Breathe Deep. Breath Slow. – A Mantra (2020 Re-post)

© RedCat

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Breathe deep. Breath slow.

Breathe deep. Breath slow.
Take your time to inward go.

Breathe deep. Breath slow.
Cultivate space to grow.

Breathe deep. Breath slow.
Investigates what lies below.

Breathe deep. Breath slow.
Release all that keeps you low.

Breathe deep. Breath slow.
Accept all there is in the now.

Breathe deep. Breath slow.
Connect to life force flow.

Breathe deep. Breath slow.
Listen to your higher self say so.

Breathe deep. Breath slow.
Learn what wisdom want you to know.

Breathe deep. Breath slow.
Changed awareness new seeds sow.

Breathe deep. Breath slow.
Let the winds of change blow.

Breathe deep. Breath slow.
Trust your soul your path to show.

Breathe deep. Breath slow.
Bathe in inner divine glow.

Breathe deep. Breath slow.
Let the universe its love bestow.

Breathe deep. Breath slow.

© REDCAT

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Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

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Re-post comment:

For tonight’s Wandering the Archives Wednesday.
I’ll share this meditation mantra.
I think of it whenever I feel I need to calm and center myself.
I might not repeat all the lines, but enough repetitions of just
– Breathe deep, breathe slow –
works just as well.

Enjoy!

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Photo by DTS VIDEOS on Pexels.com

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I like repetitions and rhymes. I also like meditation and mantras. :-)
“Breath deep. Breath slow.” – was the first meditation poem I wrote. Which coincides with the first day I started to seriously meditate. Right now I’m thankful for the fact that I managed to make it into a habit before the pandemic started. Without that daily dose of peace and grounding. Without that self-care, I think my depression would have bloomed right now, fueled my the ongoing catastrophe.

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Photo by Magicbowls on Pexels.com

Daily Haibun, August Song (August 5th)

Outside is a cacophony of play. The sound of late summer nights. Insects playing their song.

For some reason it makes me feel a bit melancholic. Like I’m mourning a season not yet gone.

Maybe it’s just fear of the unknown. Trepidation at throwing myself into a new life situation.

There’s also tender hope, the seasons will turn, and I’ll begin to learn. Taking the first steps on a new journey. Sowing the seeds of coming adventures. Part of me can’t wait.

As seasons turn, we

grow and learn, sowing mind seeds

that will sprout next spring.

© RedCat

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Read other Haibun’s written for the monthly dVerse prompt by me here.

Read other Daily Haibun’s here.

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Daily Haibun, June 28th – Change Anxiety

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Life is change. We grow from children to adolescents, and on to adulthood. We grow from young adults, to middle age ones and on to old age if we’re lucky. We change schools and jobs. Homes and hometowns. We might change friends and interests. We change clothes and hair styles.

We change in response to events we have no control over. Loss of loved ones. Accidents and catastrophy. Happenings in the whole wide world.

Yet, change is hard for so many. Even positive change. Leading to worry and anxiety. Ruminations about what could have been or what might happen. The confusing feeling of being adrift, without steady ground.

The last year have been a perplexing mix of change while at the same time standing still. Sheltering from the pandemic. More changes will come when we get back to a new normal. We really should change our behaviour concerning destroying the planet we live on.

I have a day or two left before I have to decide on how much I want my life to change in the coming year. Needless to say, my mind is spinning like crazy, weighing every option.

Seed bud flower wilt
Seasons change eternally
Flow with the changes

© RedCat

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Read other Haibun’s written for the monthly dVerse prompt by me here.

Read other Daily Haibun’s here.

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Seeds – A Quadrille

The artwork Perpetual repercussion by Dyveke Sanne, over the Svalbard Global Seed Vault entrance.
Martyn Smith from London, England, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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Sow love and friendship giving seeds
Uproot energy stealing weeds

Nurture that which creativity breeds
Scale away all that negativity breeds

Grow roots that fulfill your needs
Show thankfulness for caring deeds

Follow paths that to growth leads
Sow hope and dream fostering seeds

©RedCat

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Written for tonight’s Planting Seeds Quadrille prompt at dVerse.

