Meditative Musings

— a quiet collection of poems, thoughts, and photographs

April 6, 2026

Papaver rhoeas dancing beneath the watchful eye of the Flatirons — Boulder, Colorado

March 23, 2026
Waxing Gibbous

Today my brain wants to do everything, everywhere, all at once.The little being that sits on my shoulder, offering unsolicited commentary and judgment on every action and choice I make, refuses to go home for the night.And I’ve been feeling the slow creep of sadness.The fuzzy gray - sometimes inky black - that dims my senses.The voice that asks:What’s this strange, beautiful, terrible place I find myself in?Where a few feet - or hundreds or thousands of miles - separate those who complain about their alarm clocks or piles of laundry from those who starve or turn over rubble in search of loved ones.Or the sensation of being underwater as I walk home from the gym in the misty rain.Existing inside a snow globe where a thin film of glass separates me from everything else.And I reach out to touch it.And I watch through it as all the little people in their little cars come and go.Every person a son or daughter or sister or brother or mother or father with their jobs and problems and fears and loves and eternities stretching out behind and before them.A few weeks ago, I looked at the moon through my friend’s telescope and it looked like a big round ball of cheese - just like you’d see in a claymation movie.It was a waxing gibbous, its deep craters highlighted by sun-cast shadows. So clear it looked fake.A fake rock, suspended in an endless void - just like our Earth…just like me.But who am I if not the summation of all of my inputs?The continuation of my parents.The amalgamation of cells sustained by the sun and water and plants - and sometimes the flesh of other precious, sentient beings.An intellect shaped by a culture and the consumption of hundreds of books written by others.How does one exist in a world where everything simultaneously matters and doesn’t matter?

What does it mean
if you feel like a foreigner
in your own life?

The tears have gathered.
I feel them pressing, growing heavy,
waiting to tumble over the precipice of my lower eyelashes.To leave their streak marks down my cheeks.To say, hey you, do you see me?Listen, they say ❤️I carry within me pieces of your pain.Will you let me wash you clean?
Will you let me lighten the load of worries you carry?
Or gently hold each shattered dream?Each could’ve and should’ve,
and what if, and how come,
and why do things have to be this way?Because you see, my dear,
I am a vessel for change.The old masters talk of transforming suffering.
The feelings that wound are the same that gift understanding.And from the well that is my source,
a wisdom grows, it swells to overflow,
it reaches out its hand nudging,
“take me.”Can you feel your pain so fully
that it seeps into the cracks and crevices of your being?
That it becomes an irreversible part of your story?Another mark to add
to your collection of scars from a life lived unapologetically.So…Go and feel it all,
and see it unfiltered for what it is —
the truth as your teacher.And then, when you’re done,
let me take it.I’ll swaddle it in a drop of warm salt water
and send it over the precipice
to catch the light on your cheeks
and reflect it back.

The waves roll in, and my mind goes still.
Mama Gaia holds me gently in her palms of sand, and everything becomes so simple.This is all there is.My heart softens, like stones worn smooth by the sea.

Why does the world feel so strange whenever the wind blows?
It’s as if the wind carries with it everything the world has ever known.Ghosts from the past.
The echoes of our ancestors’ cries and laughs,
and the whispers of words left unsaid.And when the wind touches my face,
I swear sometimes I feel I’m carrying it all, too.

Treasure the moment when your personal darkness becomes light —
when you accept it as a necessary, unique part of your life,
and realize that the light you now experience was born from it.

Life's fragility is both terrifying and beautiful.
It's beautiful because it's vulnerable.
It's beautiful because nothing is guaranteed.

Maybe things just happen, and we invent stories about them to make the world seem a little less cruel.