New Year's Gifts of Poetry, Enchantment, and Loving Kindness

It is time to send good wishes. For Christmas peace and delight. For New Year blessings. For Hanukah. For all other holidays that people celebrate at this time of the year. Why do we need holidays? Holy Days? To set aside some time and "sanctify" this time with feelings and actions of goodness, forgiveness, loving kindness, delight, child-like wander, joy, and peace, and tranquility of the heart that comes from being at-one with the world, at-one with the time and space of right here, right now.

Of Bliss

I'm burning but I'm not burnt

In agony, but not yet dying

Light streams out of my heart

Filled into overflowing

Sounds of an ancient tongue

Trigger a glimpse of a time

When the rose and the flame are one

Wreath of fire which engulfs me

Dissolving into stillness

A white wave reaches its destiny

The valley brightens

Under a shaft of sunlight

The air is sweetened with flutes

And harps – how obvious,

how delightful! A breath

and music cascade into silence

Love is no father, no mother

But this: perfection

Of all things in all

Feelings collapsed into one

Not a longing, really,

And not satisfaction.

Perfect fulfillment: 

All dreams.

(c) Maja Trochimczyk, 2016, from Into Light

In my Christmas and New Year Wishes for 2017, I quote poems and post pictures of gifts that I'm thankful for, the gifts of art, of poetry, of presence and enlightenment that I received from my friends or found somewhere, somehow.

I was quite surprised that I got a gift from a new poet at our readings, Mr. Yatindra Bhatnagar, a serious man who somehow reminded me of my father in his seriousness, and earnestness, gravitas,  you could say. Here's the poem I received with delight and put on my desk at work:

LIFE

Life is sacrifice, make it,

Life is a reward, take it.

Life is beauty, admire it,

Life is success, desire it.

Life is a dream, conjure it,

Life is a struggle, endure it.

Life is community, reform it,

Life is a duty, perform it.

Life is reality, face it,

Life is love, embrace it.

Life is a battle, fight it,

Life is a path, light it.

Life is a game, play it,

Life is truth, say it.

(c) by Yatindra Bhatnagar.

Lovely, isn't it?  The voice of reason, the call to embrace life in all its complexity and challenges, in truth, reality, beauty and love... Thank you, Yatindra.

Pacific Beach in Ventura (c) by Maja Trochimczyk, 2016 

I was equally delighted when I got a message from my dear friend, a multi-talented poet-artist Toti O'Brien who wrote a short story about creating Sweet Relief, an artwork that now proudly adorns my home. Below is an excerpt from Toti's piece, published as "The Tapestry" in Communion, Issue 6. http://walleahpress.com.au/communion6-Toti-O'Brien.html

Toti O'Brien with Sweet Relief, August 2014,(c) by Maja Trochimczyk

"The inspiration for the painting came in times of fertility and steadiness, when I still was my own master. I conceived it as a mosaic of many squares, something I’d tackle a fragment at the time, then put together at last. From the same fertility a family sprung, while the work was two thirds on its way. The last third reflected my new status: I switched from brushes to needles… matching the mood of nursing and lullabying. The materials I used, thread and cloth, subliminally hinted at blood ties, domesticity." [...]

"I decided to call the piece “Sweet Relief”, when I began the sewing portion… to express my focus: exploring effects on color and form of a barely hinted third dimension. Therefore, I provided no more than a technical definition. Although, those two words were the title of a song I had liked, ten years earlier. I had fallen in love with it, even decided to learn it, listening to the same old tape a disconcerting number of times." [...]

"It took me sixteen years to complete the labor. During that time I was calling. Did relief ever come? I dare say yes. Stitch by stitch, I put it together. With my fading eyes, my ten fingers."

And now, this beautiful piece, that took sixteen years to create, square by square, one after another, is in the central point in my home. I like watching the patterns, repeating, varying, from image to image, abstract, pastel, yet rich beyond belief... Thank you, Toti. 

It is fascinating to me that Toti had the persistence needed to finish the work, to keep adding to it, square by square, year by year. What an amazing project! But what's equally amazing are the blessings we receive. Blessings of patience...

The Gift of Patience

squeeze your eyes tight

raise your face to the sun

see the magic kaleidoscope

of jagged shapes

under your eyelids

the white light heals

the white light erases

the white light sings

a new world into being

a world without torture

a world without shame

a new world

just close your eyes

just wait, do not peek

the grace will come

the grace will come

the white light sings

(c) 2016 by Maja Trochimczyk, from Into Light.

