Yesterday, during two of the most precious hours of my week when I go to Women’s group, my psychiatrist had us do a meditation simply exploring a sand dollar. He had us experience it with different senses, and reflect on it in different lights. At one point, he asked us to think about what the first line of a poem about our sand dollar would say. That idea really captured my imagination, and I encircled the sand dollar in my palms as I thought about that. I noticed as I held it that way, that the sand dollar went from a kind of dull, lifeless cold, to a funny heat radiator, magnifying the heat generated by each hand. That’s when the first line of this poem came to me.
What ordinary thing do you see around you today? Do you have the space to contemplate it in its simplicity, even for a few moments? If you do, what do you notice? And if you don’t, what do you notice about what’s going on inside?
I haven’t finished this poem yet. There is a final stanza yet to go. How would you end it?
Hope you have Friday on your mind today! Keep wielding the story! Reach out and share yours with us; we can’t wait to hear from you!!
A Hundred Pennies in the Sand
Heat magnified though shrouded in death
The cold grip of life escaped, yet re-animated in the palms of my still breathing being
Your perfect nothing and imperfect everything draws me into a world captured through childish, delighted eyes
Like me, in life, attachment was everything, and separation the signal of the end. Yet your death destiny makes me wonder
Sunny days and magical moments fill your twilight and the hour of your passing
Smiles and laughter, the draw of your last breath
Unseen in life, you emerged in decay as treasured, a tangible anchor to all that is precious, innocent, and idyllic
No strife after meaning and reason clouded your days, only being
Even still, your time expired to the sound of grand adventures yet to be told
What is it about these hundred pennies in the sand that makes us long to posses them? Gathering them to ourselves and marking them as beyond price?
Holding you to the sun I see the hints of the delicate intricacies of your relic, a puzzling display of beauty obscured in the Minuit.
Even the destruction of your internal underpinnings brings the subtle sound of joy
What wonder do I behold, now that I have grasped you?