Category Archives: healing

The Kind of Silk Parachutes Are Made Of

2/9/17

The Kind of Silk Parachutes Are Made Of

(After Crystal, Peter Mulvey, Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Love is not reserved
for those deemed deserving
the few familiar inner circle

Love is the necessary antidote
to pervasive poisonous fear
let the shadows

be brought to the light
Fear cannot neutralize fear
only love can do that

not the mushiness
of pop culture love
but the surprising strength

of love-silk, each energy fiber
made and woven
by determined due diligence

the healing of tenderness
Love is power, not force
seeing the best in

and holding that sacred space
with hope, but not expectation
Not the dark pull of what is happening

But…
who are you in relation to this?
What are your choices?

Can you take 1 minute and send
to our White House
glitter sprinkles of love

a blizzard of love
At first they evaporate like
snowflakes on a hot July sidewalk

but persist—even a little bit
added to millions of bits
can cover in love as a blanket

“only love in, only love out.”
It takes so little to try it
and keep on…love as a radical act

of resistance
of resilience
of resolution
of revolution
of resurrection

Margaret Dubay Mikus
(c) 2017

From my poetic journal.
Published in Journal of Modern Poetry, vol. 21, “Dear Mr. President,” 2018

Third Healing Offering

Original blog post was on 2/24/12.

I would like to share my healing song, “Prayer of Lovingkindness,” which I wrote in 1996. When I read the first three stanzas below, I heard music. This was not usual for me, so I paid attention. I sat at my piano and figured out the notes I had heard. Years later, I was doing healing work with Susi Roos, NP, and she suggested adding on the second part to the song using present tense. It seemed very powerful together–and peaceful. Although originally shy about singing on my own, I’ve now sung “Prayer of Lovingkindness” at workshops, funerals, healing services, and in the surgical suite with my medical team before cancer surgery at a major Chicago teaching hospital (a story for another day). Read, listen, and sing along with my CD, Full Blooming: Selections from a Poetic Journal (track # 59). Please share.

Prayer of Lovingkindness

(music by Margaret Dubay Mikus)

The asking:

May I be at peace.
May my heart remain open.
May I awaken to the light of my own true nature.
May I be healed.
May I be a source of healing for all beings.

May you be at peace
May your heart remain open.
May you awaken to the light of your own true nature.
May you be healed.
May you be a source of healing for all beings.

May we be at peace.
May our hearts remain open.
May we awaken to the light of our own true nature.
May we be healed.
May we be a source of healing for all beings.

The answering:

I am at peace.
My heart remains open.
I am awake to the light of my own true nature.
I am healed.
I am a source of healing for all beings.

You are at peace
Your heart remains open.
You are awake to the light of your own true nature.
You are healed.
You are a source of healing for all beings.

We are at peace.
Our hearts remain open.
We are awake to the light of our own true nature.
We are healed.
We are a source of healing for all beings.

And so healing ripples out from you like a stone skipped on a clear pond.

Words adapted from the Buddhist metta (lovingkindness) meditation, (originally I read it in Pocketful of Miracles by Joan Borysenko, Ph.D.)

Recorded on Full Blooming: Selections from a Poetic Journal, (2007), track # 59. Sing along.

Please share!

Love and Only Love

This poem has been in my head lately as a reminder that no matter what struggles are going on with my body, to send it love. It is doing its best. A good way to start a new year.

Love and Only Love

Love with every stroke of the shaver,
with every lather of soap, slather of lotion, love.

Not impatience, not frustration, not disgust
at varicose veins, sags, wrinkles, scars,

but love,
with every look, every caress

at the power, the strength,
the beauty of this body in my care.

Love with every glance in the mirror
every wry smile, every tear.

Love, love and only love.
Yes, other thoughts slip in,

let them slip out,
no recrimination, no justification.

Love with every stroke,
healing in my touch, breath

and blink of an eye.
Love, love and only love.

From my poetic journal

Later Looking Back

3/22/20

Later Looking Back

Good will come of this
you will see, not now but later
looking back after this crisis is over

While the old life is crumbling away
it feels like loss, and the unknown overwhelms
the usual complacency. But

at some point farther than this minute
the future is playing out in all its
various possible strands to weave

And as we choose, we create
we become aware, more or less
of the ongoing co-creative process

Some will settle in, take the pill back
to previous unconscious oblivion
but some will stay completely open

And that may be enough

From my poetic journal.

After Midge and Catching Up on the News

After Midge and
Catching Up on the News

Every day now
an endurance test
how much can I stand
before I fall
Despair though understandable
is not my friend
No going back to then
ahead the only direction
what we do with
what was broken
maybe always has been
To know enough
but not too much
to buckle the knees in sorrow
unrelenting, unresisting
No, I say again, No
I did not come for this
I did not endure up to now
for this
yet here we are
and yes we did.

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