Category: quote

Wherever You Are Is Called Here: Poetry from David Wagoner

Posted on April 19, 2017 by Jennifer Wolfe

Hiking on Mt. Tamalpais, CA.

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.

The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.

Bird on branch, UC Davis Arboretum

If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

~David Wagoner

Words are the spark that ignites my soul. I am a collector of language in all forms, not a hoarder. The extraordinary beauty of the written word must be shared. These monthly posts, inspired by another’s words, are my gifts of beauty and spirit, shared with love.

This beautiful, meditative poem by David Wagoner found its way to me via The Writer’s Almanac.

“Lost” by David Wagoner from Traveling Light: Collected and New Poems. © University of Illinois Press, 1999. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

Jennifer Wolfe

Jennifer Wolfe, a writer-teacher-mom, is dedicated to finding the extraordinary in the ordinary moments of life by thinking deeply, loving fiercely, and teaching audaciously. Jennifer is a Google Certified Educator, Hyperdoc fanatic, and a voracious reader. Read her stories on her blog, mamawolfe, and grab free copies of her teaching and parenting resources.

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All That Glorious, Temporary Stuff: Poetry By Mary Oliver

Posted on March 22, 2017 by Jennifer Wolfe

Meditation, so I’ve heard, is best accomplished
if you entertain a certain strict posture.
Frankly, I prefer just to lounge under a tree.
So why should I think I could ever be successful?

Another one of my favorite neighborhood trees, budding out for spring.

Some days I fall asleep, or land in that
even better place – half-asleep – where the world,
spring, summer, autumn, winter –
flies through my mind in its
hardy ascent and its uncompromising descent.

So I just lie like that, while distance and time
reveal their true attitudes: they never
heard of me, and never will, or ever need to.

Of course I wake up finally
thinking, how wonderful to be who I am,
made out of earth and water,
my own thoughts, my own fingerprints –
all that glorious, temporary stuff.

~ Mary Oliver

Oh Mary Oliver, how I love your words. Thinking about the wonder of life, the gift that getting older offers if we’re only paying attention. I’ve been saving this one for a long time – thank you to First Sip for sending it my way so many years ago. This is just the right time to share.

Jennifer Wolfe

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Learn To Do Everything Lightly: Words From Aldous Huxley

Posted on February 22, 2017 by Jennifer Wolfe

” It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly.

Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.

I was so preposterously serious in those days… Lightly – it’s the best advice ever given me…So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair.

That’s why you must walk so lightly, my darling…”

~Aldous Huxley – from Island

Feelings are a struggle for me.

I’ve written before about my introverted self, and how hard it is for me to disconnect from the emotions that build up inside, whether it’s from working with my students and guiding them through their own challenges, or coming home and trying to balance teaching and motherhood, or coping with the transitions of motherhood from being a full-time mom to having one child away in college.

Sometimes I wish it could just ease up, that I could NOT feel…

It’s taken me awhile to realize that because discarding feelings easily is a struggle for me, I need to create rhythms and mantras in my day that not only help me to ease away from emotions but also to remember that the goal for me is to be here, now.

Stepping gently, avoiding the triggers that sink me into my own sort of ‘quicksands’ – learning to walk without slumping under the weight of my feelings has taken me half a century, but I’m getting there.

What triggers you, what sucks at your feet and keeps you from walking without burdens pushing you down?

I’d love to hear how you avoid falling into those quicksands, too.

Jennifer Wolfe

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What I Can Do Right Now: Spread Love

Posted on February 8, 2017 by Jennifer Wolfe

Spread love everywhere you go: first of all in your own home.

Give love to your children, to your wife or husband, to a next door neighbor…

Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.

Be the living expression of God’s kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile, kindness in your warm greeting.

~ Mother Teresa

Every morning, right after my first cup of coffee, I struggle with checking my Facebook feed. Lately all it does is make my heart catch in my throat, speed my pulse into triple digits and leave me feeling….well, a bit helpless.

I hate feeling helpless. It goes against everything I profess about ‘walking the talk’ and teaching audaciously. Feeling helpless is like taking no steps forward and ten steps back.

That’s simply something I’m not willing to do at this point in my life.

In my classroom, I see a microcosm of our world; children from different backgrounds, races and religions. College interns come to my classroom every day, struggling with student debt and affordable housing, all while trying to work and study and figure out what they want – or will be able to – do when they graduate.

I feel it all around me – the tension, the fear in the eyes of those afraid of what is to come, and the rising sense of a societal acceptance to speak out unkindly, to group together and cast sideways glances at each other. I don’t like it. It scares me, it worries me and wakes me up from a deep sleep.

Last week, I created a ‘hope’ wall for my students. I wanted them to feel safe sharing what they hope for in their life, and I wanted to be able to make it visible.

From the hope wall:

“to make new friends”

“to do better each day”

“to make my parents proud”

“to be nicer to everyone”

“to help others to the best of my abilities”

Every day a new anonymous ‘hope’ appears. Hope for good grades, for friendship, for acceptance. Someone is hoping for a tattoo….one to be a pilot, and another to meet Alex Morgan.

I felt like this was one thing I could do to overcome feeling hopeless: I could grow hope and simultaneously, I could spread love.

For me, teaching is a service job as well as a profession where I utilize my creativity to first connect, then instruct. I’m constantly striving to creatively connect with my students, to get them to trust me – and themselves. I want to teach my students how I want my own children to be taught – I want to use this platform, this opportunity, to spread love in whatever small (and hopefully large) ways I can.

These small steps, this little bit of teaching audaciously, helps me feel less hopeless. I imagine all of us just doing a little bit, every day, to help our country move forward in love and kindness. If you’re feeling like I am, I urge you to just find one thing you love to do – take one small step forward each day to spread love wherever you go, however you can.

Jennifer Wolfe

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Determined To Do Less

Posted on January 25, 2017 by Jennifer Wolfe

This year, I am determined to be more unproductive. My goal is to do less and less – to move slower and slower until everything stops. I and the whole world will come to a sweet and silent stillness. And in this stillness, a great shout of joy will arise. We will all be free – free from the advice of ancient ages, free from the whining voices, free from the incessant objections of the responsible ones.

In this new world, it will be abundantly clear that the bare branches of the winter trees are our teachers. In their daily dance of moving here and there, we will see once again the true meaning of our life. In the wind song of their being, we will hear God’s unmistakable voice. We will follow what appears before us – what had once been difficult will now unfold with ease.

~ Hakuin Ekaku

I love this idea from Hakuin Ekaku of being determined to do less to do more. Being me, I’m on an endless quest for stimulation – my mind spins and cycles to the point where some days I feel like a pinball being batted around and never making it into the jackpot slot.

I cherish my still moments, my quiet times to center and breathe and just be. I know that it is precisely in those moments – usually early, before dawn, lit by candlelight and fueled by coffee, that I do my best thinking and find my best self. In these months of darkness and retreat, gazing out at the starkness of my backyard trees, watching the winter birds feast on seed and flit from bare branch to branch, I’m reminded that now is the time to think deeply, to listen, and not to miss the great joys that are right here, right now, in my life.

I’m determined to do less. What are you determined to do this year?

I found this poem on one of my favorite inspirational websites, First Sip.

Jennifer Wolfe

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