WELCOME TO JENRAY'S CELEBRATIONS

Navajo Indian Prayer

by jenray ^Pro @ 2008-04-19 – 06:30:29

Hi to everybody...I found this on a site about serenity and peace of mind, and thought I'd share it with you...we could all do with a bit of both I think...

A Navajo Indian Prayer

The simplest and most obvious prayer is a request to the Great Spirit that the adversity ends and that one be restored to health. Such prayers often involve "affirmations." There is a considerable psychological literature on the healing power of affirmations. Here is a beautiful Navajo prayer that uses affirmation:

O you who dwell In the house made of the dawn,
In the house made of the evening twilight ...
Where the dark mist curtains the doorway,
The path to which is on the rainbow ...
I have made your sacrifice.
I have prepared a smoke for you.

My feet restore for me.
My limbs restore for me.
My body restore for me.
My mind restore for me.
My voice restore for me.

Today, take away your spell from me.
Away from me you have taken it.
Far Off from me you have taken it.

Happily I recover.
Happily my interior becomes cool.
Happily my eyes regain their power.
Happily my head becomes cool.
Happily my limbs regain their power.
Happily I hear again.
Happily for me the spell is taken Off.

Happily I walk.
Impervious to pain, I walk.
Feeling light within, I walk ...
In beauty I walk.
With beauty before me, I walk.
With beauty behind me, I walk.
With beauty below me, I walk.
With beauty all around me, I walk.

It is finished in beauty.
It is finished in beauty.
It is finished in beauty.

**

Have a good evening and great big hugs to one and all....

Inspiration overload

by jenray ^Pro @ 2008-04-10 – 03:00:07

Hi to everybody...sorry, but got into a writing mode...wrote this this afternoon...

Better days to come.

A whisper in the ear, a heart racing
A memory of something long gone
Stirs once more the thrill of knowing
The sensation of a life embracing
Moment when we were young
And the whole world was ours
For the taking, and joy filled veins
Pulsed with fire and passion.
Did we not think all was possible
In those halcyon days of yore?
When youth hid dangers from eyes
Innocent and naïve, but hopeful
That life would fulfil our dreams
And walk gentle through the days
When we were young and the future
Held up the promise of better days
To come.

Now older and much wiser we see
With eyes grown dim in time
That life was a journey taken
With a bitter pill sweetened
From time to time with honey dew
That put our feet back on the path
So we could start afresh and renew
Our hope that life still held some joy.
With friends to lighten the load
We walked in company for a while
Then in solitude when their paths
Split from ours and we went our way,
And they went theirs, and we found
Ourselves alone and knew this would
Suffice for we had become as one
Hoping that there were better days
To come.

****

Big hugs to one and all....

Three for the price of two

by jenray ^Pro @ 2008-04-10 – 01:58:51

Hi to everybody...a blast from the past here....three for the price of two...HLOL...

Homo Sapiens

Naked apes,
woven from the stars,
Filled with storms and cosmic fire

Walk erect in liberation,
pursuing dreams with myopic eyes.

Gatherers,
hoarding words, wisdom,
And objects for present and future use,

Weave fluid histories, riven
With blood and rites of passage.

Travellers,
bearing heavy loads
Of ancient, buried memories,

Build material worlds, creating
Gods to ease the sting of death.

Seekers,
straining for meaning
Of concealed truths dimly sensed,

Make mysteries, hiding
ignorance behind masks of certainties.

Rulers,
fighting hidden dragons
garbed in fires of hate and fear,

Turn from reason, creating
chaos clothed as justice.

Dreamers,
holding onto visions
of peace, goodwill and love,

Walk softly in the night, hoping
one day sanity will prevail over all.

*****

A New Dawn

Shadowed shades subduing light,
dew dropped webs silken thin,
Silence.
Shrouds of mist cacooning mantle,
night moist leaves sit passive calm,
Stillness.
Sleep laden birds roost feather snug,
daisies rest with folded petals,
Slumber.
Silver Diana drifts on chariot cloud,
Zephyrs caress the moon’s adieu,
Sunrise.
Soft blush of dawn tints pink the grey,
Stirs dormant life to greet Aurora’s rise,
Serenade.
Sweet trills of birds herald morn,
Stars fade with the night’s departure,
Resurrection
Rousing breaths vast and sonorous,
mists melt - petals unfold - trees unfurl,

A new day.

*****

Eye Candy

A sideways glance. A second look.
A face that catches the eye.
A body honed to perfection
makes years drift back in time.