Read other Quadrilles by me here.

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Svalbard Global Seed Vault entrance
Martyn Smith from London, England, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Humans Really Don’t Know (2020 Re-post)

“The Sea Inside”  painting by Samy Charnine

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Humans really don’t know
How life is to stardust souls
Forced to hibernate like bears in snow
Only feeling the truth trough small portholes

Humans really don’t know
How life with an awakened soul
Could lead to a constant flow
Of abundant love through soul’s window

Humans really don’t know
How life led by true purpose of soul
Where gratitude leads to divine inner glow
Calmly transform their minds inner fishbowl

Humans really don’t know
How to manifest all they want via their souls
How to choose lifelong learning and growth
How into spiritual living while in flesh enroll

© REDCAT

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Re-post comment:
Wednesday and time to wander the archives. Since it’s GloPoWriMo 2021 I thought I’d share one of the most read post from April last year. The original was posted 26 April 2020.

Enjoy!

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Written in response to the beautiful and thought inducing painting at Sunday Muse # 105. Made me read up on the symbolism on Koi fish. And they seem to symbolize a whole bunch of good things. Tenacity, Wealth, Abundance, Luck, Courage, Transformation, Uniqueness, Non-conformity, Family Strength and have lots of Buddhist Connotations. (source)
Also linking to Writers’ Pantry #17 , Promote Yourself Monday, April 27, 2020 at Go Dog Go and Open Link Night: We are listening at dVerse.

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Photo by FOX on Pexels.com

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GloPoWriMo 2020

DAY 1 – Build a New Start
DAY 2 – Beloved Bookstore
DAY 3 – Sunshine and Hail
DAY 4 – Isolation Dating
DAY 5 –Staring out a Windowpane
DAY 6 – Casanova Comes Closer
DAY 7 – Swirling Colors of my Mind
DAY 8 – White – Red – Black
DAY 9 – Different World After
DAY 10 – Spring Hay(na)ku
DAY 11 – Love – Hay(na)ku
DAY 12 – Make Art – Triolet inspired
by Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell
DAY 13 – What did you think would happen
to a child left on my doorstep?
DAY 14 – Ballad of the Lost Poet
DAY 15 – Writer’s class – Hay(na)ku
DAY 16 – What is a Nomad without a Tribe?
DAY 17 – Pale Spring, Here Again, Nature Awake
DAY 18 – Spring Day in the Garden
DAY 19 – Close Couplets
DAY 20 – Lost in Love’s First Flush
DAY 21 – She Tasted Like Memory
DAY 22 – Struggling Mind
DAY 23 – Written in the book of dust
DAY 24 – At the end of every week, Friday-Cozy!
DAY 25 – Slip, Crack, Shatter
DAY 26 – Humans Really Don’t Know
DAY 27 – April Rain
DAY 28 – Greeting the Watch Horse
DAY 29 – Letter of Hope
DAY 30 – Witches Walpurgis Night Preparation

Take me up (2020 Re-post)

“Take Me Up”  by Lauren Withrow

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Wandering lost in the foothills of limbo
Hiding a true self
Smothered the life flame

Hair over my eyes
I still see the broken remnants of life
Strewn around

Eons of mist
The heath becomes my bier
Laying my head down in surrender
This is the end

Heaven rent through
Clear light
Bright singing

White doves descend
Messengers from the Goddess
Time is not up
Work yet undone

Binding by the thinnest thread of hope

Wings flap
Carries me aloft
Cooing as they go

Chronicle the plight of Gaia and her children
Connect those that would stand against
Combat complacency
Fight erroneous facts
Enlight through teaching
Delight with words

Don your armour shieldmaiden

Burnished plates of syllabus
Lexical gauntlets
Helmet of fortified poetry

Pick up your pen-sword
Your magic book-cover shield

Prepare for battle

©REDCAT

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Welcome to Wandering the Archives Wednesday! Tonight a poem about nearly giving up, and then finding reasons to fight on. The original post was made 5th January 2020. That feels more like eons ago, than a little more than a year. This “life on hold” due to a pandemic has really done something to the way I perceive time it’s more plastic somehow. Also I find myself talking sometimes like last year didn’t happen at all. And I wonder if I’m the only one doing that?

