Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listen
to the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas,
how peeling potatoes can be a form of prayer. She took
questions on how not to feel lost in the dark
After lunch she distributed worksheets
that covered ways to remember your grandfather’s
voice. Then the class discussed falling asleep
without feeling you had forgotten to do something else—
something important—and how to believe
the house you wake in is your home. This prompted
Mrs. Nelson to draw a chalkboard diagram detailing
how to chant the Psalms during cigarette breaks,
and how not to squirm for sound when your own thoughts
are all you hear; also, that you have enough.
The English lesson was that I am
is a complete sentence.
And just before the afternoon bell, she made the math equation
look easy. The one that proves that hundreds of questions,
and feeling cold, and all those nights spent looking
for whatever it was you lost, and one person
add up to something.
by Brad Aaron Modlin
A couple of days ago I spent a whole day next to the beautiful River Monnow not far from where I live, in the most blissful solitude. These days solitude is something I long for more of, so sitting there by the river I felt myself melting and drinking it all in. When I first set off on my mini retreat I noticed anxiety at play in my chest – Will everything go ok back home? Where am I going? What will I encounter? So, for the first half hour my mind, body and heart were still staccatoing tightly at a high frequency. I found my spot on a tangled mat of roots inches from the flowing water, underneath weeping boughs of alder, and sat. And sat. And sat. And time stood still. I could have remained there indefinitely. The river gurgled and rushed, the sun sparkled and ran dapples across it, a grey wagtail bobbed by and then a kingfisher. Before long I noticed the anxiety had evaporated and I sank into a deep melody of being, staccato tightness gone.
Later I sat underneath a grand oak on a little ledge above the river. Again, I entered a flow allowing my awareness to rest into just being, enveloped in the solace of nature, vitalised by a gentle awe – I just loved the river. At some point a cockerel crowed from a distant farm, its voice carried free into the summer air. There was something about the sound of the cockerel crowing and of really being there to let myself experience it. I realised that over the past bunch of years I had not let this sound into awareness, even if I had supposedly heard it. My mind has been too preoccupied with a thousand and one things. It was as if every cockerel crow I had ever heard was held in a dream within this present one. And the bittersweet thrumming present touched deep into my veins and ran through me to flood my heart. I long to always hear a cockerel crowing in this way, free of the crush of inner and outer ‘stuff.’
In this moving poem I wonder whether Brad Aaron Modlin, a contemporary poet who teaches at the University of Nebraska, Kearney (find out more here), is saying something a bit like what I am trying to convey about my day by the river. There is something about the timeless span of the poem and its precious life lessons, reaching from now to that fourth-grade day and back. And there was something similar in that crow of the cockerel – as if all existence – both the beginning and end of it, had no beginning or end when encapsulated in a moment. It is something about living life mindfully, with humility and with feeling. It is about letting yourself be called towards what has meaning and soul for you. It is about allowing life to teach you of itself – the hard lessons and the good. It is about risking the significance of the moment and following through towards this and letting it be the way you live. And maybe it is about not getting lost in academics, technology, and stuff. And yet it is about getting lost – because we all do, and so finally it is about finding ourselves and each other and the world within an encompassing embrace of presence.
Ps. It’s not long until our next Mindfulness meets Mystical Poetry course begins on the 12th September. Sign up to enjoy the plethora of gifts that being with poetry mindfully has to offer towards living fully and with heart.