{"id":6457,"date":"2019-05-31T08:24:04","date_gmt":"2019-05-31T15:24:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/?p=6457"},"modified":"2019-05-31T08:28:59","modified_gmt":"2019-05-31T15:28:59","slug":"leza-lowitz-waiting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/2019\/05\/31\/leza-lowitz-waiting\/","title":{"rendered":"Leza Lowitz – Waiting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Waiting
\nby Leza Lowitz<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

You keep waiting for something to happen,
\nthe thing that lifts you out of yourself,<\/em><\/p>\n

catapults you into doing all the things you\u2019ve put off
\nthe great things you\u2019re meant to do in your life,<\/p>\n

but somehow never quite get to.
\nYou keep waiting for the planets to shift<\/p>\n

the new moon to bring news,
\nthe universe to align, something to give.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the pile of papers, the laundry, the dishes the job \u2014
\nit all stacks up while you keep hoping<\/p>\n

for some miracle to blast down upon you,
\nscattering the piles to the winds.<\/p>\n

Sometimes you lie in bed, terrified of your life.
\nSometimes you laugh at the privilege of waking.<\/p>\n

But all the while, life goes on in its messy way.
\nAnd then you turn forty. Or fifty. Or sixty\u2026<\/p>\n

and some part of you realizes you are not alone
\nand you find signs of this in the animal kingdom \u2014<\/p>\n

when a snake sheds its skin its eyes glaze over,
\nit slinks under a rock, not wanting to be touched,<\/p>\n

and when caterpillar turns to butterfly
\nif the pupa is brushed, it will die \u2014<\/p>\n

and when the bird taps its beak hungrily against the egg
\nit\u2019s because the thing is too small, too small,<\/p>\n

and it needs to break out.
\nAnd midlife walks you into that wisdom<\/p>\n

that this is what transformation looks like \u2014
\nthe mess of it, the tapping at the walls of your life,<\/p>\n

the yearning and writhing and pushing,
\nuntil one day, one day<\/p>\n

you emerge from the wreck
\nembracing both the immense dawn<\/p>\n

and the dusk of the body,
\nglistening, beautiful<\/p>\n

<\/em>just as you are.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a> \u2014 from Poems of Awakening: An International Anthology of Spiritual Poetry<\/a>, Edited by Betsy Small<\/font><\/p>\n


\n\/ Image by geekounet<\/a> \/<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

It is part of my morning ritual, I shuffle to the sink and wash last night\u2019s dishes by hand. I like the tactile quality of it, the warm soapy water on my hands, slowly watching the order of clean, neatly arranged dishes emerging from the mess. This is spiritual practice at midlife: a fifty year old man, hair sleep mussed, still in his bed clothes, doing the dishes.<\/p>\n

I like the poet\u2019s suggestion that the wisdom of midlife is not raging against the chaos and mess of life, but the interaction with it until we ourselves emerge transformed.<\/p>\n

We stop expecting the mess to go away or somehow be made right. When I do the dishes in the morning, a whole new stack of dirty dishes have reappear with the next meal. Sometimes I\u2019m convinced that my wife and I couldn\u2019t possibly have created so many dirty dishes in such a short time, that hungry house hobbs have been secretly adding to the stack.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the thing, life is about mess. The act of living and interacting with the world, with other people creates a certain amount of disorder. We don\u2019t want to be utterly free of mess and chaos or even problems. They are the signs of life being lived. We make a mess. We clean up the mess. This is the natural rhythm of life.<\/p>\n

until one day, one day<\/i><\/p>\n

you emerge from the wreck
\nembracing both the immense dawn<\/p>\n

and the dusk of the body,
\nglistening, beautiful<\/p>\n

<\/i>just as you are.<\/i><\/p>\n

I love the way she contrasts the embrace of the dawn while also embracing the \u201cdusk of the body.\u201d Embracing dawn suggests to me that we recognize in ourselves something filled with new life, something vast and glowing. But there is also the increasingly sense of the fading of the body. Even if we remain healthy and strong as we grow older, maturity requires us to recognize that this body is limited and has a looming expiration date. And this is wisdom, the integration of these two truths.<\/p>\n

Seeing both, at peace with both, we step into the present moment and come to know ourselves\u2013 \u201cglistening, beautiful \/ just as you are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Have a beautiful day! Enjoy the mess. And enjoy cleaning it up again.<\/p>\n


\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>Recommended Books: Leza Lowitz<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

<\/center>
\n<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Poems of Awakening: An International Anthology of Spiritual Poetry<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nYoga Poems: Lines to Unfold By<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/small><\/td>\n<\/small><\/td>\n<\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\n\n\n
\n\"Leza<\/a><\/td>\n\nLeza Lowitz<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

US (1962 \u2013 )
\nSecular or Eclectic<\/a><\/a>
\n<\/a><\/a><\/em><\/td>\n

<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

More poetry by Leza Lowitz<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Waiting by Leza Lowitz You keep waiting for something to happen, the thing that lifts you out of yourself, catapults you into doing all the things you\u2019ve put off the great things you\u2019re meant to do in your life, but somehow never quite get to. You keep waiting for the planets to shift the new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2273,2200,2270,2272,2274,2271],"class_list":["post-6457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-cleaning","tag-dishes","tag-leza-lowitz","tag-mess","tag-midlife-wisdom","tag-waiting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6457"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6459,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6457\/revisions\/6459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}