families does harm;

This is not in keeping with my living faith's earthly form.

I put my wisdom and my wit out for the use of those

Who have not, to a sacred mission, been exposed.

In this way, I feel that I remain on earth without attachment.

The unlimited universal time requires this detachment.

I feel that I have fulfilled my primary responsibilities;

What my progeny do from now on, I may not ever see.

In the universe of The Sacred Spirit, we cannot ever tell

In what people and places our eternal energy will dwell.

I have done my best, in my life, to offer the positive;

I believe that this is all we humans are expected to give.

The prophets weren't fortune tellers; they were observant

That many generations, in their arrogance, would not relent.
Those who warn of danger are often seen as danger's source;
I cannot stop the sights, but I cannot feel remorse.

Many are energized by fear and anger, leading to death.
This is the greatest source of my deepest life regrets,
My anger at injustice frightens many away from me.
Is a resigned spirit to the world of old all that's left to be?

I can't seem to quiet myself when I see cause for celebration
This also seem to lead to others' great intimidation.
My passions, I now put on paper, rather than create dissension.
Finding words that help bring peace is my fond intention.

I will go to my grave sad that my children are disappointed

By the path to which, in my earthly life, I have been anointed.

I hope that in some incarnation of their memories of me.

They will accept the greatness of their spirits that I see.

Pentecost Prayer Day 50

Priests have no place in our parenting;
Ministers aren't made to mold minds.
With the advent of human reason,
Superstition should be left behind.

It is more difficult to think for oneself
Than to call upon magical beings.
It is difficult to step back from childhood,
And think about what we're truly seeing.

We're each given our own experiences,
And the collective wisdom of community,
To assist us in framing our goals and paths
On which we're called by The Sacred Spirit to be.

I only do what my gifts and time allow me;
If each of us does, with our gifts, the same,
We will eventually have no more greed;
Our human family, we'll then fully reclaim.

When will human males honor their spirits
In the process that gave humanity birth?
Or, is what the Dalai Lama says is the truth,
Women are the future of peace on earth?

The spirits of men should not be less sacred
Than those of the wombs from which they came.
I believe more must be written to guide them
Back to The Sacred Spirit which they can claim.

My Sacred Son, embrace the honor of your spirit;
I have been holding the flame of your spirit high.
When will you stop being ashamed of this?
Your greatness of spirit you continue to deny.

I am old and cannot continue to be your beacon;
You must choose to go forward or go back.
I will die knowing that your sacred spirit
Was meant to lead others in a righteous track.

I cannot force you to honor the sacred path
For which you were placed upon this earth;
I only know that the spirit you have shared
Will, for eternity, light this physical universe.

I so hoped you would take your ability
To lead others in your strong human wake;
That those who knew and enjoyed you
Would, of your sacredness, partake.

To change the direction that we were given,
Maybe wasn't meant for us, in my limited life.
I still hold out hope that the answer to peace
Is defined by example of husband and wife.

My prayer for Pentecost is that we accept The Sacred Spirit as something to which we, as humans, can choose to aspire.

Pentecost Prayer Day 49

What if we decided that the only morality was protecting innocence,
Instead of hunting for children's mistakes, to exact recompense?
What if we each decided to remember when we were each young,
And then offer to the next generation our glories that went unsung?

Would we create a world where we would all believe in peace?
Would all the competition with, and hatred of, others cease?
I see outside my door, children of every color and family,
Lesbians and single fathers who look like loving parents to me.

How can we continue to find fault with those committed to protect
The sacred, innocent souls that our society often rejects?
It has been a stain upon us that young males of a certain age,
No longer, in the mothering impulses of nature, engage.

Who is to claim these young men after their male selves emerge?
Their masculinity seems to set off less than compassionate urge.
Even the young men deserve protection until they come of age;
Otherwise, their fears are turned into unfocused actions of rage.

My prayer for Pentecost is that we learn to honor the innocence of all instead of seeking to destroy it with our own disillusionment.

Pentecost Prayer Day 48

Rest, Old Mother, you have done what you must do;
It is now time for those you taught to help lead you.
Don't think they don't honor you because they do differently;
They have handled things in their lives you couldn't foresee.

Just as they bowed to your knowledge when they were young,
Please listen to the songs of experience they have since sung.
They want to hold you gently as you may have done to them,
But you continue to fight them, as you would not a friend.

It is time to honor their adulthood and their life's ways;
In peace, let them care for you in your waning days.
They do have your spirit; perhaps what you don't like
Is they, like you, can also speak with your own bite.

Be gentle with them as they do the best they can;
They have the same problems as every human.
Just like a lifeguard they can't help one still fighting;
When you stop, your depression will be lightening.

You cannot change the past, so celebrate it with others.
Responsible citizens are raised, not by weak mothers.
You have been strong when they needed you; now rest.
After you're gone, the universe will still carry on your best.

The spirits of your husband and your deceased son
Remain inside your family until the universe is done.
Your spirit, too, will stay to give others strength,
When the next phase of your life is called to commence.

My prayer for Pentecost is that we learn to rest our bodies and minds as we allow our souls to impart to others our spiritual strengths.

Pentecost Prayer Day 47

It's not that I want my progeny to be like me; I've often prayed for the opposite.
Both of my children, I prayed, would best of their father and my composite.
I preached at them that they had choices about which traits they'd incorporate.
I came to this knowledge little by little; I hope I wasn't, in teaching it, too late.

My religion and some religions before said we are programmed by our parents;
The mistakes they and their parents made have haunted humans ever since.
But there are other beliefs that celebrate the individual talents and gifts,
Rather than setting all who are different, from community of the tribe, adrift.

Some are born to be warriors until all earthly evil comes to an end
Some are born to be interpreters, so that all human voices can blend.
Some do the work of the body; others the work of the mind.
There can be no human progress unless all efforts are combined.

Damn the religious leaders that relegated the dirty work on earth
To positions of disrespect and scorn to which others are given birth.
The work of blood and dirt, as well as the work of the philosophers,
In balance to all needs, is that to which our survival as humans defers.

My children have a balance of my thoughts and their father's skills;
I wish that the honor of both was something our society instilled.
A thinker without those who can bring visions to fruition,
Leaves all physical parts of nature in untenable positions.

Will we stop the competition of those who plan and those who do?
The people who do both well is reflected in only a few.
It is time that we honor partnerships of opposite gifts,
Before we send all of humanity's progress to, backwards, drift.

Many men have been shamed for reflecting any feminine traits;
Though this is the balance that our world, in humans, awaits.
Women have been log-tasked with performing as both parents
When off to industry and war, the male parent was sent.

It is time that we begin to prepare our children and ourselves for peace;
Only with equal strengths, will our progress toward unity increase.
Respect and celebration for different approaches to success
Will keep humanity from our tendency, in fear of change, to regress.


My prayer for Pentecost is that we come to understand that humans can choose what gender roles they play after their own births. Male and female are equal, no matter what came first; our gifts and weaknesses are interdependent.