a cooking pot and twisted tales
Thoughts and Tales…A Lifestyle Blog with a Zing.
On days misery eats at me
I listen to classical music,
eating dark chocolate and
chewing the fat on pages
of Pulitzer winning literature,
just in case anyone ever died from misery
and I end up being one of such ‘anyone’
at least I shall be found
keeled over genius stuff and
looking halfway intelligent
©
Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
I feel you and I
have walked this path,
long ago in the past
where precisely, I don’t know.
I see the beaten route
in the trodden soil
and your words touch me
without your knowing it
they echo in my soul
where I know I’ve heard them before.
© Jacqueline
‘PLEASE SEND IN YOUR LINKS.’
Today’s featured blogs are:
A poem full of fire and spirit. Makes me want to stand tall.
This one echoes for many of us. Positive and uplifting
Sonorous and light. If I had the wings of a bird, I would fly free and sit on the clouds.
The words of Woody Guthrie makes you think of home and it matches the empowering poem from Deborah.
The byline of her blog ‘passion for writing ignites my soul’s momentum,’ has a richness to it that’s just a snippet of interesting posts – Tender hearts fall Step in and say hello.
A light, short and lovely read. Here’s my comment below:
A lovely read. The sea carried it back and forth and decided it had had enough of the bottled passenger. I enjoyed this 🙂
What an amazing couple! This is awesome and inspiring. Selfless people like the Geraldi’s don’t come too often in this society of ours. This is the sort of news I like to read. It gives one hope.
Please read
Do step in, explore these blogs and show some love.
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Thank you for your understanding and regards.
Do check out my latest video. It would be worth your while.
I just can’t give up now ‘cos I’ve come too far from where I’m coming from. Nobody told me that the journey would be easy, but believe me when I say it’s been a struggle (to put it mildly).
In recent weeks, my heart hasn’t been in the right place. I’ve struggled to find my sunshine through the dark clouds that it’s been hard to even crack a smile. Should I pretend that all feels well to me?
Should I feign ignorance of the ugliness of what’s going on in the World? Fake the fact that to some people I’m subhuman because I’m black? How easy is that if I may ask?
Let me tell you the truth, I’m not feeling like the sunny child that I am. I feel mad, ugly with deep-rooted anger and so sad. My husband is travelling to the States for some weeks and I’m virtually having palpitations from unreasonable fear, in as much as I keep telling myself to stop with the negative thinking and not to let the enemies of progress steal my peace.
I realize that it’s so easy to drown in the deluge of bad news that constantly hovers and I have to save myself from drowning just yet, if ever at all. I’ve consciously used you, my friends as my crutch, my family, exercise, music, prayers, writing out my anger and tearing it up and then writing my thanks and keeping it before my eyes. These may seem like meaningless acts, but they work. It helps me to keep my thoughts in the right place and to give thanks in everything with a grateful heart and believe me when I say that there’s a lot to give thanks for. To me, my need and state of peace and thankfulness far outweigh all the foolishness out there put together.
Being thankful is a process that releases good thoughts in you. It triggers the positive side of your brain that improves your self-esteem, your mental strength, your psychological health, sense of empathy and so much more.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
If you wish to participate in a gratitude challenge, there are several gratitude/thankful platforms in the blogosphere that you can tune into and get your ithankful going on. I can’t express in words the enormity of Joy and fulfilment that comes from having a heart of gratitude. Please check out Maria’s blog,Colline’s blog and Bernadette’s for thankful/gratitude challenges.
P.S. We’ll be having our monthly blog party 1st – 2nd of October. I’ll keep you posted.
As I spent some early morning moments attempting to reach in deep into the reflection of my inner spirit to draw strength from there, I oscillated between moments of thankfulness and the selfish wants of human nature to ask and want for more.![hands[1]](https://acookingpotandtwistedtales.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/hands1.jpg)
I totally appreciate this Summer time spent with family doing things together without the harried mix of school runs and homework in the mix. I was even persuaded to rejoin Karate Dojo classes despite my debacle several years back and yes, yours truly is inching up to a yellow belt in no time (though I suspect that the Sensei (Trainer) is treating me nice 😉
The beautiful times spent discovering new things and many raucous moments of sibling squabbles and motherly scolds are all cherished, and surprisingly, my grey hairs didn’t multiply in anguish. We are a palette of individualities meshed together to form one loving and sometimes maddening unit and I can’t have it any other way. If truth be told, I hate to see the Summer season fly past in such a hurry – the good side is that the heat will come down a notch as well – all things being equal.
Underlying my state of thankfulness is certain discontent that I can’t disregard but it doesn’t diminish my gratitude for the blessings of these past days. I guess the Oliver Twistish part of me simply wants more of such goodness so I’ll strive to keep enjoying and living fully in the moments that I’m given.
I hope your heart is grateful for something today.
Shalom
P.S: There are several gratitude/thankful platforms in the blogosphere that you can tune into and get your ithankful going on. I can’t express in words the enormity of Joy and fulfilment that comes from having a heart of gratitude. Please check out Maria’s blog, Colline’s blog and Bernadette’s for thankful/gratitude challenges
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Every Tuesday, I share snippets of thoughts that I call ‘My Thinking Corner.’
I would like to invite you to participate. The challenge is quite simple. You can check this link for more details.
