Tour of the LILIPOH editorial office

Tools of the trade: At LILIPOH we primarily use the AP Style Guide, but keep the Chicago Manual around for trickier issues.


We just repainted the office after eight years! A soft yellow with orange undertones fosters creativity (according to Feng Shui), and a soft sage green was used for trim. According to Feng Shui research, it is good to pair an earth color with a fire color, for grounding (in Feng Shui terms, wood feeds fire).



The desk for associate editor, Kaye Williams.

Books, papers, newsletters, misc office supplies.

Recent issues of LILIPOH are handy near the desk for quick reference.


The LILIPOH archives.

Detachment/Inner Peace

Om with laundry acting as prayer flags

Lately, Chris and I have been discussing the differences and similarities between an experience of “inner peace” and “detachment.” When we find inner peace, if only for a fleeting moment, we are detached. We are neither in the past, nor the future, but feet firmly planted in the present. We require the past to feel a loss, to lament that which has been and we require the future to yearn for what has not yet come to pass, to wish for what we are not, or what the moment isn’t. Detachment has a connotation of less warmth, it speaks of a singularity, where the moniker inner peace feels more pious, more at one with all. Yet by realizing the one in oursleves, we relaize the one in all, and by realizing the unity in all, we are greeted with our true self. Both inner peace and detachment can infuriate another by the sheer non-reactive response, the response that does not seek to please, to perform, to gain, but only to allow. Can one even disagree, without an inner rise, one can shun, love and accept, all from the state of pure detachment? There is an objective choice at play, a freedom of response from one who is married to the moment. The Mother once said, “Freedom from attachment does not mean avoiding all occasion for attachment.” This helped me to see that detachment in the sense of a spiritual aspirant does not mean aloof or cold-hearted. In fact there is a chance for a pure expression when not polluted by what we are attached to—including allowing others to feel the pain to which they are entitled. Nature is not attached, seems to be in a constant state of inner peace, and she does not seem to cry because we are cutting down so many of her trees and soiling the air she breathes--but this does not mean she is not taking action. I learn much from her in that way, I can align my identity with her’s by gazing into the woods, and suddenly, my problems seem to soften.

Winter/ A Two-Part Poem

WINTER

I

Cold bones
bare as winter’s soil
Clenched jaw bone
teeth gnash against teeth
wondering streets
in search of a coat
to soften this icy curse
held in time, a naked
moment no deep
breath can satisfy

Stark trees hide no
embarrassment as they
reach out to touch
neighbors with whom they
share soil water and sunshine,
endure and even hold onto
each icy drop that falls
from the sky

Yesterday came around the
corner, and startled you,
in the middle of this
shivering mess, about to
use up your last match
in an attempt to light the
candle of remembrance
of deliverance
Prayer carried off by some
torrid gust extinguishing
the flame as penitence

You cry, not knowing that
flowers in spring sleep as seeds
in winter


II

Barns filled with hay
Round bales stacked two-high

Bibles on dashboards
Dusty trucks with no tailgates

Trees cover hillsides, impersonal
Passively waiting for signs of green

River makes a sharp turn
Inconspicuous, cows graze bare fields in the bottoms

More gray skies lie ahead
Threatening any cheerful sign of bird's return

Only this cemetery is not silent
One hundred-year-old corpses knocking

On graves, demanding to know
If spring has arrived

—Christy Korrow