Kathy Bresler
- Aug 15, 2023
- 3 min read

Consciousness Concierge Volume 14

Updated: Oct 4, 2023

For the first edition of ALTAR Adventure Club, a small but mighty group of us gathered for indoor Picnic and Poetry. Tracy Levy and I brought our favorite poems to the table, literally, and everyone chose two at random to co-create our poetry “menu” which we then took turns reading and relishing. We reveled in a flowing conversation that connected one poem to the next, and one woman to the next, like a string of pearls. It was a delicious experience in so many ways, and I’m still buzzing with the many flavors of the experience.

Poetry means so much to me that it’s almost hard to describe. Poems explain myself to me: lovingly, gently, surprisingly, shockingly, and every other way. I've been wanting to create a regular poetry gathering for a while, and I think we’ve finally landed on the formula. I’m happy to announce that we’ll be offering Potluck Poetry once a month going forward to continue this beautiful practice of sharing and savoring in the round. I look forward to that tremendously. But for now, I want to offer you a virtual version of Picnic and Poetry... to recreate the magic of it as a digital adventure for all of you who couldn’t be there in person.

Below, you’ll find a sort of smorgasbord in the form of poems paired with SoulCollage® images that came to mind as I read them. I’ve plucked some juicy lines for you to savor and encourage you to click on any of the links if you’d like a further taste (or to devour the whole poem). I’ve linked to the poet reading the work wherever possible.

I hope you enjoy this feast for the mind, heart, and soul.

Love,

Kathy

This was originally sent to our Consciousness Concierge subscribers on August 12th, 2023. Want to receive each carefully curated volume straight to your inbox? Sign up for the list here.

The Facts of Life by Pádraig Ó Tuama

That life is real and if you can survive it, well, survive it well with love and art and meaning given where meaning’s scarce.

soulcollage card featuring a crying baby, doorway with silhouetted couple in the background and a young girl looking through the door

The Quiet Machine by Ada Limon

I’m learning so many different ways to be quiet…

soulcollage card featuring a dark haired woman with ornate wallpaper over her face. an image of a woman from behind is in foreground

What We Build by Sarah Kay

I spend most of my time wondering if I should be somewhere else.

So instead, I have learned to shape the words thank you with my first breath each morning, my last breath every night.

soulcollage card featuring a woman walking down a winding road and a distorted image of a jogging woman with a barbie doll head

Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things – For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

soulcollage card featuring grass in front of a blue sky, with a man painting pink clouds in the sky legs with pink rainboots stick out of the grass. a child with binoculars looks out to the foreground

Enough by David Whyte

Enough. These few words are enough. If not these words, this breath. If not this breath, this sitting here. This opening to the life we have refused again and again until now.

Until now.

soulcollage card featuring a watercolor background and a gold eastern religious statue in the foreground

On Children by Kahlil Gibran

You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

soulcollage card featuring a long hallway made of purple and pink glass. at the end of the hallway, a doorway into a yellow room is open with a woman and young child holding hands

The Lanyard by Billy Collins

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart, strong legs, bones and teeth, and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered, and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp. And here, I wish to say to her now, is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,