It’s been years… but we’re back, y’all. I’m ready to return to the Kloncke blog.
This will be a home for reflections and conversations that don’t fit so well on Instagram. (And as for Meta, formerly known as Facebook, as of this writing I’ve all but abandoned that platform.)
This revert-to-blogging experiment might work; it might not.
I’m excited to try. And I hope you’ll join me!
Got a few topics simmering that I want to share about, but I also want to ask you: what conversations would you like to have here?
Three Poems to Resume
To reopen, I want to offer three poems that I’ve loved and learned by heart in the intervening years. (“Learned by heart” is a phrase I’ve come to substitute for “memorized,” thanks to my dear friend and poet Rick Benjamin.)
the lesson of the falling leaves
by lucille clifton
the leaves believe
such letting go is love
such love is faith
such faith is grace
such grace is god
i agree with the leaves
widening circles
by Rainer Maria Rilke
translated by Joanna Macy & Anita Barrows
I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.
I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I’ve been circling for thousands of years
and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?
[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]
by e. e. cummings
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is youhere is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars aparti carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
Kloncke 
Yayyyyy I’m excited that you are blogging again! Things I would love to read & exchange about, in no particular order:
* creative imaginings of aspects of living in liberation (whether in tiny moments here and now, or in a future that involves things being different than they are now)
* the practicalities of how we enact police & prison abolition in our day to day lives, including how in conflicts to centre transformation rather than punishment, and how to intervene when harm is happening
* songs you are singing / dancing to and poems you are reading / speaking / singing
* what do you feel inspired by?
* what do you find challenging?
* what you’re learning from being a sex, relationship, and intimacy coach (not sharing anything specific to any individuals, but reflections on what it means to love well)
* groaner puns, Wordle jokes, or other fun & silly word play
* how you’re relating to the garden, salmon, flowers in the neighbourhood, and other stuff local to where you’re living
* being in authentic and joyful relationships across lines of power and privilege that isn’t about trying to bypass or avoid the hard stuff (I love this in our friendship and it helps me believe in it being possible & manifest it more broadly)
* pictures of foster kittens and stories about their antics
* balancing introvert quiet time and connection with other beings
* yummy recipes and other food inspiration
* I’d read pretty much anything you want to talk about because your writing is SO GOOD!
Omg friend, what an exciting and generous list!!! Thank you for these prompts that touch so many personal/political, intellectual/emotional activity zones. I will definitely be referring back to this as I get the blogging motor back up and running again.
So thankful for you, and for our dharma buddy friendship over the years. Love!
And of course anything Dharma related too! That infuses all the rest so much that I didn’t think to say it separately :) love you and hope others post too! I’d love to see other people’s ideas.