![1465884646495[1]](https://acookingpotandtwistedtales.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/14658846464951.jpg)
As you can imagine, like so many people, the recurring events going on around the World leads my mind down the path of ‘tolerance.’
“Tolerance is giving every other human being every right that you claim for yourself.” Robert Ingersoll
“Compassion and tolerance are not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength.” Dalai Lama
When we tolerate each other despite our differences, we give room for peace and life.
Awesome thoughts come your way through these beautiful friends:
Killing each other: this is a thoughtful poem from Rosema filled with unanswered questions that have been dancing in our minds. Please read.
The burden of hate: short truth from Dollops of heedful rambling. Letting go is to rise and live.
I hope that you find these little drops useful now and again. Do check them out and please share snippets of your thoughts with us.
Thanks and blessed be.
© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Below is my first just published Poetry Book “Out of the silent breath” which is available on Amazon and Smashwords.
When you buy my book, you support me in an invaluable manner.
From the very first poem, “Dreams,” this book captivates with passionate and perceptive words. Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha captures a broad expanse of the human experience in this book of richly layered poems.
Mba! No! I have ambivalent feelings towards politicians and politics and refuse to be caught up in all the ambiguous promises that they make with excessive aplomb while in pursuance of their ambitions.
Most times, I feel as though they simply sit in their big leather chairs, ensconced in their chambers where they think up how to ambush citizens with their assemblage of bombastic weapons of word contest, without concrete thoughts on how to achieve these promises and we are left bamboozled into an almost bemused or benumbed state that you begin to see grown men act like idiots.
The answers I would really like is a combination of disambiguated responses that will curb the constant combative state of today’s World that leaves us dumbfounded.
Is that such a cumbersome request? Are others not tired of the crumbs we get handed after they’ve assumed office and everything continues to remain in shambles? I am.
The prompt ‘mb’ that Linda chose to give us this weekend put me in an initial state of imbalance, but it gave me an opportunity to talk about some silent thoughts that have been going through my mind of late. I hope I did justice to her prompt 🙂
My Country of birth is in an economic and political quagmire at present and I recall all the sugar-coated promises made by the present government as they sought to unseat the incumbent President.
Not a single promise has been delivered to the citizenry and as a matter of fact, the State of the Nation is such to give someone sleepless nights and the senseless killings only got worse.
Quick glossary:
Mba – means ‘no’ in Igbo which is my native language.
Below is my first just published Poetry Book “Out of the silent breath” which is available on Amazon and Smashwords.
When you buy my book, you support me in an invaluable manner.
She is amazing at describing love and life in her poems. She creates such beautiful images with her words. Truly, she is a talented writer and I’m so excited to have her poetry book and to continue reading through it.
Cybernetic blonde invited me for the quote challenge and my mind drifted to African proverbs. Thank you, Brenda 🙂![1465108007692[1]](https://acookingpotandtwistedtales.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/14651080076921.jpg)
From time immemorial, proverbs have been used by elders in my place to punctuate and convey important messages during a conversation.
When I was younger and my parents or grandparents spoke in proverbs, idioms, and all the wise words, I barely understood, but as I age, I find them worth ruminating over especially when I find myself in a quandary of thoughts.
“Even the best cooking pot will not produce food when no fire is lit underneath.”
“When building a house and the nail breaks, do you stop building or do you change the nail?”
“If you run after two Hares, you will catch neither.”
These three proverbs above reflect the thoughts that have been going through my mind of late. So let me briefly explain them.
The first is an advice to myself that even though I have all the storyline of my second book known to me until I sit down and flesh it out as I should, those ideas won’t miraculously turn into a book.
The second one has to do with some mind distractions that I’ve been having of late. So many loose ends of things to tie up and I’m using them as an excuse to digress from doing what needs to be done. It’s time to drop that tack and get serious.
Lastly, I remind myself to taper off unnecessary things and concentrate. Running after too many things at once will all make me harried and at the end of the day, nothing would have been achieved.
So, back to tapering off, tacking with the right nails and cooking up those stories.
Do you fancy a whirl at quotes? Indulge 🙂
Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha
Below is my first just published Poetry Book “Out of the silent breath” which is available on Amazon and Smashwords.
When you buy my book, you support me in an invaluable manner.
If I was an arrow, what would I hit?
Would I kill the beast or fall short
Would the string be pulled to guide me straight?
Or would I break in the fall?
If I was a tree where would I stand?
My supports the ground, yet it’s all just sand
My roots grow down to try and keep
Me from falling, into the deep
If I was a song, would I be sung, If I was a story would I be read?
If I follow the line the world chose for me, would I be truly safe and free?
Or when I have my dying breath, would all I trust be for nought
On this earth, I now stand
My path I must choose
The guide I pick will either lead me home
Or torment me when I’m in the deep
If I was a rose, would I be proud
My colours glowing my petals open
Or would I whither and fade away
To join the litter on the ground.
If I was a cloud,
where would I go
would I cause rain, cause the snow
Or in the pushing winds float far away
Until at last I fade
By myself I am weak,
I have no strength inside of me
Its strength in the Lord keeps me going
He’s my bowman, he’s my roots
If I was a rose, I’d chose to open
Displaying his colours for the world to see.
Poetry credit: James Patmore
a cooking pot and twisted tales 