The Laughing Heart (Charles Bukowski, read by Tom Waits)

"That's a beauty," he says at the end. Yes... yes, it is. Enjoy.

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

-- by Charles Bukowski

"... in the grace of the world..." (and the close of the #MiracleTour)

Of course Wendell had to be a dog lover. Of course.

In the spirit of this month's gratitude zeitgeist, here is a tiny beauty from poet Wendell Berry:

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

"... in the grace of the world..." That line gives me goosebumps. There is so much gorgeousness around us, so much to be grateful for, and so much of it we miss because we're too busy with larger concerns, with the big picture, worried about things that will never happen, things we can't control—and, yet, things that would never be a concern if we all devoted our time to "the peace of wild things".

This year has taught me a lot, far beyond what I expected, what I even imagined. Today is the close of the MIRACLE tour, and awesome friend and blogger Damyanti Biswas is hosting me on her blog to talk about these unexpected lessons—of which perhaps the greatest is precisely this: Gratitude. To you.

Thank you. You've made an enormous difference in my life. From now on, every day, no matter where I am or what I'm doing, you'll be in my thoughts. Because you cared, because you had a kind word for me, because you went above and beyond (even though you may not realize you did... even though you didn't really know me).

I will never forget that.

Spectacular Settings! (#WEP)

Hosted by wonder-women Denise Covey and Yolanda Renee, the WEP (Write - Edit - Publish) Spectacular Settings hop is all about the power of place -- and the part it plays (can/should play) in writing.

Got a spectacular setting from a favorite book? Join the hop (it runs from the 19th to the 26th) and share! (More info here.)

The setting I'm sharing here is not from fiction but from poetry. And not just any poet, either. If you've followed this blog for a while, you might know I'm a huge fan of T.S. Eliot. A couple of months ago a long-time friend -- one of those people from the past that sometimes pop up into the present, usually bearing extraordinary gifts -- got together a small group of poetry enthusiasts for a reading circle on Skype (we're scattered all over, geographically), and the first piece we read was Eliot's Four Quartets. 

It's a piece I know well, maybe more than well -- it was none other than this old friend who introduced me to Eliot some 20 years ago, and the Eliot collection I own is one he gave to me back then... twenty years almost to the day we began reading. Several bits from Four Quartets have, in these two decades, gained special significance. For instance,

The Watcher of Vowels

A bit of inspiration goes a long way, especially on Monday morning. Enjoy.

The Watcher of Vowels from Catalina Kulczar-Marin on Vimeo.