Timeless Ray of Hope (c) by Maja Trochimczyk with text by Kimberly Meredith (thehealingtrilogy.com)

One source of blessings, for me, is the spiritual healer, Kimberly Meredith, who has a simple message, different for everyone, yet the same - forgiveness, love, compassion, living in the light, in love, in the present of grace.... I made an image with her words and hope to see her again. She helps people find their own way to health and happiness.

My way to happiness includes my friends, especially the four  "birds" of the Spiritual Quartet - Lois P. Jones (The Phoenix), Ambika Talwar (The Peacock), Susan Rogers (The Hummingbird) and myself (The Dove of Love, they called me). Once upon a time, the birds went to the forest. To be exact, to the enchanted forest sound-and-light installation at Descanso Gardens in La Canada. Pure magic. Something to remember and be deeply thankful for.

L to R: Maja, Ambika, Lois, and Susan at Descanso Gardens, 2016

There is a field of tulips changing color in waves, the symphony of oaks that play bells and chords modulating when you go around them, the color lights on the fog above water, the circles and spheres of light that change color when you walk from circle to circle,

Path of Light Drops, Maja Trochimczyk

The enchanted ancient forest with thousands of fire flies, the moving shadows on the lilacs, the blue, green and purple trees showing off their contours, the red lanterns reflected in the deep darkness of the water, beneath oak branches and camellia blossoms. Pure magic. With something for kids and something for adults, and stars above our heads, bright, oh so bright...

Give me your hand... by Maja Trochimczyk

This beautiful installation brings the best of technology and nature together. This is THE way to use the recent developments in technology: remote sensors that trigger beautiful sounds from hidden computers and loudspeakers when people dance about the oaks; light projectors and computer controls that move the thousands of fire fly lights on the canopies of redwoods and sycamores, that dance on the surface of the pond, that color the forest with a magic palette of violets and sapphires. 

All to create beauty, thankfulness and gratitude in people's hearts. The tall, majestic trees of Descanso Gardens are beautiful in any weather, any light. They are just that, beauty personified. But the colored lights and sounds add another dimension, playful, and delightful, to the already beautiful, enchanted and enchanting forest - something for children that are four, and children that are sixty four...

Rest with me... by Maja Trochimczyk

And then, I read, and read, and listened. I am on this endless quest to find the truth behind the truth, the core of reality hidden in plain view within our reality here and now. I found bits and pieces already. The Beatles sung about it - Love, Love, Love... It is so obvious and so present that it is so very easy to miss and ignore.

Japanese Garden by Maja Trochimczyk

You have to pause and think, or look at it from a different perspective. Say, the "timeline" of your life.  Can you change this timeline, can you jump to a different reality, a different world? Yes, it is easy, so easy. And you can do it in several steps (thanks to YouTube for posting the video with this inspiration, supposedly channeled from Egyptian deities that lived long ago).

• First Step: Imagine as your goal the timeline of the world of Loving Kindness
• Second Step: Fill your heart and head with the idea and feeling of Loving Kindness to all, everyone and everything, right here, right now
• Third Step: Act with Loving Kindness towards all, everyone and everything, right here, right now, and always
• Fourth Step: Persevere and maintain that mental and emotional state of Loving Kindness regardless of how people respond to you and how you are treated. 

That's it, you are done. 

You have jumped to the timeline of Loving Kindness. You live in Heaven, or rather, Heaven lives in you. 

Remember, the fourth step is the most important. Do not sink into regret, anger, fear, hatred, disgust, despondency, nor anything negative. Do not sink into the quagmire of self-inflicted negativity, neither self-indulgence, nor self-aggrandizement will take you to your destination of Loving Kindness.



Isn't it great? Entering this blessed and blissful world is very easy, having the intention to do it is also easy, what's hard is to keep going, stay in this magic kindgom, and maintain your attitude and feelings of Loving Kindness towards all, everyone and everything in the face of adversity, cold, trouble, mosquitoes that bite your arms, or pesky and annoying people that say nasty things to annoy you.

So I wish everyone to find their own world of Loving Kindness and fill this world with blessings of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control...If all people followed that path we'd have no wars, right? Why don't I start from myself? And end there? Since I cannot change others, only myself?