When age makes one invisible,
a glance goes unperceived.
Memories of being noticed
of flirting, dating, a heart
thumping, a passionate kiss,
come flooding back again.
The days when the viewer
chased and won the viewed,
all these have vanished
with the years. Not regretted,
but vaguely missed when
somebody catches the eye
and reminds the heart it’s time
to rest content with simply looking
and then to pass on by, happy
to know the look went unnoticed
so there was no chance of rejection
which also happened in the past
now, thankfully or hopefully, forgotten.

*****

Big hugs to one and all....

A Poem by me

by jenray ^Pro @ 2008-04-09 – 08:03:03

Hi to everybody...a moment of inspiration HLOL...haven't written anything in my poor old Vanillacustard blog for ages...not since I've been feeling physically whacked and emotionally drained...
Not everybody's cup of tea maybe, but it speaks to me....

Creator of worlds.

Time slips away dreamlike into the past
Lost forever moments of consciousness
Making things real that would not exist
Without an act of will to make solid
Something that was but an idea floating
In the netherworld of possible potential
And suddenly is real inside your mind
While outside of it the thing is born
The moment a self beholds the object
And, in observing, fixes it forever
The dance of life in space and time
Endlessly moving in a continuum
Until the end draws nigh and what
Was once a world ceases in the final
Beat of a heart and the last drawn breath
Of a self that came, and saw, and conquered
The odds of ever being born, triumphant
Birth, creator of worlds, lay down now
And rest, your work is done, time to return
The sum of your parts to the cosmic womb
For another life to be born, another world
To be formed, and so it goes on and on and on.

***

Big hugs to one and all, and have a restful night and sweet dreams....

Living Software

by jenray ^Pro @ 2007-10-27 – 01:37:05

Hi to everybody...here's a poem that I wrote a few years ago now, but still like

Living Software

We come as tabla rasa - blank sheet
ready to be written on.
No, not true.
We come encoded - a new recording
of an ancient script.
Data’s issue.
A history engrained - each cell
recalling information.
Neurons sparking.
A mother board wired up - ready
for instruction.
Software’s living tissue.
We are waiting to download - a code
for living from the source.
Potential incarnated.
And we wait in expectation - incoming
data to reach the stars.
Flawed programs.
Flow in never ending streams - corrupting,
limiting the future’s dream.
New programmer’s required.
Before we crash or die - we’re waiting,
we’re waiting, new data please.

****

That's it, my friends...Hope you have a lovely day, great big hugs to one and all...

A Road not Taken

by jenray ^Pro @ 2007-10-22 – 23:49:03

Hi to everybody...I expect my friends who are poetry enthusiasts will know this one but it does strike a chord still in me and I guess in many other readers...

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveller, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--

I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the difference.

****

That's it for now, big hugs to one and all and have a lovely day...

Ancient Dreams

by jenray ^Pro @ 2007-10-19 – 06:01:18

Hi to everybody...here's a poem written a while ago now when I was troubled by what's happening in Israel and the surrounding area...I still am, so nothing's changed sadly...

Ancient Dreams

Israel, the dream of the dispossessed
born of ancient mythical beliefs
of seers, prophets and warrior kings.

A land, desired by wanderers of old,
warned, when history was legend,
make no territory yours but was ignored.

A people, honed by journeys long and tiring,
filled with dreams of being chosen
by a god not seen before, a guide within the fire.

The promises, signed, sealed and delivered,
fulfilled with omens, dreams and sights
carried tribes to where milk and honey flowed.

A dynasty, proclaimed god given right to rule,
in spite of prophetic cries of doom,
and judges gave way to one king over all.

A conqueror, defeated and dispersed the tribes
to scatter far and wide and leave but two,
clinging in despair to their dream of Israel’s land.

A god, conceived of centuries before,
born again in words and tales of founding fathers,
sons, wars and strife laid out a history for life.

A restoration, to rule again their tribal kingdom,
gave hope, but time, and unheeded warnings,
saw the end of golden days as it fell before the Romans.

The diaspora, a journey on an epic scale,
ending with the tribe’s near demise,
saw again Israel rise at a hellish cost for one and all.

The warning, still travels through the aeons of time,
make no territory your own it calls,
but ears are deaf, and eyes blinded to a god long gone.

The struggle, born of usurpation of lands long lost,
sits in paranoid isolation; a tribe of old,
burning with fiery zeal for acceptance and resurrection.

The world, viewing events unfold with mixed emotions,
dumb in the face of horrors constantly recalled,
stands by and waits or helps Armageddon to begin.

*******

That's it, my friends, have a good evening, a restful night, sweet dreams and big hugs to one and all...

