The Coming of the Toads

A Notebook – Since 2007

Tag: Relaxation

  • How to Relax

    No point in pointing to made one’s way
    each momentous breath passes coming
    in spaces between arriving & leaving
    you learn to breathe with the tummy.

    To breathe is to fall loose
    into mattresses of surf
    full of air bubbles drifting
    to shore with a slow tide
    as light as moon goes
    in the sky and on the sea.

    Sitting on the wooden bench under the lilac,
    while Chloe plays in the age-old schoolyard,
    Papa awaits the second coming, not knowing
    what to expect, unable to recall the first coming.

    I will write you flowers
    every morning to read
    with your bitter coffee
    a bright yellow squirt
    of sun oily blue green
    froth on top.

    You sleep with a cat
    whose soft purr
    gives you pleasure
    all the joy of color
    impressions for the day.

    You are soft like warm
    butter barely melting
    down a scone topped
    with a couple of gummy
    candy raspberries.

    The butter wets the real
    fruit jelly rounds to light
    pigment an open place
    for lips to play and tongue – wait
    you didn’t think this
    was really about flowers, did you?

    Here are two flowers
    the one calls a honey bee
    the other falls asleep
    petals open softly fictile.            

    There is so much silence
    hear the rustle of ants
    hustling across the counter
    for sugar and sweet
    stuffs, see the apple
    blossoms opening feel
    the bees approach
    touch the molten lava
    freeze it you can
    but no matter.

    Once we admired multiple
    uses of one another
    of the now tossed
    cast off laugh
    tassels flipping
    flopping bouncing
    from rear view mirrors
    windows all rolled down.

    Now we adhere
    to this new silence
    deafens touch
    asks for something
    that is nothing
    blends with the wall
    wearing night caps
    and socks to bed.

    Outside cold winds blow
    bare branches whip
    the rain’s violence pours
    mercifully out a kindness
    allows for sleep and sleep.

    The rain falls and falls all
    night long soaks through
    the ground walls fills
    the basement rises
    up the stairs
    floods the living
    room wicks up the wallpaper
    and pours out the windows.

  • Bells, part 3, Relax

    We should probably be wary of statements beginning with the pronouncement, “Never before, in the history of the world….”

    Nevertheless, given our current world predicament, we might find ourselves in need of some relaxation – seemingly, like never before.

    In his little book titled “How to Relax,” the monk Thich Nhat Hanh begins:

    “You don’t need to set aside special time for resting and relaxing. You don’t need a special pillow or any fancy equipment. You don’t need a whole hour. In fact, now is a very good time to relax” (page 6, “How to Relax,” Parallax Press, 2015).

    The same might be said for writing. You don’t need a fancy machine, a special desk or pen, or even a purpose. What you need – is a bell.

    “There is tranquility, peace, and joy within us, but we have to call them forth so they can manifest. Inviting a bell to sound is one way to call forth the joy and tranquility within” (page 100).

    Thich Nhat Hanh gives us a poem to remind us of the bell we want to listen for, to hear, to send out to others:

    “Body, speech, and mind in perfect oneness,
    I send my heart along with the sound of this bell.
    May all the hearers awaken from forgetfulness,
    and transcend the path of anxiety and sorrow” (page 100).

    And we don’t need a fancy blog template or website to write. Again, nevertheless, here at The Coming of the Toads, I’ve experimented with a few of the WordPress templates over time. But what did I want, if not simply to write? This isn’t the only place, the only way, I write. I keep a pocket notebook in the left rear pocket of my pants (detail for readers in need), unlined because I like to doodle and wander. I keep a spiral notebook in a desk drawer. I started The Coming of the Toads, after a few hesitant starts, in December of 2007, and have posted something at least monthly since. Why then, lately, have I been having thoughts of ending it?

    I wasn’t “inviting the bell.” Not Poe’s “the tintinabulation of the bells,” nor his “anger of the bells,” nor his “moaning and the groaning of the bells.” But the bell of the muse. I like this etymological note from Oxford: “Middle English: from Old French muser ‘meditate, waste time’, perhaps from medieval Latin musum ‘muzzle’.” Writing involves a good amount of self-muzzle, or should. First, we might want to relax. Invite the bell. Then take up the pen and notebook, or open the blog.

    This is the third piece in a series on bells at The Coming of the Toads.

  • How to Relax

    How to Relax

    no point in pointing to the past
    each momentum passes upon
    coming

    in the space between
    arriving & leaving you
    learn to breathe

    to breathe is
    to fall
    loose into mattresses
    of surf
    full of air
    bubbles

    drift to shore
    with the slow tide
    as light as moon go
    in the sky
    and on the sea.

    Sitting on the wooden bench under the lilac,
    while Chloe plays in the age-old schoolyard,
    Papa awaits the second coming, not knowing
    what to expect, unable to recall the first coming.