Personal Growth – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Personal Growth

That Conversation

Audio Recordings, Personal Growth, Relationships, Travel / tagged Communication, Connection / December 3, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Met in a resort hotel
across the peninsula from Athens
a retired ship owner who had just returned
from speaking at a conference in Delphi
on magic in the modern world

He talked about Delphi having been a library
where people gathered knowledge
before asking the oracle for the spirit side

He said Dorsey and I had to go to Delos and why

He said sometimes you have this conversation
and held his hands about hands-width apart
and sometimes you have this conversation
with hands as far apart as a fisherman’s lie

We had that conversation

This Thanksgiving I sat with John Lee
fellow poet fellow traveler on so many trails

We had that conversation - Hope you have many too

How Not To Be A Turkey On Thanksgiving Day

Audio Recordings, Personal Growth / tagged Gratitude, Thanksgiving / November 23, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

How do you get to Carnegie Hall
Practice Practice Practice

So sip each morn
and even on plentitude

And on the day of gratitude
show up less loud and crude

Balance

Audio Recordings, Personal Growth, Relationships / October 25, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The hope
that people will be kinder
to you than you would be to them

The fear
and there are stories
that they will be far less kind

And what of the rope
you are weaving and walking

The Tragedy of Tragedy

Audio Recordings, News, Personal Growth, Relationships / tagged Democracy, Politics, Tyrants, Vote, Voting, Wisdom / October 21, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

If you have not heard sage Hesiod say

How often have whole cities had to pay
for choosing one who can but evil do

You might have to learn that way too

Selfie

Audio Recordings, Personal Growth / tagged Greeks, Narcissism, Philosophy, Technology / October 20, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Know thyself Socrates said

Might not have meant
from the end of a long stick

Lifelong wisdom search or Click

Why He Didn’t Go To Mary Oliver’s Workshop

Audio Recordings, Personal Growth, Poems about Poetry / tagged Art & Artists, Fear / October 12, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Reasons he didn’t go
to the intimate week-long
with the world famous poet
on an island off New England

What he told himself …

It was expensive
(he had the money)

He had commitments
(easy enough to change)

Difficult to get to
(his travel skills were legend)

What he didn’t tell himself …

He might have to on his return
burn everything he’d ever written

Age and Balance

Audio Recordings, Personal Growth / October 3, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Above the chasm
balancing on the rope of hope
At either end of the balance pole
loss-acceptance
wounds-healing
folly-wisdom
tragedy-compassion
will keep you step by step from falling
though not the rope from breaking

Between a Rock and Becoming One

Audio Recordings, News, Personal Growth / tagged Forgiveness, Genocide, Survival, Terror / October 2, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

A survivor of the Rwandan genocide
whose family did not escape it with him
says you become what you cannot forgive

In these days of new of worlds of woe
we can add a thousand a day to not forgive

Like that man made wise by pain
can we avoid the plaster setting firm
like him find a way to forgive and live again

1 Reply

In Greece

Audio Recordings, Personal Growth, Travel / tagged Atlas, Echo, Illiad, mythology, Narcissus, Odysseus, Odyssey, Sisyphus, Tantalus / September 14, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

In Greece I remember and meet myself everywhere
I am Socrates questioning
I am the athlete striving, the architect planning
the builder building, the potter shaping
the sculptor seeking, the warrior dying
and the poet pointing

In Greece I am all men and all gods as well
and I remember how many times, in this life alone
I have pushed the rock endlessly uphill
carried the world on my shoulders
and had my liver eaten by the savage bird

How many times
I have fallen in love with my own reflection
reached out for the sweet grapes and sweet water to find them moving always beyond my grasp
been forced to echo only what others have said
tied myself to the mast to resist the siren's call

Fought in a thousand wars full out on the open field or sea
or hidden in the belly of a wooden horse

1 Reply

Self Observation

Audio Recordings, Personal Growth, Travel / tagged Reflection / July 21, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Walking a mile
in your own moccasins

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