In November, We Receive

As we move from October — Release, to November — Receive, let us focus on everyday inspirations and let us be receptive to gifts, however they may appear to us.

In the act of daily living, it can be difficult to observe the surrounding abundance — to gracefully and consciously receive the blessings that have been given to us. In life’s daily grind, we often forget to realize our wealth, be it monetary or spiritual or are not as appreciative of our friendships, family, and communities as we would like. Often, we forget to recognize the warmth of the sunshine, the soothing quality of the rain, the magic of the fall foliage. This November, traditionally a time of gratitude, let us be inspired by the magnitude of the earth’s bounty, the plethora of the harvest. Let us celebrate the ancient traditions of harvest moons and gatherings in joyous thanksgiving — let us graciously and knowingly receive the gifts that have been bestowed upon our lives.

—Margaret Hoff

Receive Healing Through Giving

Healing The Mare

Just days after the vet came,
after the steroids that took
the fire out of the festering
sores—out of the flesh that in
the heat took the stings too
seriously and swelled into great
welts, wore thin and wept, calling
more loudly out to the green-
headed flies—I bath you
and see your coat returning,
your deep force surfacing in a
new layer of hide: black wax
alive against weather and flies.

But this morning, misshapen
still, you look like an effigy,
something rudely made, something
made to be buffeted, or like
an old comforter—are they both
one in the end? So both a child

and a mother, with my sponge and
my bucket, I come to anoint, to
anneal the still weeping, to croon
to you baby poor baby for the sake
of the song, to polish you up,
for the sake of the touch, to a shine.
As I soothe you I surprise wounds
of my own this long time unmothered.
As you stand, scathed and scabbed,
with your head up, I swab. As you
press, I lean into my own loving
touch, for which no wound
is too ugly.

—Linda McCarriston

Be Open to Receive Wisdom

Axe Handles

One afternoon the last week in April
Showing Kai how to throw a hatchet
One-half turn and it sticks in a stump.
He recalls the hatchet-head
Without a handle, in the shop
And go gets it, and wants it for his own.
A broken-off axe handle behind the door
Is long enough for a hatchet,
We cut it to length and take it
With the hatchet head
And working hatchet, to the wood block.
There I begin to shape the old handle
With the hatchet, and the phrase
First learned from Ezra Pound
Rings in my ears!
“When making an axe handle
the pattern is not far off.”
And I say this to Kai
“Look: We'll shape the handle
By checking the handle
Of the axe we cut with-”
And he sees. And I hear it again:
It's in Lu Ji's Wen Fu, fourth century
A.D. “Essay on Literature”-in the
Preface: “In making the handle
Of an axe
By cutting wood with an axe
The model is indeed near at hand.-”
My teacher Shih-hsiang Chen
Translated that and taught it years ago
And I see: Pound was an axe,
Chen was an axe, I am an axe
And my son a handle, soon
To be shaping again, model
And tool, craft of culture,
How we go on.
—Gary Snyder