Loving Kindness is one of the names of God, and if we are made of Loving Kindness, we are simply Divine!  Here's a poem of gratitude for this astounding gift.

Double Delight Rose by Maja Trochimczyk

A Hymn

For the gift of freedom

Praise God's Holy Name

For the new beginning

Thank the One, True Love

For the spring of joy

Sing the purest song

Of Love that was, is

And forever will be in you

With you, all around you

Love the Love

Love the Greatest Love

Praise God's Holy Name —

(C) 2016 by Maja Trochimczyk, from Into Light

So now only one thing remains to be done, to wish all my poetic and artistic and kind and loving friends, warm and happy Holidays and a wonderful New Year!

May your Heart be light as a Feather,

May your Smile be bright as the Sun,

May your Days be sweetened with Laughter,

Happy Holy Days of Loving Kindness and Fun!

Best wishes for the Holiday Season and the New Year 2017!


Maja Trochimczyk

Christmas Wishes with Roses and Ivy

It is that time of the year again. Christmas. The stack of cards waits for my pen and a moment of stillness. Maybe an afternoon on the sunny patio would allow me to reconnect with friends and family? There is so much to do, so many parties to go to. I have to remember not to start thinking of holiday-ing as a chore, one more thing to do when there is no time, no time at all. It is nice to send cards, at least to sign them, if not write something original for every addressee. We are all interconnected through a network of thoughts and affection, but tend to forget about its importance in days filled with the daily business of busy-ness.

I was asked to read some poems at a party and realized that I have not written my annual Christmas poem yet. It came to me in the rain, when I could barely see the road ahead and the sky was heavy with darkness.



Did you know?

Some Christmases are rainy
Tears fall from overcast sky
On lonely crowds in hospitals
And prison yards

Sometimes Christmas is icy
Frozen under the pale moon
Changing faces into lifeless
Shadows at night

Some Christmases are scarlet
And green like fir garlands and hearts
Warmed by barszcz and hot chocolate,
Evenings by the fire

Sometimes Christmas is white
Snowflakes melt on my gloves
The thin wafer of opłatek we break
Shelters us in good wishes

Some Christmases are sparkly
With the tinsel of laughter
Giggling children unwrap gifts
Magic in the morning

My Christmas is golden
Like that first star of Wigilia,
Warm kisses with kompot and kutia
Blessings under the tree

© 2011 by Maja Trochimczyk

I paired this poem with a photo I took this October at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. I liked the open window, looking out through the multitude of shapes and colors onto a simpler, luminous world.



The picture became the cover of my Christmas card, and I paired it with the collage for the poem of "Rosa Mystica" - already posted here, but included below in the image pages. I also reprinted my last year's holiday poem, "Rules for Happy Holy Days" as a reminder about the importance of holidays. This poem was written for my last year's Christmas wishes. These Rules are timeless.



Rules for Happy Holy Days

Don’t play Christmas carols
at the airport. Amidst the roar
of jet engines, they will spread
a blanket of loneliness
over the weary, huddled masses,
trying not to cry out for home.

Don’t put Christmas light on a poplar.
With branches swathed in white
galaxies, under yellow leaves, the tree
will become foreign, like the skeleton
of an electric fish, deep in the ocean.

Clean the windows from the ashes
of last year’s fires. Glue the wings
of a torn paper angel. Brighten
your home with the fresh scent
of pine needles and rosemary.

Take a break from chopping almonds
to brush the cheek of your beloved
with the back of your hand,
just once, gently. Smile and say:
“You look so nice, dear,
you look so nice.”

© 2009 by Maja Trochimczyk



Since the year 2012 is supposed to be the last year of this Earth in existence in its present form, I figured I'll reprint, as a farewell of sorts, the "Apocalypsis" poem written for Easter, as well as some lovely poems that I enjoyed writing and reading this year: "A Jewel Box Sunrise" and "On Mushrooms." Below is the complete card with all the poems I selected to share for the holidays this year.














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Poetry, photos and design (c) 2011 by Maja Trochimczyk

You can print out a little booklet from the .jpg images of the poems, each stretched to a full page 81/2 by 11 in., sideways.

A Season Sparkling with Love

I spent the morning taking pictures of liquid amber leaves and all sorts of other colorful tree leaves or petals that shone in the sun. I love the sparkling beauty of sunlight. The pictures are not ready yet, but I found a poem about fall colors, so here it is.

