Archive
A poem for a random Wednesday: “Forgiveness”
So, we all have encounters with others from time to time, more often than not. And sometimes those encounters can go off-kilter; part of being human, part of the ebb and flow of human relationships. The encounters that go ary can create emotional baggage we carry well beyond the actual effect of the interaction.
One of the biggest lessons for me (the biggest is patience) is to let go of emotional baggage. My means to this end is through forgiveness. Here’s a definition I frequently refer to to help with my lesson:
Forgiveness: “a decision to see beyond the limits of another’s personality; to be willing to accept responsibility for your own perceptions and shift them repeatedly and transform yourself from being a helpless victim of your circumstances to being a powerful and loving co-creator of your reality.”
–Robin Casarjian
With this in mind, and with a fresh off-kilter encounter I’m releasing, I offer this:
Forgiveness
Say you are sorry!
I don’t want to.
You need to get beyond this.
Why do I have to?
It was their fault!
Wait a minute.
What role did you play?
They started it.
They called me names!
It hurt my feelings.
Why did they call you names?
What did you do?
I made a mistake.
It was just an oversight.
No harm was intended.
Say you’re sorry for the error.
I did; I feel bad for that.
But I’m only human and
The name calling hurts.
Can you get over it?
Yes.
Say you are sorry!
Sorry!
©2025 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
A poem about friends and time: “Back to the Middle”
We had a Sunday lunch with good friends we hadn’t seen in a while. As conversations flowed through our three hours together, it was as if no time had passed at all. Yes, we caught up with experiences and events, but the meaningful words were about community, togetherness; time had no meaning. As Hafez and Bob Sima’s song puts it: “Our hearts are the oldest of friends”!
I think a lot about time. My little story about good friends picking up together as if there had been no time since our last togetherness tells me that time is mostly meaningless; an invention to help us get to appointments on time, but otherwise mostly empty. We are always, if we truly understand this, in the “middle of time” in every precious moment.
Back to the Middle
We measure time through
Many rhythms and cycles,
From the micro-spin of electrons
To the macro-spin of galaxies,
From the beat of a hummingbird’s wings
To the breath of a humpback whale.
Is there a flow to these cycles of time?
Does the arrow of time vector with no end?
The Universe expands, accelerating
Outward to some unmeasurable future.
Is that time’s destiny
Out beyond the stars?
Sun-cycles measure the seasons;
Moon-cycles measure the tides.
Blood-cycles measure a human life;
Breath-cycles measure all life.
Earth-cycles measure evolutionary epochs;
Solar-cycles measure planetary life.
Cycles within cycles, the rhythm of Consciousness.
What is the beat of Mind? The measure of Wisdom?
If time does not flow is it the end?
Consciousness is all there is, beyond reason.
All time is here, now, in this moment.
We always come back to the middle.
©2025 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
Happy Father’s Day, Dad: A poem for you!
Happy Father’s Day to all Dads! It’s a day to celebrate me: a proud father of three, grandfather of six and great-grandfather of two! And it’s a day to remember as well; I miss my Dad, Vernice. And I miss my father-in-law, Kenn Robertson.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my Dad lately and how much he gave me. This poem is about his greatest gift. Thank you, Dad!
He Set Me Free
He was hard working, dedicated, disciplined;
Ended school after 8 grades, all As:
His dad insisted he go to work
Farming for his uncle.
In war he wanted to serve in the Navy.
They said “no” – color blindness disqualifies.
Farming was essential then too:
The troops needed food.
A Master Electrician apprenticeship came his way.
He had to say “no” – low pay for too long
Wouldn’t put food on the table
For a new, growing family.
He farmed for Uncle, then Dad, then moved
When war was done, to a farm 20 miles
Away with new wife and son:
A rental, shared crops and cattle.
We prospered through hard work and discipline.
Years went by, son joined in the work,
Another son came along. The farm went
For sale; he bought it for his own.
We worked side-by-side, first son and he.
He pulled that son aside one day and said:
“Don’t get stuck on this or any farm.”
He set me free that day!
Ever and always grateful.
