Personal Growth – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Personal Growth

How Not to Be a Turkey on Thanksgiving Day

Family, Personal Growth, Relationships / tagged Holiday, Thanksgiving / November 27, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

How do you get to Carnegie Hall
Practice Practice Practice

So sip each morn
and eve on plentitude

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

The Turkey Shoot

Farm, Nostalgia, Personal Growth, Ranch Life / November 26, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Small town Saskatchewan
raising money for the curling rink
Targets fifty feet away
and old bent-sight 22’s to shoot
The trick to bringing a turkey home
was not how well at the bullseye shot
but how fast you learned that life
is sometimes
three inches down
and two to the left of where you aim

Masks

Personal Growth / tagged Halloween / October 31, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Jack o lanterns
scowl or smile

Beliefs
deep carved
within their style
never change
through all the night

Impervious to children’s fun
or costumes of the frightest fright

Perspective

Personal Growth, String Too Short To Save / October 30, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Objects in the mirror
are closer than they appear

Subjects in the windshield
can also fool you dear

Photo by Drew Farwell on Unsplash

I Shaman

Personal Growth / tagged Healing, Potential / September 23, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Once again I touch
and pull back from my Shaman self
The thinning veil becomes
once again a curtain and a wall

And what if the wall should fall

Could I face the demands
people might place on me for their healing
– the responsibility for my own
Could I resist using powers for personal gain
breaking the balls of traitorous pals
or poking pins in political dolls

Perhaps I will think about this again tomorrow
for as Scarlet says “Tomorrow is another day”

And tomorrow is Tuesday
and tonight is Monday Night Football

Shaman’s Stick

Audio Recordings, Personal Growth / tagged Healing, Spirituality / September 22, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

When dead Shamans spirits
pick a new Shaman to carry the stick
they always start by making them sick

In every tribe in the natural world
they whisper and press the same old trick
you’re gonna be sick till you pick up the stick
you’re gonna be sick till you pick up the stick

Pick up the stick or your relative’s dead
pick up the stick or you stay in your bed
you’re gonna be sick till you pick up the stick
you’re gonna be sick till you pick up the stick

Life won’t be easy if you pick up the stick
life won’t be easy if you lay down the stick

You can’t teach a dead Shaman any new trick
so most times it pays to just pick up the stick
you’re gonna be sick till you pick up the stick
you heal the sick when you pick up the stick

Sacred Dance

Audio Recordings, Personal Growth, Uncategorized / tagged Africa, Healing / September 21, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The Bushmen of the Kalahari
dance all night in a circle
dance a calf-deep trench in the sand

In a circle around the circle
sit those in need of a healing

And because it is a sacred dance
any dancer at any time may step
out of the dance and do the healing
and then return to the dance again

Knowing without knowing
that everyone is a healer sometimes
everyone needs a healing sometimes

You just keep dancing

Image by kolibri5 from Pixabay

Play

Personal Growth / tagged Depression, Joy, Mid-Life Crisis, serendipity / September 18, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Halfway through our life’s journey
I woke to find myself within a dark wood
- Dante Alighieri The Divine Comedy

Heavy of body and soul
things to do and things undone

Head down and plod of foot
the sands of Santa Monica
at the age of Dante in his dive

What’s this beyond the foam
five dolphins parallel in play

I walk, they pace my pace
I turn they turn with my return

Complete the mile to coax a smile
seven layers Dante upside down

Growing Into It

Audio Recordings, Nostalgia, Personal Growth / August 25, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Remember all those hand-me-ups
all at least two sizes too big
mother bought for you

You look like a clown but don’t dare frown
it’s frugal and wise so don’t roll your eyes

“Be careful, be careful please”
but you’re all elbows and knees

Before they half fit they all look like shit
so it’s back to the store to try it once more
and your behind is behind two sizes again

Childhood patterns are hard to break

Growing out of school, marriage, and every
job I’ve ever had before I really got it
before I was even big enough to fit

Velcro 2

Personal Growth, Relationships / August 10, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Velcro has two sides
and will not stick to shine

A bully walks by
I react like the past is true
while nothing seems to stick to you

Authority with a scowl
withers you to weak knee give
while others smile and let them live

Velcro has two sides
sometimes a loop sometimes a hook

If it sticks and pulls it’s time to look

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