As everyone knows, November in California is the equivalent of September in Canada, and our fall display of color ends only at Christmas. The first daffodils are coming out already, confused.



The Way

Do you like the poplars?
They line up the streets
cutting across sugar beet fields
on the outskirts of Warsaw
The yellow heart-shaped leaves
tremble in the breeze, glisten
like molten metal after the rain

The California poplars stand straight
and tall, guarding the way
Two fence poles gossip
The fields sparkle with color –
Fuchsia, rusty orange,
Burnt mauve, and bronze

The summer grass is dead
The rocks bruised purple
By the dying sun
Only the sky, blessed by honey,
Shines with the mandarin certainty
Of coming home


Would you like to know everything about everything? How about narrowing the focus and knowing just one thing, right now? Is knowing it all better than loving it all? Or some of it? As far as we can see? Astronomers keep finding clouds of matter further and further away. Billions of years. The seventh-billion human was born recently, or so we heard. Could you love seven billion people, even in theory? Possibly not. The numbers are too overwhelming.

Holidays give us a perfect opportunity to leave billions of people to their own resources, abandon trillions of stars spread across billions of light years to their unimaginable cosmic scale, and to focus on the people we are closest to, those we are connected with either biologically, through genetic links of kinship, or by choice, through that strange thing called "love."

It is probably because I got so completely disconnected from my "kinship network" and the safety of my genetically-predetermined, linguistically-defined environment, that I like writing about love so much. Writing is a substitute for doing, Freud knew that. At one point, I tried to define the various types of love, from desire to acceptance. The word itself is completely overused and extremely hard to put in a poem.

There is no greater love than... Love your neighbor... Do you love me? ... Mommy loves you...I love this necklace... I love turkey?

What does a single person without a single family member nearby do on Thanksgiving or Christmas? Mope around? Try to score an invitation to someone's party? Write? I wake up early and look at the sky above the hills outside my window. I make up memories of non-existent past. They are nicer than the real ones, I'm sure of that.

A Jewel Box Sunrise

Silver cirrus clouds float west
Like shoals of fish in an amethyst sky.
Sun rises over a wintry orchard.
The smooth zeppelin of poetry
Carries me above the tangle of dreams.
I rest, bruised after stumbling
Through twisted roots, broken tree limbs.

Frost grows flowers on window panes.
See how they dance? You nod
Over your morning tea. “You are welcome”
I smile at your questioning gaze.
My grandma’s gold-rimmed china cup
Warms your hands. Steam rises
From the bright topaz liquid.

“Tea flows in your veins, sweets,”
You say, laughing. The helium of words
Fills the skin of the moment.
“Come here” – you wrap
Your arms around my waist.
A kiss of herbal fragrance.
Dawn blossoms into lucid light.

We go outside, stand under
Snow-covered cherry trees.
They sigh and crackle. Their sap
Rises deep beneath the bark.
The white balloons of our breaths
Dissipate through cold air crystals.

I’m glad I waited so long
For my jewel box sunrise.

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The "Jewel Box" poem came from the coldness of an air-conditioned room and being really, and I mean, really bored with an endless meeting. This is why I'm never bored. In transit, on a plane, waiting for a red light - if I find a bit of paper of any kind, I just write, write, write. Is it a better way of spending time than doing anything else, like fretting and complaining? Possibly. The results are here to stay.

Pity the modern chefs of astounding inventiveness; we can never eat twice what they cook. Pity the musicians before the advent of recordings; we could never listen twice to their voices. The notation was, and is, just a skeleton of a music that came to life under their fingers, with the air they breathed.

But pity the poets? We still know the names of Sappho, Dante, Keats. The words change meaning as the river of language flows, like lava, through centuries. The liquid, effervescent stream shifts, evolves, and transforms itself in response to the new landscape it encounters. We translate and re-translate ancient poetic gems into new linguistic guises. Poetry lives, sparkling with love. It is the mirror of the spirit, life itself.



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Photos of public art at Washington Dulles International Airport, and of a palm frond in Sunland, California (C) 2011 by Maja Trochimczyk

Poetry (c) 2011 by Maja Trochimczyk. "The Way" was inspired by a painting "Road Home Olancha" by Trish Shaheen, a part of the Poets on Site project associated with the "Painting My Way" exhibition at APC Gallery in Torrance, September 2011. Published in the Poets on Site anthology, edited by Kathabela Wilson.