©2025 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
About debt; a poem.
Thinking today about the prosperous middle class of my generation: the Boomers. All generations are subject to criticism. But I wonder about how history will look at us. On the surface we have done very well, in general. Where did all the prosperity come from?
We are now looking toward more debt to pay for a giant “gimme” for the wealthy. Who will pay for that?
I spent many wonderful hours with MartÍn Prechtel in his “Bolad’s Kitchen” retreats. He often spoke of the debts we owe to the ancestors, gods and goddesses. We owe our very lives to these forbearers and deities. How can we ever repay them? So, thinking about debt and borrowing from the future this poem came as a token of “payment.”
Borrowing the Future
Pulling back time is an act of greed;
It is an act of utter folly.
Time cannot be bought or sold;
It can only be shared.
Borrowing the future cannot
Repay the debts of the past.
Those debts can never be paid.
Ancestral debts are forgiven with love.
Love of our ancestors is payment forward.
Love and honor for them is partial payment in arears.
Greed dishonors all who have come before;
Only love can flow forward in time.
©2025 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
Tuesday following Memorial Day; a Poem
I wrote this as part of my Morning Pages yesterday, Memorial Day here in the US. It came out as a “prose-poem” but as I keyed it in it feels better in verse form. It is about remembering. It is about freedom. It is about sacrifice but more about living.
Memorial Day
Have the fallen died in vain?
Are we no longer free?
Have we ever been truly free?
Is the “home of the brave and the land of the free”
Just a relic of the past?
Brave or foolhardy?
Free or continuing under the yoke of tyranny?
Here we are again;
Did we ever leave?
Or are these concepts, words, deeds, creeds
Just so much chaff blowing in the winds of change?
The only realm of freedom
Is the inner realm.
If we cannot be free of our tyrannical minds
We can never be free.
Free countries are an illusion.
The outer can throw up a mirage of freedom;
The spoken or sung words can create a sense
Of belonging, power, courage, pride.
None of it is real; none of it is lasting.
It is all fake news.
I am at the threshold of letting it all go.
I choose to focus my mind inward:
The only view of some deeper reality
Hidden from most of us,
Often hidden from me as well.
I know it is there.
I have witnessed it;
I can sometimes catch a glimpse of it.
When I do I am convinced it is
The only “thing” that matters.
This “thing” is the only true Reality
Beyond all other senses of reality.
It is the spark of Light,
Not born,
Never dying,
Here before the beginning,
There after the ending
Which can never come.
It is forever free.
And I hold that spark within me,
As all beings of Light do.
We can never be bound;
We are forever free within this Light.
Memorial Day is this knowing;
It is remembering who we are.
May we all awaken
To this reality
And set ourselves free.
©2025 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
A Happy Friday poem: Fear and Flow
It feels easy to fall into fear these days. In my daily pursuits with people I sense many have fallen, succumbed to the “Mind Killer” as Frank Herbert would name it! I get it: there is a lot out there to drag us kicking and screaming into fear. The corruption, degradation, depravity and lawlessness seem rampant in this “land of the free.”
Approaching Memorial Day weekend and Monday, what are we to “memorialize”? What have the “fallen” sacrificed for? For me I’ll remember to remain free of fear!
Fear and Flow
The river flowing
Has no fear of the sea.
The Moon glowing
Has no fear of the Sun.
He will lose himself
As the sea engulfs him.
She will sink into Him
As she wanes to emptiness.
Hold on to the flow
As it meanders, ebbs floods.
Let go of the fear
It has no power to embrace.
The expansion of Love
Can never be dammed.
The brilliance of Light
Can never be dimmed.
©2025 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
Divine, an inspired poem for the day
Contemplating the meaning of the word, Divine I explored many things that it is not. It’s an easy word to look up, to think about. Words like God, Heaven, Saint, Sage, Mystic, Beyond come to mind. These are not enough. And this poem is not enough. But it’s what I have for today:
Divine
A visit from beyond
A channeled murmur from
Some deeply hidden, unknowable
Dimension out of time.
