Friday, February 21, 2014

A BABY IS BORN

Pardon me for wanting to show you photos of my brand new grandson, Ronen. But the fact is, he is the most awesome child in the world. Every grandma knows that to be true about her grandchildren. :)

Only a week old, he has already wrapped each one of us in love. He is a miracle for sure.

His mom, my daughter Jocelyn, is extraordinary, caring for him, loving him, being the best mother in the world. My son-in-law, Evan, is an unbelievably supportive husband and father. What a blessing  it is to watch the two of them bonding with their newborn son.

Here is Ronen coming home from the hospital:


 Here is Ronen holding on to his daddy's chin:


Here is Ronen yawning with his Mom

By the way, Ronen is a Hebrew name which means "Song of Joy." That is surely an apt name for this tiny tune of a boy who is bringing everyone so much happiness just by being alive!

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

More Words To Fathom





By Sharon Flitterman-King

Words grow out of words
I fathom that—
  from the Indo-European root
  word pet: To spread

As in “length of two arms
stretched out.”
         .
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes
         .
But wait, there’s more:
the Latin patere to be open
  comes from pet
  As in patent and clear
    and open
to understanding

Or the Latin pandere
  to spread out, in
  expand, the possibilities
of fathom
the word

Related to the beautiful
  petal, from the Greek
  petalon, from pet


    a leaf, whose loveliness
    often I cannot
fathom

Then there’s paella and pan
  also from pet, in the
  Greek patane, or
  “thing spread out”


So let’s eat and drink
  to words—
  as we fathom them
    together

         .
Nothing of him that does fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich
  and strange

the fathomless tempest
of words.


--For Claudia

Sharon Flitterman-King, PhD, lives with her husband in Hillsdale, New York. She is the author of "A Secret Star," among other works.
 



 
        . 




Monday, February 3, 2014

Fathoming the Moment

It started as a single word
I heard it
ringing inside my head
during this morning's
meditation.

For some odd reason
I will never quite ==fathom==
that very word
FATHOM popped
up front and center
in my mind
I was so pulled by it that
I stopped meditation
went into the
study to consult
the Oxford
dictionary
it said the
word
was derived
from Old English

"two arms
outstretched
embrace
bosom"
and then
"grasp,
power."

I went back
to meditating
and drinking my warm
cup of chai,
but I wasn't
able to stop thinking
about fathom,
and then into my head
came Eckart Tolle's book
THE POWER OF NOW,
I read that book
I keep it beside my
bed I am never very
far away
because what Tolle
 is
saying that I love
is that
we can only come into
consciousness
when we live
in the PRESENT MOMENT
but how do we fathom
this and this
and this and this
====moment ====
moments always
slippery and sliding
away?

I inhaled and
and went back
to meditating
I kept tr=====y====ing
to embrace the NOW
Tolle writes:
"Focus attention on
the feeling inside you,
but don't think about
it just FEEL IT
STOP THINKING
because
"The mind, to ensure that it
remains in control,
seeks continuously to cover
up the PRESENT ==== MOMENT
with past and future,"
The hear
and
HERE AND
===NOW===
here LIES THE
KEY TO
ultimately A UNION
WITH THE DIVINE
POWER OF THE UNIVERSE
yes, that is GOD but
Tolle says don't use
that Word because
"the word God
has become empty of meaning
through thousands of years of
misuse."

Now I sit here hours
later so many thousand
present moments
have gone flittering away
with me not
BEING in them.

I try to fathom
not thinking
and I cannot
I am lost
going out
of my mind.

But I am still
sitting here
truly
====trying====
to stop explaining
to stop writing
to you
and just start
feeling
it is snowing
softly outside the window
every flake falling
moment after moment
at an angle
The birds
outside the kitchen keep
pecking at
the suet they come swooping in and
flying and landing
on the feeders
with the black
oiled
sunflower
seed
and now for God's
sake I need to
stop,
====JUST STOP===
this poem has gone
on long enough
don't
write another
============