THE GREATEST STORY – EVER TOLD

          [Photo Source: National Geographic online images]
  

(14 Feb 2011 -- There is a story behind every action!  A thought behind every deed!  A feeling behind every tear!  A secret behind every smile!  dht)

  

Whence you began the journey there's no return.

Our path gifted by those long since trespassed.

Whilst the compass can be changed with a new dance.

Our rhythms and mysteries within bestowed to other hearts.

What you pass is the archival link of your yesterday to new tomorrows.

Our life holds hostage the greatest story we'll ever tell.

Where's the greatest woe?  It's in the story untold.

[Dorothy Hazel Tarr]

In this offering: What do you notice about the words?  Their meaning?  Sentence structure?  Pairing of Sentences?  First word, middle, or last words of Sentences?  What words could be substituted?  What connection words added for clarity?  What meaning of your own would you assign to these words, phrases, sentences?

 

--------------- OR, Why didn't you just say so!  ---------------

  

Although you cannot change what has gone before, you can rely on the experience of others to assist you in making changes that will alter the direction of your life.  Then, you can pass what you have learned to others, so they can benefit from your life experiences.  The greatest tragedy is when the chain is broken and your life's story is never shared as a gift to the Heart of others.  Just as the words in this photo are being held hostage, so what was learned in your lifetime and the lifetimes that came before you, cannot escape, unless you make the decision to share your life's story.  The greatest tragedy is the story never told.

[Dorothy Hazel Tarr]

To Other Shores

         [Photo Source:   National Geographic internet images]
 

(8 Feb 2011 –   A Prayer:  The day-to-day concerns, problems, despairs — can just get off my shoulders and go somewhere else!  dht)

Where hide the demons of bygone days

What magic hastened their exodus

When domains expanse call

Why answers memory's pall

Fixed gait assures thy place

Though unsure of future's hold

Remote the past behind  

Removes for the beyond

Likely cousins but far displaced

Loves unsung flight follows aloof

Be gone ye demons

Depart to other shores

[Dorothy Hazel Tarr]

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In this offering: What do you notice about the words?  Their meaning?  Sentence structure?  Pairing of Sentences?  First word of Sentences?  What words could be substituted?  What connection words added for clarity?

--------------- OR, Why didn't you just say so! ---------------

Your yesterdays had their ups-and-downs, but this is a new day with new challenges.

When remembering the past, why do you mourn?

Keep yourself 'centered' and 'stay your course', and the rest in the future will take care of itself.

The yesterdays are gone, so let them 'go', so you have room in your 'noodle' to think about today and even your tomorrows.

Your relationships are distant and must be carried on via telephone, US Mail, internet, and/or FACEBOOK.

 [Dorothy Hazel Tarr]

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PHANTOM TRAVELER

            [PHOTO SOURCE: National Geographic online images]

(6 Feb 2011 – The path is solo, the air cold, the bench is empty, and I grow old. dht)

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Where once a familiar and frequent trespasser,

Now a phantom traveler of  'déjà vu'.

Imprints swept clear of seasons' generations.

Lingers nay such tenders of my day.

Forges well the pang of lost venue.

Springs oft the tear of Heart's regret.

Hushes passion of songs unsung.

Transients all the gifts of laughter.

Spirits grow cold as time shifts.

Messages take flight on wings unfurled.

Wary's the soul on roughened path.

Paths grow cold as I grow old.

Journeys ' end and

the dance done.

[Dorothy Hazel Tarr]

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In this offering:  What do you notice about the words?  Their meaning?  Sentence structure?  Pairing of Sentences?  First word, middle, or last words of Sentences?  What words could be substituted?  What connection words added for clarity?  What meaning of your own would you assign to these words, phrases, sentences?

----------- OR, Why didn't you just say so! ------------

In the past, you were often in company with companions and BELOVED ones, but today those people and times spent together are only memories.

What has gone before by your family's many generations, has been forgotten and swept away by time and the inattention of the current generation by their failure to continue traditions and tell the 'Family Stories' so the richness and texture of your family can be passed to future generations.

The warm memories of your life are fleeting.

The regrets of life are deeply imbedded in your Heart.

The tears fall upon the cheek while the Heart despairs.

While the joy of life is within you still, their song must be silenced, for no one wants to share your joy or your life's song.

Laughter is a blessing both rare and precious, and has many benefits to Heart and spirit, but those benefits are temporary, and die if not renewed with more laughter and joy of living.

Your attitude and Heart travel the path of melancholy as the days and years pass by so quickly and you get another year older and deeper in the debt of despair.

There is always communication by FACEBOOK, email, telephone, internet, or whatever, but never face-to-face.

It is so difficult to hold your head up high or keep your chin up, when your life is so hard right now and Hope for the future gone on the wings of time.

Old age is a coffin filled with coldness and limited opportunities; the glass is half-empty or half full.

All too soon, your life will be over and your struggles and despair at a welcome end.

