Month 13

This room is right now in development as I consider what makes the most sense for a thirteenth month. I think it’s going to have something to do with looking over one’s material and figuring out the important questions and holding the questions and figuring out the next step. Maybe.

Right now it’s a room—waiting. I think it has bare walls and a window and sometimes light streaming in the window. A contemplative quality if you will. Waiting.

Photo by Anna Maria Horner can be found here. It’s called Bare Canvas

The Buddha’s Last Instruction by Mary Oliver

During a bittersweet week of graduations, watching a whole flock of students move on, my heart full with their moving, I keep coming back to this poem.  Now, only this morning, does it occur to me that the poem describes a kind of graduation speech–a person, in this case Siddhartha Gautama, trying to condense what he learned into a few words. The poem begins this way: “Make of yourself a light,” said the Buddha, before he died. 5 words.  Make of yourself a light. The speaker of Mary Oliver’s...