Soul Expressions, Poetry Collection Don and Linda Pendleton

Poetry Collection Linda Pendleton and Don Pendleton is now in Kindle, and in coming months will be in print.

Poetry, A Bridge Between the Physical and Spiritual Worlds.

Poetry is the language of feelings and intuition. As such, it structures the feelings and intuitions of the inner world in a form that can be apprehended by the outer world. Since it uses the mental matrices of emotion, feeling, and intuition, it does not have to conform to any idea of linear logic, which can be the antithesis of spiritual knowingness.

Within this Poetry Collection by Linda and Don Pendleton, you will discover a variety of themes, Life, Love, Family, Angels, and a variety of styles such as rhyme, free verse, narrative, and a few humorous or limerick styles. For the most part, the poems are expressions of ideas, of emotions, without much thought to a specific style or form. Also included are a number of poems inspired and given to Linda by Don after his death.

Don Pendleton (1927-1995) was creator of The Executioner: Mack Bolan Series of action/adventure novels; Joe Copp Private Eye Thrillers; Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective Series; and other novels. He wrote poetry and metaphysical essays for many years. He also wrote nonfiction.

Linda Pendleton has written fiction and nonfiction. Together, Don and Linda wrote the nonfiction books, To Dance With Angels; Whispers From the Soul, the Divine Dance of Consciousness; and the novel, Roulette: The Search for the Sunrise Killer. Linda's novels include Corn Silk Days, Iowa, 1862; Shattered Lens: Catherine Winter, Private Investigator; and The Dawning, a Novel of Mystery and Suspense.

Linda dedicates this book to her family and to young "Heartsongs" poet, Mattie J. T. Stepanek.

Cover design by Judy Bullard

A Friendship: A Kitten And A Crow

Friendship
A friendship
is a special, unique state of being–
an entity readily identified
without resort to vows, spiritual or intellectual,
and without recourse to sacraments, dispensations, or decrees...
A friendship is a private thing.

A friendship is not a casual thing–
nor, indeed, is it a thing at all:
it is an essence–a source of things–
yet more than an idea, much more than a suggestion,
and nothing at all like an inspiration;
a friendship is simply a movement, and a meeting,
and a recognition within pure spirit.

A friendship is a romance without flesh–
a love affair with no affair–
a blending of the best that we may offer one another:
it does not demand, it does not fulfill,
and it does not sustain the members...
But it is there, silent and unassuming,
happy and understanding, always ready for instant use;
and it need not be fed, requires no special shelter,
and is big enough to stretch across any distance.

So, say not farewell to me, my friends:
farewell is a strange word, spoken in an alien tongue,
and having no meaning in the framework
of the feelings we share together.

Say, instead: let’s meet again.

~ Don Pendleton, (1927-1995) Author

© Don Pendleton

This is really incredible that a bird and a cat can bond in this way.

My thanks to Susan Gregg who posted this video on her blog and on Twitter, where I discovered it.

~Linda

Miracles of Poetry, Walt Whitman

“To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the
same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same;
Every spear of grass--the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women,
and all that concerns them,
All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles.”
~Walt Whitman, Miracles

Dr. James Martin Peebles (1822-1922) wrote of his admiration for his contemporary and friend, the influential poet, Walt Whitman (1819-1892) :

“Whitman was literally a giant of soul impulse. There was not a shadow of sham about him. He was innocent of fashion and affectation. ‘I am,’ he said, ‘but an idea–a spirit–a new language for Civilization. What am I but you, and what are you again but this same I, the two halves of a circle in an infinite circle.’”

“Whitman was a child of nature. He loved alike the loneliness of the forest, the surging throngs along Broadway–the shoutings of children by the roadside and the singing of crickets in the gray of evening time. He was equally at home studying a sunset, riding upon the top of an omnibus, among the convicts of a prison, or sitting in a Quaker church. He was an all-around man, shunning the shallows of fashion and daring the roughness of life. His peerless presence was like a dynamo–radiating vigor and health, peace and good will.”

