I love the flickering of candlelight this time of year. Winter in the Northern hemisphere offers reflective space.
John O’Donohue wrote: Candlelight perception is the most respectful and appropriate form of light with which to approach the inner world. It does not force our tormented transparency upon the mystery.
I’m still in clean-out mode. The Mill Valley library is thrilled with the condition and range of the books I’ve donated, and there’s more to go, though it’s not easy. I love books and want them to have good homes, so I scatter pieces of myself out in the world, my choices, shared.
This poem by Marci Calabretta Dancio-Bello speaks to me as I read of animals fleeing from fire in Australia. How do we stroke the bones of fear and open out and share the spinal hum?
Ode to this Small Joy
Someone discovered
the giraffe hums
at a harmonic rate
of 92 Hertz,
voice thrumming
the tower of spine
and trachea once
thought to be silent,
and her humming is
like monks chanting
holy and ascetic,
the vibrations rolling
up the vertebrae
gentle and slow,
a long-lashed
face lifting
from water to sky,
taut dark sides
veined with light
ready to crack
open the body.
- Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello