Category Archives: hope

Third Healing Offering

Original blog post was on 2/24/12.

Essence of Tulip Copyright 2011 Margaret Dubay Mikus

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.)

Song copyright © 2006 by Margaret Dubay Mikus.

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.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2007

From my poetic journal

Fireworks, Copyright 2014, M D Mikus

Read to the End–newly rediscovered poem

Forty-seven years ago May 25 fell on a Saturday (Memorial weekend) and Stephen and I got married at Queen of Peace Church. It was 3 weeks after my graduation from the University of Michigan and 1 week after his first year law school final exams. We were both 22 years old. We were so glad to be together we held onto each other and grinned through most of the ceremony. Even after this pandemic year, that is still true.

Here is a recently rediscovered poem from 21 years ago. When I read it to Stephen he didn’t remember the incident, but really liked the poem, so here it is.

6/29/00

Read to the End

Where can you be?
they are calling
desperate in their way
to find you

in the middle of negotiation
you walked away
stepped out…to where?
Is that when you called

me and left a message
“Talk to you at home”
two hours ago and
you are not home.

Where can you be
run off, run over
leaped off a bridge
into swift green water?

Wandering lost
down familiar, but faint
Chicago city streets?
Sudden flash of “must get out”

sudden loss of stamina
to keep on such a hard
“responsible” course
you set for yourself

thinking your sacrifice
was for us?
Where could you be—
come home to me—and talk

it through, like we always do.
Take this line I throw out to you
hold fast as I pull
you back to the safety of my arms.

**
And now the rest of the story:
You left for a meeting,
an estimate on hail damage,
and came home smiling after.

No danger, no need for worry
who knew? All that energy
wasted except to realize
once again how I love you.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2000

Recently rediscovered from my poetic journal

Cutting our wedding cake, 1974

Margaret and Stephen, Door County, WI

#poem #anniversary #love #poetry #lovepoetry

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

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2020

From my poetic journal.

In This Time of Corona

Ignition by Margaret Dubay Mikus, Copyright 2008

5/31/20

In This Time of Corona

This virus doesn’t have a brain
it does not choose to do anything
cannot decide to attack human beings
It is small, minimal even
its simple components do not determine
its place in the scope of things

Is it even living?
there is debate about that
It doesn’t have a Soul as we would define it
but does have a tiny spark, an energy potential
Whether it comes or goes
survives or thrives depends
on factors outside its control

subject to the whims and whispers
actions and reactions of billions of humans
It will die down, mutate
go and come again
a means to an end
An opportunity for us
to learn more about

what it means to be human.

Margaret Dubay Mikus
© 2020

From my poetic journal. From this tiny virus what have we learned, if anything, about what it means to be human? About our inter-connection with each other? What about our relationship to nature? Thank you for traveling with me on this journey!