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Sunday, May 24, 2020

Carmel Point

By Robinson Jeffers

The extraordinary patience of things!
This beautiful place defaced with a crop of suburban houses-
How beautiful when we first beheld it,
Unbroken field of poppy and lupin walled with clean cliffs;
No intrusion but two or three horses pasturing,
Or a few milch cows rubbing their flanks on the outcrop rockheads-
Now the spoiler has come: does it care?
Not faintly. It has all time. It knows the people are a tide
That swells and in time will ebb, and all
Their works dissolve. Meanwhile the image of the pristine beauty
Lives in the very grain of the granite,
Safe as the endless ocean that climbs our cliff.-As for us:
We must uncenter our minds from ourselves;
We must unhumanize our views a little, and become confident
As the rock and ocean that we were made from.

Monday, May 18, 2020

Prayer for the New Year

By Mary Mulvill


I want to write about
starting over. About how
the outgoing tide recedes,
almost imperceptible
at first, but steadily
lays bare the marooned
shells and delicate sand dollars
that were always there
under the tangle of kelp & foam.

And the vast plain
of luminous sand
that smoothes out
to welcome
those who have not given up
on nature, who pick up
each soaked bit of driftwood
in wonder. Examine
the fierce marks of seagull beaks
and the rounded corners
from years in the water.

Meanwhile, the incoming swells
give up the horizon
over and over. Reappear.
Everything I need
is here for me,
if I will only allow
myself to receive it.
I don’t know
quite where to start.

So, let this small poem,
almost overlooked
entirely, be my way
of beginning again.
Let me be open
to what lies hidden
in plain sight, watch
the slow doubling
of the beach unfold,
inhabit my
disappearing body

before it’s only a soul.


Mary Mulvihill is a health psychologist and professor at San Diego State University. She specializes in working with chronic pain, trauma, medical regimen management, geriatrics, and use of mindfulness, somatic therapy, and creative arts - including poetry for healing and personal growth. She grew up in San Diego, enjoying the ocean, swimming, and communing with nature. Dr. Mulvihill is a registered Soul Collage facilitator, which is an accessible modality for all to enjoy working with healing images, learning self-care, and fostering creativity. She began writing poetry when in graduate school at Emory University, where her mentor was John Stone. 

Saturday, May 9, 2020

In the Time of Pandemic

By Kitty O’Meara

And the people stayed home.
And they listened, and read books, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still.
And they listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently.
And the people healed.
And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.
And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.