Enjoy!

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Written for Sunday Muse # 89, also posted to Poets Uniteds new home, Poets and Storytellers United ~ Writers’ Pantry #1: Home Is People.

Solitude and I

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

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Abandoned and abused, I grew to fear you
But in truth, I where reared by you

Bullied as other, ostracized by my peers
Alone with daily jeers, leers and snears
Childhood and adolescence, year after year
Branding me as strange and queer

Yours the only company to keep me near
Convincing me I’m a mere shadow
Not really alive, not supposed to be here

Developed intimate knowledge of all your tiers
As loneliness you have tooth and claws that tear
Lead chains that trust steer
Forged by every untruth spear
Betrayal heart and soul sear
Invisible barriers separating, from those you hold dear

Dark lonely nights your visits I fear
Haunted hours filled with tears
Leaving me hollow and sheer
As pale dawn washes the heavens clear

After becoming a mother, I’ve started to befriend you, we’re
Old pals, whatever the history, that’s clear
Nowadays I even hold our moments dear
Filled with new knowledge, hope and trust
I’ll never again from my own side veer

All that I seek
I can find within my own heart soul sphere

© REDCAT

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This piece where not something I wished to write, but perhaps needed to write, as whatever I thought about the subject solitude – that I express both it and loneliness quite often – got drowned out by this piece rhymes running in loops in my mind.

In the prompt Björn writes;
In today’s situation of social distancing, we all have taken a crash course in loneliness, and when learning to cope. Today I would like you to write about your own experience with how you find strength in solitude or how you still struggle with loneliness.

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Photo by James Wheeler on Pexels.com

Witches Walpurgis Night Preparation

Daniel Gardner [Public domain]

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In preparation for tonight
When we bask in warm firelight
Celebrating the return of spring
Releasing old patterns within
We scrub and clean fresh
House and yard, mind and flesh
So when we light the fire tonight
We offer our old self to the light
Rejuvenating in the energies of spring
Manifesting what we keep deep within
Restarting life afresh
United heart, soul, mind and flesh.

© REDCAT

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Tonight is Beltane, for my three Nordic Witches it’s Walpurgis Night, when finally spring has arrived. Another Christian celebration hiding a much older history. It’s usually also the last cold period before balmier temperatures reach this far north.

I wrote this before reading today’s GloPoWriMo prompt, but no surprised the return of the three lead me directly on prompt with something that returns yearly.

Here you can read more about The Three Witches.

Public domain

GloPoWriMo 2020

DAY 1 – Build a New Start
DAY 2 – Beloved Bookstore
DAY 3 – Sunshine and Hail
DAY 4 – Isolation Dating
DAY 5 –Staring out a Windowpane
DAY 6 – Casanova Comes Closer
DAY 7 – Swirling Colors of my Mind
DAY 8 – White – Red – Black
DAY 9 – Different World After
DAY 10 – Spring Hay(na)ku
DAY 11 – Love – Hay(na)ku
DAY 12 – Make Art – Triolet inspired
by Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell
DAY 13 – What did you think would happen
to a child left on my doorstep?
DAY 14 – Ballad of the Lost Poet
DAY 15 – Writer’s class – Hay(na)ku
DAY 16 – What is a Nomad without a Tribe?
DAY 17 – Pale Spring, Here Again, Nature Awake
DAY 18 – Spring Day in the Garden
DAY 19 – Close Couplets
DAY 20 – Lost in Love’s First Flush
DAY 21 – She Tasted Like Memory
DAY 22 – Struggling Mind
DAY 23 – Written in the book of dust
DAY 24 – At the end of every week, Friday-Cozy!
DAY 25 – Slip, Crack, Shatter
DAY 26 – Humans Really Don’t Know
DAY 27 – April Rain
DAY 28 – Greeting the Watch Horse
DAY 29 – Letter of Hope
DAY 30 – Witches Walpurgis Night Preparation