Tag Archives: poetry

The Anatomy of Peace

A “meditation” poem to share (and a big ‘thank you’ to meditation friends Bob P. and Virginia T. for sending it my way).

The poem is called The Anatomy of Peace and it was written by “Poet. Writer. Comic. Storyteller. Terrible Dancer”, John Roedel, who performs it right here.

If you’re thinking, “I’m not a poetry person” then this poem is perfect for you. It’s a first-person story about the author, who is caught in a longstanding and irreconcilable conflict. On one side is the author’s brain, always anxious about future disasters. On the other, the author’s sad heart, forever filled with regret. The author’s brain and heart “divorced a decade ago” and, for all practical purposes, refuse to deal with one another. The only path of comfort available to the miserable author is to avoid them both and hang out in the gut. Until one day … the gut makes a suggestion.

What makes this poem work is not just the all-too-familiar brain-heart conflict and the despair it generates, but the humor that percolates from top to bottom. The characters in this poem, an author, a brain, a heart, and so on, are just right for a funny cartoon, or maybe, an entire comic book. Humor is leavened by the author’s encounter with the deeply compassionate and wise gut. Don’t we all wish we had a friend like this? On first reading, the gut’s suggestion looks like an escape, a way out, but – spoiler alert – it is actually a way in.

Here is how the poem begins (you can find the entire poem online at youtube):

my brain and
heart divorced
a decade ago
over who was
to blame about
how big of a mess
I have become
eventually,
they couldn’t be
in the same room
with each other …

from The Anatomy of Peace by John Roedel

A.A. Milne on Mindfulness Meditation

A.A. Milne, the author who brought us Christopher Robin, Winnie the Pooh, and Piglet, doesn’t immediately leap to mind as a commentator on mindfulness practice. My mother began introducing me to his stories before I was old enough to read, but I don’t recall her mentioning meditation even once.

Decades later, when I was all grown up and serious, I hunted down The Tao of Pooh and The Te of Piglet by Benjamin Hoff (who I just learned is a Portlander – thank you, Wikipedia). I was looking for the Tao and thought I might find it by looking over Hoff’s shoulder, but, whatever I found there, it never occurred to me that Milne might have been a student of Asian spiritual practices.

Perhaps I was missing something? As Pooh says, “When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.” These days I often find myself reading familiar words in new ways.

So, in that spirit, I would like to share with you a short poem, “Halfway Down”, from Milne’s collection, When We Were Very Young. I had heard the poem dozens of times over the years, but last Tuesday I read it aloud to some friends and heard something new: a delightful story about a child who likes to stop “halfway down”, sit, and … dare I say it? … practice meditation. Enjoy!

Halfway down the stairs
Is a stair
Where I sit.
There isn’t any
Other stair
Quite like
It.
I’m not at the bottom,
I’m not at the top;
So this is the stair
Where
I always
Stop.

Halfway up the stairs
Isn’t up
And isn’t down.
It isn’t in the nursery,
It isn’t in the town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head:
“It isn’t really
Anywhere!
It’s somewhere else
Instead!”

Milne, A.A. from “When We Were Very Young”, E.P. Dutton, 1924

One-Breath Meditation

Gary Snyder ’51 begins his essay, Just One Breath: The Practice of Poetry and Meditation (Tricycle, Fall 1991) with a straightforward teaching:

In this world of onrushing events the act of meditation — even just a “one-breath” meditation — straightening the back, clearing the mind for a moment — is a refreshing island in the stream.

What is this “meditation” that even one moment is good? Snyder says,

… it is a simple and plain activity. Attention: deliberate stillness and silence.

Continue reading

The Zen of Philip Whalen ’51

Students of zen meditation are famous for their cultivation of the arts of haiku, calligraphy, and tea ceremony. Presence. Simplicity. The qualities that emerge on the cushion appear in every aspect of one’s life.

The cross-currents of zen, poetry, and calligraphy, have a rich history at Reed as well. “Loosen Up. Festoon.” by John Sheehy ’82 (Reed Magazine, March 2016) explores the currents sailed by Reed poet and zen master, Philip Whalen ’51 (Crowded by Beauty: The Life and Zen of Poet Philip Whalen by David Schneider ’73). Continue reading

Opening Creativity’s Door

My 5th grade teacher would periodically say, “Alan, you aren’t creative.” Before you jump to any conclusions, let me add that this talented, committed woman was the most important teacher I had in elementary school and she devoted herself to tapping all of the potential – intellectual, musical, artistic – that my classmates and I had locked up inside ourselves. Still, it was more than a little surprising to hear about my apparent lack of creativity.

Her comment made creativity seem very mysterious to me. Why was I missing out on this basic human capability? Continue reading

Finding Time

If today’s meditation session is like most, a small group, less than a handful really, will join me in the chapel to sit quietly for part of the noon hour. The Reed chapel is a chapel in name only, but the soaring ceilings, the tall windows on both sides of the room, provide an atmosphere that is light, spacious, airy, and contemplative. I’m sure more people would come, enjoy a few moments of beauty and quiet, if only they could find the time.

Thoughts like these remind me of a joyous, deceptively simple poem by Nanao Sakaki called Happy Lucky Idiot (Tricycle, Summer 2013). It leads the reader through a series of reflections, “If you have time to X, Do Y, If you have time to Y, Do Z”. It concludes:

If you have time to dance
Sit quietly, you Happy Lucky Idiot