“He wrote of life as he saw it ‘on the road.’ Fame was to him a bubble to be shunned. Thousands admired both his personality and his verse. Some mocked. He heard the taunt–the jeer–the heartless scoff; but not heeding he continued ‘on the road.’ Now better appreciated, he is receiving unstinted praise from this and foreign lands.”

~Linda

Self-Discovery

Today I was introduced to the excellent inspirational poem, The Journey by Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author, Mary Oliver who has published over 25 volumes of poetry and prose. She was born in 1935 in Ohio and studied at Ohio State University and Vassar College. For several years she lived at the home of Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Her book, American Primitive, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984. She traveled widely, giving readings and workshops at various colleges and universities and teaching, and for five years held the Catharine Osgood Foster Chair for Distinguished Teaching at Bennington College, VT. She currently lives in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Her poem for me is about the struggles we face along our journey of self-discovery. It speaks of letting go of things that have constrained us, and moving forward, and this may mean changing such things as relationships or careers. It may mean feeling for the first time and allowing what we have known about ourselves all along to blossom and grow. And in doing so, we reach a much deserved sense of freedom.

It can also be about those who have freed themselves from abuse, but whatever the situation one may have in life, it would be like stepping out of the box, which often may have been confining, suffocating, restrictive, and then delighting in the new found freedom and joy.

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.

~ Mary Oliver
Dream Work
© Copyright 1986 by Mary Oliver

I like her phrase, '“Mend my life," each voice cried.' It reminds me of how often, especially as women, we have been in the position of taking care of everyone else’s life, often at the expense of our own. We might come in last, if we even come in at all. Maybe no inner voice calls out for us, “mend my life.” It is up to the individual to discover his or her voice and in that new found voice say, I have mended my life. I am who I am!

Isn’t the time for self-discovery now? What are you waiting for?

~Linda

Poetry, A Bridge Between the Physical and Spiritual Worlds

Poetry is the language of feelings and intuition. As such, it structures the feelings and intuitions of the inner world in a form that can be apprehended by the outer world. Since it uses the mental matrices of emotion, feeling, and intuition, it does not have to conform to any idea of linear logic, which can be the antithesis of spiritual knowingness.

Poetry is an excellent mechanism to connect the physical and the spiritual world, a bridge between the two, a place where the two can meet. I feel that every search for God or spiritual understanding, is actually a search for the self. We search, I believe, because we all live double lives–one life in the physical world and another in the spiritual world–simultaneously. Our mentality, or what we call our personality, arises from roots in both worlds. We are spiritual beings who are presently experiencing a physical existence and too often we forget that we need to touch that spiritual part of ourselves. Poetry can, indeed, spark that remembrance of who we really are.

Poetry can reveal and evoke a wide range of thoughts and feelings: love, beauty, compassion, joy, mysticism, wisdom, imagination, metaphysics, spirituality, struggles, fears, disappointments –to name only a few. Often a poem is a spiritual or metaphysical flow of words filled with love and inspiration, and is romantic, heartfelt, visionary, and transcendental.

“It is a beautiful belief,
That ever round our head
Are hovering, on viewless wings,

The spirits of the dead.”
~Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896)

~Linda

Beauty of Nature

Over the centuries inspirational writers have penned beautiful poetry and prose regarding nature. It seems that too often our perceptions of the wonder and beauty of nature are somewhat clouded by everyday life and we forget to relish what nature has given us.

Children seem to have an innate curiosity about the wonder and magic of nature, but it seems we move away from that childlike curiosity as we grow. When was the last time you bent down on your knee to examine a tender green sprout that had recently broken through the rich brown soil and wondered how long it would be before it would become a beautiful wildflower? Have you often longed to see the barren winter turn toward early spring and bring forth the deep yellow of daffodils and soft pinks of tree blossoms?

“A light broke in upon my soul—
It was the carol of a bird;
It ceased—and then it came again
The sweetest song ear ever heard.”
Lord Byron (1788-1824)

~Linda