Staying close to home / Always something new to hear / Always something new

When my mind churns up old thoughts that interrupt the joy I feel walking in the woods, I say to my mind, "Tell me something I haven't heard before."

My mind becomes quiet.  It has nothing new to say.  The sounds all around me become exquisitely clear.

This works under all circumstances (-:

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Something made me wonder if I had posted something like this before, and I found this poem I wrote nearly 20 years ago after a group sitting meditation in a local meditation hall and posted here in 2015.  

POEM ABOUT SOMEONE AND SOMETHING NEW

Someone breathing

Someone not alone

Someone walking lonely paths

Someone leaving lonely shelters

Someone finding a lonely ocean

Someone feeling Something New

Thousands of tiny hearts

Within the left side of Someone

Someone's right side perfectly empty

Someone's emptiness graceful as sky

Thousands of tiny hearts

Filling half the emptiness

Something loving the emptiness

Emptiness loving Something

Yes and No becoming simple again

Something New becoming emptiness

Emptiness becoming Something New

Something New and emptiness finding Someone

Someone finding the seasons of a lonely path

Someone finding shelter from a lonely storm

Someone finding a lonely ocean

With Someone sleeping, there was still Something New

Still the emptiness, still a path,

Still a shelter, still an ocean.

And Someone waking up

Feeling sacred hearts everywhere

On paths in and out of time

In shelters from a lonely storm

By the lonely and beloved ocean

Hearts bearing sacred cushions

Of loneliness, emptiness, 

                                               And Something New.