Inspiration: an inflow
Into openness, acceptance
Trusting to wisdom
To know in time.
The dark mystery of Light
So bright it blinds
So full in demands
An expiration of Love.
It is All, it is Nothing:
Float on the gossamer wing
The insignificant complexity
The extraordinary Presence just here.
©2025 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
A Mid-January Poem
This “fell out” of my “Morning Pages” today as I considered the day and date. It’s basically just a muse about the “real” meaning of time. Not much substance to it, actually; like a breath!
Mid-week, Mid-Month
Mid-week, mid-month, we seem to have traveled fast!
But time is like that – both expanding and contracting,
Just like the breath.
Looking forward it seems to extend out endlessly
Toward the edge of All, into timelessness.
Looking back it all collapses rapidly in a fading,
Forgotten memory – no time.
With a deep inhale the past catches the present
And the events of before blur into now.
With a deep sighing exhale the future fades as well
Into the ever present now.
With another inhale we expand again,
Poised, ready for what lies ahead –
But holding that breath we wonder:
Are we truly ready?
We hold, poised at the pinnacle just before we step
Into the future, exhaling in a rush
To catch up with ourselves.
Whether we step or pause seems not to matter.
Holding to the center is what we have now.
Hold on tight. Weeks, months: only rotations
Of the Earth about the Sun. Weeks expand to seasons,
Cycles return to the start, endless spinning and revolving
Through the Cosmos to arrive just here.
©2025 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
Happy endings, new beginnings! Let’s close 2024 with a poem.
Another year ends, a new one begins. I am going to publish one of my envisioned collections of poetry “one of these days, or years” – maybe this one, 2025! I chose a title years ago, even have collected some samples in a folder. Today’s poem may be one to add to that collection.
Happy 2025!
Rhythms & Cycles
Endings; endless endings!
How can this be?
There can be no endings without
Beginnings.
Beginnings; beginningless beginnings!
This cannot be!
Nothing begins at all with no
Endings.
Do you catch the rhythm here?
There is a beat, a pulse
That must repeat over and over
Again.
Cycles spin, spokes converge,
Emptiness causes the wheel to turn.
Lao Tzu taught the Truth of this
In the beginning.
From the smallest wheel
To the entire Cosmos we turn.
Each breath we take is mirrored
In the All.
There is a rhythm to Consciousness.
How can this be?
There is a cycle to the Cosmos:
Endless beginnings!
©2024 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
Happy? Friday: today’s poem, “Absurdity and Misery”
Rosemary held another Conversation with The Other Side last evening. The theme for everyone was to get creating! Mine from the guides, as it often is, goes like this: “I know you’re a poet, but it feels like there needs to be more of a concentration on that, Richard. No, it won’t happen until you see yourself as a poet first.”
As I was writing my daily (I try to make it daily) pages today, I did attempt to see myself as a poet. This is what I wrote out, thinking as a poet:
Absurdity and Misery
This is going to require more smiling,
More laughter.
It’s going to require looking at
The absurdity of the world,
Of life,
Of the prisons we build
For ourselves,
Then break free of them.
Laughter is the key.
A smile is a beginning:
Smile at yourself in the mirror.
Lighten up, loosen up, free up,
Sing, dance, skip and hop
On the walk.
Think silly thoughts,
Make up crazy rhymes,
Find the joy in everything.
No, this is not about hiding
From the misery;
It’s about looking deeper at it,
Realizing the absurd nature of life.
Yes, there is sadness.
There will always be sadness,
Loss, grief.
But it is all temporary;
All fades away to be replaced
With some things new.
Find the joy in the new
As the old, the sick, the dying fade.
Take the long view.
All is impermanent.
Sadness shifts to gladness
And back again.
Comfort shades to misery
Soon enough,
And fades back again.
See the smile in that.
Smile through the tears.
Shed tears of laughter
At the absurdity.
So much better to see
Laugh lines in the mirror.
Frown lines compound
The misery and bring
Other people down.
Your job is to find the joy,
And share it.
©2024 Richard W. Bredeson. All rights reserved.
Men and The Goddess 