The Dogs of War

by jenray ^Pro @ 2007-09-27 – 06:59:22

Hi to everybody....here's one more poem written a while back but unfortunately still relevant....

The Dogs of War

Walking softly blind eyed through time
Woken by warbled song trilling sweet
a moment of joy thrills the heart
and stirs memories of idyllic days.
Dreaming of flower scented paths,
tentative steps tread with care
lest the earth beneath is broken
by feet too heavy to heed the life
beneath and crush the joy of living
from innocent travellers along the way.

Wafting wind, still chill with winter’s end,
brushes faces warmed by sun’s rays
and lights the eyes with newborn spring
to illuminate the budding branches.
Bursting forth, trees and shrubs
bring to birth another year and point
a way once taken when the new
was greeted by dancing feet and led
to sleep in peace as time unfolded
at a natural pace to let the mind find rest.

Willing the earth fecundity and wealth
senses rise to touch, to taste, to feel
matriarchal pride in evolution’s song
as Gaia views her ever fruitful dream.
Clothing her in cosmic garb of every
shape and form she in triumph rose
to celebrate what was, what is, and
what will be if reason pacifies the lust
for power in her myopic tour de force
and stops its rush to conquer all or die.

Standing in the silence of nature’s fear
a distant rumbling startles ears
that hoped to hear the soft patter rain
but caught instead the sound of war.
Nothing makes the mind and heart
prepared for shattered bodies, homes,
ways and worlds as panic spurs
primordial memories to take up arms
and break the will of kin perceived
as foe, and Gaia shudders with each
blow as her issue ride roughshod over all.

Taking a moment to pause for thought,
all things can come to rest and find
a space to let the sunlight in to dusty
corridors of past remembrances.
Gaia holds them fast lest they break free
to slip her grasp and let go the dogs of war,
once needed to survive a harsher day of old,
but no goaler she, just the mother of the earth,
we, and only we, walking now with bloodied
hands through time can still the lust
for war and walk the earth in peace at last.

-------

Big hugs to one and all...

A Poem today

by jenray ^Pro @ 2007-09-24 – 05:30:50

Hi to everybody...just a bit of fun here...not a recent poem but quite like it...

Fruit and Veg

Passion:
bananas, honeydew melons
oranges and smooth avocados.

Lust:
carrots, cucumbers
radishes and sweet potatoes.

Love:
strawberries, peaches
cherries and succulent lichees.

Hate:
onions, garlic
lemons and red hot chillies.

Fun:
okra, kohlrabi
yams and caramel parsnips

Joy:
apples, nectarines
figs and asparagus tips.

When next you shop, ask for this:
a pound of passion, love, fun and joy,
but only half of lust, and leave out hate
except when the recipe demands
a touch of tears, bad breath, sourness
and fire, then use with the utmost care
or it will drive away the other five
leaving your life bereft of pleasure.
You have been warned - use only
in the smallest measure if you dare
so there! It’s a menu for staying alive.

***

Big hugs....

Riders in the Night

by jenray ^Pro @ 2007-09-13 – 06:16:47

Hi to everybody...this is a poem I wrote after 9/11...I meant to put it up on the anniversary but couldn't find it...so putting it up now...

Riders in the Night

It came silently. Borne on the wind.
Taking by surprise naivity ingrained.
Ignorance blasted from minds
fed on local news and trivia - hatred
manifested, a death flight to wake
the dead and destroy smug complacency.
A lethal strike prepared before to shake
foundations to the core and shatter
certainty in one gargantuan blow.
Glass towers, embracing worlds grown
indifferent to pain, outrage and grief,
exploded, imploded and collapsed in
a slow motion agony of slaughter.

It came silently. Borne on the wind.
A change. Psyches born secure,
melted in the heat of hate to manufacture
fear, bewilderment and paranoia.
Power, believed before inviolable,
wavered. Rose in rage to wreak revenge.
Plunging, in blind desire for retribution,
a world into chaos and destruction.
Battles to stem a tide of terror,
stumbling before fanatical belief,
gave birth to a black hole - brought to life
on lies and calculated misinformation.

It came silently. Borne on the wind.
Hate rides the world. Unnoticed, it came.
Here to stay, a spectre, an unwelcome guest
of the rich, the powerful, the affluent
and influential. Gone now the naivity of millions.
Fear of strangers, aliens and foes
makes bedfellows of zealots, warmongers
and fundamentalists. A world trapped
in negative potential - strangles as it
struggles to embrace the change - when
mirror images fell to earth and chaos reigned.