The Word inspired
from God creator of all
hope not loss arrived
Linked to Ronovan Writes challenge #48.
Month: June 2015
Phlox: a haiku/haiga
Creeping Phlox
pretty purple blooms
creeping over the bare earth-
canopy of color
Linked to CDHK challenge “flowers”.
What is Bliss?
Bliss, not a word that I use particularly often. What is bliss? Well, I reckon it depends on who’s answering the question. According to the dictionary bliss is:
noun
1.
supreme happiness; utter joy or contentment:
wedded bliss.
2.
Theology. the joy of heaven.
3.
heaven; paradise:
the road to eternal bliss.
4.
Archaic. a cause of great joy or happiness.
A cursory search for #bliss on Twitter turned up many different ideas by many different folks, such as these:
And that is only a few examples.
Family photo from Christmas Day 2014
A collage of the family.
To be honest, I don’t think I have really ever thought about it before now. There are several things that come to mind and almost all of them involve my family. There’s no doubt that some of my happiest memories/occasions occur with/around them.
Then there are our “fur kids”, whose company brings me a lot of joy and company. And also a good number of laughs – and sloppy dog-kisses!
Clockwise from top left- Gypsy, Jack, Petey, and Morkie, who’s crossed the Rainbow Bridge now.
But let me be honest, no matter how much I love and enjoy my family, furry and non-furry alike, there are times when they cause angst, interruption, and general chaos. And if you don’t ever feel similarly some times you’re either a much better person than I am – or a fibber! LOL
After considering the given definition and the varied posts and tweets I saw I am all the more affirmed in my theory that the answer is very relative. However it doesn’t answer the question “What is bliss to me?” I think my answer would have to be the me time I get.
A few of the haiga you’ll find on the blog.
Several mornings a week a wake to an (almost) empty house; the dogs and I don’t work or go to school. 🙂 It’s on these mornings I have my time, time of reflection, time of meditation, time of, well, bliss I reckon. Weather permitting, I’ll load up a pipe, brew a fresh cup of coffee, and head outside to our covered deck. Here I enjoy my pipe, my coffee, and the sights and sounds of Creation. This is the time I connect with God, in prayer and meditation and through the study of His Word. It is also the time when I write, edit, or come up with ideas for writing, be it poems, haiku, lessons. etcetera, this is when most of it happens.These precious hours, filled with quiet contemplation, just me and the Lord, this is my bliss.
My idea of bliss: quiet time with my pipe, coffee, and God.
Swimming By: #Photo101 and haiku
I took my son and grandson fishing at a local lake yesterday. We had a grand time; each of us caught several fish and just enjoyed being outside and with each other.
As we fished these two ducks came swimming by, as if we (or our fishing lines) weren’t even there. I was lucky enough to snap a decent photo just as they got in front of me, a mere two or three yards away.
The scene inspired this little haiku when I looked at it today.
Ducks swim by as the
Light glimmers on the water
With gentle ripples
The Old Bridge: #Photo101 Day 2
This old bridge has been closed for several years now, though it served as the only way in and out of our neighborhood for decades. My grandson loves to look at it: the way nature is reclaiming it fascinates him – and me.
I’m Just Me
When I first started this blog, I think I’ve mentioned this before, I planned on using it primarily as a healing and coping tool; I’d just learned I had type-2 (T2) diabetes and was suffering from some very serious symptoms from it. Many years ago I’d done the same thing on a blog, now long defunct, to cope with (and help other with) my neurological disorder and it was a great help then so, I figured, it would be again.
Fifteen years ago there were only a hundred or so recognized/diagnosed cases of Cauda Equina Syndrome (CES), which is what I have. Diabetes, especially T2, is way more commone than CES; it was then and it still is today. Even though CES is being properly diagnosed sooner now it still remains a minority disorder, especially cases as severe as mine. It didn’t take me too long to figure out unless I just wanted an online journal there wasn’t going to be much content here. And as I began to get my disease under control (still working at it though it’s much better) I saw there was going to be even less content, perhaps even making this not only unnecessary but a waste of time.
I have some pretty limited mobility, partly due to the nerve damage I’ve suffered and partly – increasingly to be honest – due to arthritis in my back and ankle; its in other joints from other issues as well but we’ll leave this here for the point I’m going after. Winter was pretty tough on me this year and kept me in a lot. And when I say “in” I mean not just inside the house but also upstairs, out of my garage workshop where I do my “tinkering”; I have a couple of hobbies that occupy my time and energy, at my doctor’s suggestion, and not being able to get to the workshop made me battle with something closer to depression than just the “winter blues”.