[Dorothy Hazel Tarr]

SYMBIOSITY

[PHOTO SOURCE:  Courtesy of Stephan R Richardson Senior]
 

(6 Feb 2011 –

RECIPROCITY:

There is one word, which may serve as a rule of practice for all one's Life – reciprocity [~Confucius].   

SYMBIOSITY:  

A close relationship where each member Benefits.  [~dht -- My definition—my 'coined word']

And so, a few words paired with a photo courtesy of a friend.)

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Live in symbiosity,

for our reciprocity.

Life's shadow long,

beacons' light gone.

Frailty hinders resolves,

for problems dissolved.

In singular fashion,

destiny does beckon.

Share life's boom,

weather the gloom.

Hold fast to dreaming,

'til final parting. 

Sing loud the lyrics,

for mine own withers.

Fortune rewards the fault,

while drowns the Heart.

Love endurance bound,

by time and interval. 

Where's the mutual,

for our communal.

Grace be the twine,

forever the minds.

Where the rule,

forgiveness' fool.

[Dorothy Hazel Tarr]

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In this offering:

What do you notice about the words?  Their meaning?  Sentence structure?  Pairing of Sentences?  First word, middle, or last words of Sentences?  What words could be substituted?  What connection words added for clarity?  What meaning of your own would you assign to these words, phrases, sentences?

--------------- OR, Why didn't you just say so!  ---------------

The topic is Living together in harmony for each other's Benefit.

The joy in your life may be shadowed with the heavy burdens of yesterday and today, so that the light in your eyes is dimmed.

Your inner strength has been 'taxed' beyond your endurance; and it's so hard to focus and address issues of yesterday, those issues that have resolved themselves, but not to your Benefit.

Fate has a way of getting its own 'way', so why 'fight' the inevitable!

Share your joy with others; what goes-around-comes-around they say, so maybe others will share their joy with you and help you somehow to get through the difficult times in your life.

Don't give up the 'ship' too early; but, keep faith and hope as your close companions, until you at last are laid to rest beneath the flowers!

Put a smile on your face although your Heart is 'bleeding'.

Fate does not recognize the good-bad-or-ugly; those in the 'wrong' may be rewarded and Benefit from their actions-inactions, while you cry your eyes out over the injustice of it all!

The LOVE you hold in your Heart has to be contained, for it must respect the boundaries of time and frequency of contact or respect the limits set by the BELOVED.

Life is not always an equality of give-and-take.

By the grace of God, may we be always connected, if not in body (physical closeness), then hopefully in spirit (long distance or after death).

Where is it written that you have to keep 'turning the other cheek' and forgive transgressions repeatedly—does this make you the 'fool' for trying beyond Hope?

[Dorothy Hazel Tarr]

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson – Dawn and Door

[Photo Source: My photo, my camera, my backyard capturing a fleeting beautiful Dawn.]

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POEM about 'Dawn and Doors'

(Below is a short poem written by my maternal Cousin Emily Elizabeth Dickinson that I first read 5 Feb 2011.  I have a fondness for poetry and prose that use "doors" and "sunrise" for thoughts and feelings.  A door used with sunrise, to me, means 'beginnings'.  Enjoy this short poem, again or for the first time, and let's see what it means to YOU !! Dorothy Hazel Tarr - 2011)

Not knowing when the Dawn will come,

I open every Door,

Or has it Feathers, like a Bird,

Or Billows, like a Shore –

[ Emily Dickinson, Poem # 1619]

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Emily Elizabeth Dickinson -- (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) "The Belle of Amherst", was an American poet.  Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life.  After she studied at the Amherst Academy for seven years in her youth, she spent a short time at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary before returning to her family's house in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Although Dickinson was a prolific private poet, fewer than a dozen of her nearly eighteen hundred poems were published during her lifetime.  The work that was published during her lifetime was usually altered significantly by the publishers to fit the conventional poetic rules of the time.  Dickinson's poems are unique for the era in which she wrote; they contain short lines, typically lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation.  Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality, two recurring topics in letters to her friends.

Although most of her acquaintances were probably aware of Dickinson's writing, it was not until after her death in 1886—when" Vinnie" Lavinia Dickinson Norcross  (1833-1899), Emily's younger sister, discovered her cache of poems—that the breadth of Dickinson's work became apparent.  Her first collection of poetry was published in 1890 by personal acquaintances Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd, both of whom heavily edited the content.  A complete and mostly unaltered collection of her poetry became available for the first time in 1955 when The Poems of Emily Dickinson was published by scholar Thomas H. Johnson.  Despite unfavorable reviews and skepticism of her literary prowess during the late 19th and early 20th century, critics now consider Dickinson to be a major American poet. 

SOURCE:    [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Dickinson  ]

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Tribute to Cousin Emily – A Kindred Spirit

I am honored to share with Emily Dickinson the same many-Great-Grandparents (Moses Payne [1581 England-1643 Massachusetts, USA] and his wife Mary Benison Payne [1585 England-1616 England]); they were my Maternal 9th Great Grandparents and they were Emily's Maternal 6th Great Grandparents.  I feel as a kindred spirit with Emily for we both endured the day-to-day tasks of keeping house while caring for dear ones and making time to pursue songs of our heart.  Emily was an artist and used her genius to write beautiful poems as she used words to weave her thoughts and feelings of nature and life.   

