Harbor Pilots

Hello from Pennsylvania. I hope you join me in the live. This is Thursday in the QuadraSphere and we are an instantaneous community of like-minded people. We are a tapestry of people, some with opinions that are not similar to the others. but all bringing a colorful thread to this wonderful tapestry of people. And I'm so glad to be here. If you're catching me live, wonderful. If you're catching me on the replay, that's wonderful too. I'm glad to be with you on Thursday, Caregiver Day. Lots of things going on.

I thought I'd start with welcoming all of us to autumn. the season of autumn. I call it flip flops and sweater weather because mornings are crisp and cool, evenings are crisp and cool, afternoons can have some sunshine, and I'm not quite ready to contain my toes in regular shoes for a few weeks anymore. Anyways, so yeah, I live in northwest Pennsylvania right near Lake Erie. I have this beautiful lighthouse overlooking a harbor. It's an art rendering from an artist in Colorado named Diane Barnes and I love it.

Absolutely love this painting. If you know me by now, Speak Wonder is what I call myself in the cadre. I write poetry and I love all things harbors, boats and harbor piloting. Harbor piloting is to me a beautiful word picture, a watery word picture of what we do in the caregiving realm as we sail our loved ones close into safe harbor, into strong mooring where they can have calm and rest and where we can too before we're back out beyond the harbor into the open sea. Harbor pilot is an actual job that brave, courageous people do.

every day in our harbors around the world, sailing out to the incoming vessels and assisting them safely into port. I am invited in early October to a swap party, and in this swap party we get to make something creative and gift it to the others who attend. In return, we receive what they made. I'm making boats. So this is my harbor pilot symbol. This is beach glass right here. And here's another sample of what I'll be bringing to the swap meet. This is driftwood that I found on one of the beaches in Erie.

It's all over this one particular beach, Freeport. And so I put the mast in the sail and everything together for this boat. You like it? Thanks. I show these visual aids because I'm about to read a poem I wrote about words being vessels that are floating in. Junk food, good Thursday morning, afternoon, and the same to you. Yeah. Thank you for what you put in the conversation stream every week. Thank you. Recently, I led a meeting and before we started, I had like a magnetic bulletin board with these leaves put on the board with magnets.

And I said as they came into the room, take what you need. These are one word captures of things we might need. We might need wonder. Take what you need. Perhaps it's empathy. Harbor pilots are sometimes tugboat captains that use their tugboats that helps the ships get out to the ocean. Well said. You have played right into, you have segued into the poem I'll be reading. Thank you. Take what you need. You need a little spunk in your life today. How about understanding? We could all use some of that.

We need to give it, we need to receive it. Here's another one word power punch, generosity. Peace and hope. Take what you need. Words are vessels. I give this essay or poem to you and for you as an encouragement as you sail somebody into safe port or as you bring your tugboat and pull that boat, that ship, that tall ship or that cargo ship out to the ocean. We nudge, we pull, we encourage, we challenge, we comfort, we show up. That's what we do as caregivers. Words are vessels. Words are vessels.

Faithfully, they carry us home. They sail into your waiting, aching heart to soothe, to rejoice, to sustain. Words are container ships loaded with supplies, with life-giving Reinforcements. One word can be an icebreaker. It's prow plowing through the obstinates. Breaking up the bitterness, slicing through generational hostilities. Melting animosity into absolution. Words. Words are tankers. They are steamships, ocean-faring and seaworthy, propelled by good intentions and tender, caring hearts. They are wind jammers, scooting passengers to high adventures or to quiet coves.

Words are tall ships. They are seaworthy, waiting aboard the flagship, dripping with meaning, heavily armed with grace, humility, and delight. A fleet of word vessels follow in its wake, a nimble convoy of support. This mighty fleet is at the ready to shore up your rigging, to alleviate despair, to stand in the gap for your fractured, weary soul or the soul of another. Words are ferry boats inviting you to park and grip the railing and breathe in the salt air, gently delivering you across the waters into a new perspective.

Words are vessels. Choose yours. They can be your very own kayak, light and watertight, singular in the vast blue water spoken tenderly over yourself. Words like try again. I've done enough today. I will stay in this moment. It has something to show me. I am enough. It's okay to lift my paddles out, to allow my hands to relax in the whispering current. It's okay, I'm all right. Words are vessels. Noble, imposing armadas. And yes, sometimes they are sleek, agile catamarans, artful and swift, quiet and stealthy.

and meant singularly for you. They are spoken, wind-driven, imagined, and ethereal. Let's fill our sails with lightness and air and set a course for hearts that need to hear. Words are vessels. A poem by Kathy Joy, yours truly. food says she needs kindness. Yeah. Thank you for listening to my words of what I hope are encouragement for you as you set sail. I love to greet each new day with an expectation, a flurry of hope, anticipation for what surprises might wait. And it's good to be hopeful, it's good to be optimistic, but what might also be waiting in the harbor are unseen rocks and undercurrents, hazards, and quick storms.

We can be prepared for those when we encourage one another with our words. We can start from a place of victory and continue from victory to victory by setting sail next to those who support us, who cheer us on, and who come alongside. I don't know what your caregiver picture is like. It's different from mine. It's as individual as your fingerprint. It's unique to you and it could be a long, long season or a short, intense one. Each of them brings their own challenge and joys, memories, difficulties.

Let's be vessels in each other's lives. Let's be tugboats and not only bring each other into safe port, but manage getting one another out into the open sea where the work awaits. We can do these hard things. with each other. We could do these difficult journeys in community. Words are vessels. Choose yours. Speak them over yourself, over your loved ones, over strangers. I'm glad that I could be here to speak into the quadrosphere and into your heart today. Thank you for what you do as a caregiver, as a human being, as a person who Woke up this morning wherever you are in the world with certain expectations, with a thrill of hope and perhaps some disappointment that came out of nowhere like a rascally trade wind.

We've got you. We've got your back and we'll set sail right next to you. And the seagulls and lighthouses guide us back to shore on solid ground. I think we need to collaborate on a poem or a book. Let's go big. I sign out wishing you peace, wishing you big doses of generosity and heaping helpings of understanding and kindness. See you next week right here.