If you wish to attend the read around (t’s free, fun, a great way to share, and reading a poem is optional). Note: If you registered already, you do not need to register again, simply use the link sent to you in your confirmation email. Register Here:

Note: Next Read-Around is Thursday, May 25, 2023
at 5:00 PM PST

My Thoughts

Mindfulness is a hot topic these days, another iteration of ancient wisdom packaged in a new pill promising a stairway to heaven. Like cars, all vehicle varietals are designed with the same mission: to get you there. But with mindfulness, unlike cars, “there” is “here.” The operating manual is simple: Do what you’re doing and nothing else. Be present in the present moment. In Mary Oliver’s poem, Mindful, this kind of presence is what we are born for— to look, to listen, to lose ourselves inside this soft world. It seems a contradiction that the act of being mindful is also an act of losing yourself. But it’s true, at least in the sense of losing the the noisy, chattering nuisance that wedges itself between you and the world. Losing yourself allows you to see what you see and hear what you hear directly; to be free of the filters of judgment. In judgement, we reinforce what we already know. But in this state of pure observation, life—the world, everyday moments, and everyday things—become teachers, especially when we meet the world with joy and acclamation. Oh, good scholar, what will you learn today?

Prompt Ideas

  1. Journal or write a poem about everyday delights.

  2. What kinds of experiences leave you like a needle in a haystack of light (whatever that might mean to you)?

  3. Go grand. Use the stem sentence, This is what I was born for— and then write whatever follows.

  4. Journal or write a poem giving instruction in joy and acclamation.

  5. What everyday moments invite what you might call a spiritual experience?

  6. In what way might exceptional experiences actually divorce you from life? In what way might the common, the drab, the ordinary experiences in life actually enliven you?

  7. What might you say to yourself as a student of life. Oh good scholar, I say to myself…

  8. As usual, write about anything else in the poem or in life that inspires you.

  1. Read the poem 

  2. Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you

  3. Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…

  4. Use the selection of prompts in the column on the right

  5. Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…

  6. Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes

Mindful

Every day
   I see or I hear
      something
         that more or less

kills me
   with delight,
      that leaves me
         like a needle

in the haystack
   of light.
      It is what I was born for —
         to look, to listen,

to lose myself
   inside this soft world –-
      to instruct myself
         over and over

in joy
   and acclamation.
         Nor am I talking
            about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
   the very extravagant –
      but of the ordinary,
         the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
   Oh, good scholar,
      I say to myself,
         how can you help

but grow wise
   with such teachings
      as these –
         the untrimmable light

of the world,
   the ocean’s shine,
      the prayers that are made
         out of grass?

Mary Oliver
https://poets.org/poet/mary-oliver