Emily enjoyed the early hours of the day, and wrote many descriptive passages that included imagery of nature, sunrise, birds, and the hopes of what would be revealed in the new dawn.

WHAT THIS POEM sings to my heart

The newest addition to my bookshelf is a book of Emily Dickinson's writings.  It is a wonderful way to spend a few moments in the early hours opening to a random page and letting her poetry flow over my heart as she shares her thoughts on her daily life with poetic observations of time, nature, death, love, hope, society, and dawn.

In this particular poem, I can feel the myriad possibilities and opportunities that are available anew with each sunrise, as a 'new door is opened with the dawn of a new day'.
[Dorothy Hazel Tarr - 2011]

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On the BOOKSHELF – the pages of your life

[PHOTO SOURCE: Google online images]

ON the BOOKSHELF of the TREE of LIFE lay a book bound in sturdy, high quality leather.  I carefully opened it to the title page.  The author was "Waiten Fortue Marrowe" and had been printed in the year of my birth.  A coincidence, I decided, for there certainly was no guidebook in existence to tell me how to live my life.  No step-by-step instruction manual on how to be happy.  No directions to follow along the dark and confusing passages of my life.  No words of wisdom from bygone generations that would hold me high on their shoulders, protected from life's murky waters where hopes and dreams shatter.  No pillars to lean on.  No gentle hands to catch and lift me when I stumble.  No printed lyrics when I forget the song of my soul.  No shade for a wounded heart or sunshine for a gray mood.  OH, but such a book of life could release the chains that bind me, so I could freely search for someplace better, where there are dear ones whose hearts still shine, where together we would find peace and LOVE and end this long abstinence.  CAN'T keep living like this, day after day.  Have to make a change.  Play a new song.  Dance to a new tune.  WELL, after all, maybe there is an ANGEL on my shoulder with a book in her hand – while FATHER time inevitably turns the pages of destiny toward me for all the things that are to come.  Yesterday brought the beginning of my life, tomorrow brings the last chapter, but somewhere in the middle, a page or two from the Book On The Shelf would be so welcome in bridging the gap.
[Dorothy Hazel Tarr - 2011]


COMMENT: "So true ... 'Waiten Fortue Marrowe'.  I'll do it tomorrow; make that apology, exercise more, be kinder, not lose my temper.  We live in "today's" pages and best treat others as if it's the last time we'll see them.  Nothing else matters except other beings, in the final analysis."   (Cheryl V. - 2011)

LOST - Dreams, Hopes, Trust

           

 

[Photo Source: Google online images]

(24 NOV 2010 --   Every year the grief and pain that are my constant companions threaten to overwhelm my Spirit.  Once there was Hope and Trust in my Dreams for a Life full of "Life's" little Joys.  Now no Joys await me, no anticipation, no hopeful future, no Dreams of what will be.  The tears flow as untamed waterworks on my cheeks setting into the fine lines that the winds of time and storms of my Life have set.  Is there time enough to get my emotional bearings again?  Is there time enough to forget?  Is there time enough to forgive?  The gut shuddering cry-sessions these past decades, the day dreams, the nightmares, the minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades – are spent in a well of depression -- with my memories and mementos.  Lost forever are the remnants of Family Life, of marriage, and children.  dht)

How do I find my way now?

I am so "lost" in my grief!

I dwell far too much, on what I have Lost!

My Life has been irrevocably shattered, since I have Lost the ones most Dear to my Heart!

I have been in a day-to-day survival mode for years – decades really – and the only way for me to survive is to just forge ahead and not look into the Past at what Was or Could Have been!

My nocturnal dreams are filled with visions of Life as it was and how it might have been.  At times, my dreams are of a horrendous nightmare that plays out night after night.  And when I try to 'touch' them or connect with them, their substance is Lost, and they become a false reality – a false mirror of Hope.

No healing seems to be taking place.  Lessons learned the hard way tell me to expect nothing from Life or People and to take each day one at a time.

A part of me deep inside, longs for a Family Connection.  I have reached out to my daughter, spouse, and sister at various times in my Life in an attempt to make a connection beyond the superficial and estranged one they shared.

With the absence of my daughter's and spouse's and sister's Love, I Lost my sense of self-worth, my sense of confidence, my sense of identity, of belonging, of family, and have surrendered to a Life of Depression!

My Dreams of a Life filled with Love, Laughter, and Passion are Lost.

Where are the compassion and companions that will listen to my fears, sorrows, and almost everything that is in my Heart – only my "pen" and "journal".

One Life touched by a few -- now Lost.  One Life now but a drop in an ocean of humanity.  One Tear but a drop in an ocean.

[Dorothy Hazel Tarr – 2010]

[Photo Source: Google online images]