Somewhere along the way I found this new to me thing called haiku challenges. It turns out there are a lot of “challenges” out there in the interwebs: writing, poetry, haiku, photography and probably a whole slew I’m either forgetting or unaware of. Having enjoyed writing haiku and other poetry in my youth, still enjoying writing over the years, including up to now, this seemed like the perfect way to have something I could do without having to get to the workshop! So, off I set to try my hand, after not writing a haiku in two-plus decades. Amd you know what? It was still fun for me! I was learning techniques and terminology and all kinds of things I had no clue about from my junior high and high school writing classes. Soon I found a couple of these challenges or prompts and I dove right in, knowing my compositions weren’t the best (but hopefully were/are improving), and helping break out of that grip of depression before it got too tight.
If you read much of my postings, be they here, my other blog, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or anyplace I might be forgetting, I’m certain there’s one thing you have (or quickly will) realized: I am a Christian, a child of the one living God, a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Messiah. Now, if you had any doubt, misgivings, uncertainty, etcetera, they should be 100% cleared up, dispelled, straightened out, or however you’d like to word it. My faith shows through in everything I do: it is a huge part of my life and something I gloss over or conceal in any way. I actually like wrote daily devotions for a fairly large private email list: five time a week for three or four years. And I’ve written articles, lessons, outlines, and other biblically based virtual-papers as well, all of which I have kept – intentionally – separate on the other blog. So, even though my intention was to keep the content separate I soon realized I can’t because of how large a part of my life my faith is.
At the end of the day, I’m just another child of God negotiating the potholes of this life on my way Home.
This piece was written, in part, I’ve the last several weeks. Today I completed it for the first day of Blogging 101. If you are interested in some of the things mentioned in this post just poke around a bit; it’s all here or HERE on my other blog.
Home
Home: The word has many meanings to each of us, and probably different ones at that. Even though I’m in a very busy period right now, I’m going to try to participate in two blogging classes/events: Blogging 101 and Photo 101, both done by Blogging University at WordPress.
The first “assignment” for the photo class is “home”. I thought about it all day and came to the conclusion that, while many things represent home to me, family is what home really is. And although we were, I think, supposed to take a photo today to post with this idea I’m using one from Christmas 2014 with my whole family (minus the “fur children”) in it because home really is where they are.
Shamanic Journey: tan renga
Althouth I missed last week’s tan renga challenge, I always look forward to this Friday event. Happily I’m on schedule today, at least for this exercise, and have already composed my portion of the tanka; the first three lines are provided by the host and the last two lines are written by a different author to complete the poem. You can read more about the challenge and much, much more at Carpe Diem Haiku.
shamanic journey
a red dragonfly comes
to guide the canoe
© Jane Reichhold
along the swift waters edge
further toward his journey
© Greg Wolford
What a wonderful exercise this one is, at least for me! I can see the words vividly in my mind as a scene unfolding and I hope you can, too.
Clouds: a haiku/haiga
After more than a week, I believe, of missing one of my favorite haiku prompts I sat down this morning with the intention of joining back in today if for only a little while. I have been extremely busy, and down with my ailments a bit, too, the last couple of weeks and not able to participate in many of these exercises. And I’m afraid I am entering a rather busy season and may not be able to participate as regularly as I would like in the coming weeks.
Picking up with the theme of “summertime”, our host at CDHK has selected the word “clouds” for today’s inspiration. Since I love to look at the sky watch the clouds, in all their shapes and colors, this one was a fun one for me to do. Although I don’t do it as much as I used to, I used to be a fairly prolific cloud–photographer. I looked through some of my recent photographs and found one that inspired me to pen the follow a poem.
painted skies above
copious colorful clouds
brightening my day
Occasional Treat: a haiku
This week Ronovan threw out some tough prompt words for his weekly challenge: bard and water. I actually thought about these off and on all week, being kind of stumped. This evening I checked the definition of bard to see if I could find inspiration – and I did! This is the secondary definition given:
Bard (2)
noun
noun: bard; plural noun: bards
1.
a slice of bacon placed on meat or game before roasting.
Ah, now I have something different to work with!
bard on my filet
is my occasional treat
a sparkling water
Thanks for another inspiring, fun, and challenging set of prompt words!
Potholes in the Road of Life 