FEVER [8.31.17]

This beautiful earth is burning up

Sweating like a body afflicted with a rolling fever

Dizzy, sweating, shivering in hopes of killing off the intruder

Symptoms tell a story – first gently and then with ever increasing

URGENCY

Attempting to gain the attention of the world outside the boundaries of form

Just as the body can shake you awake in the night in a cold sweat coursing rivers

Signaling that something is WRONG here

Take ACTION

DO something

The beautiful Earth is burning up

And we are not listening

She has a fever and is in desperate need of care

But we are oblivious

She is sick and cries out for us in the night

But we do not hear her weep

We are not listening

Because we are the illness that afflicts her

BARE [8.30.17]

 

In these new days, I wear my bare skin like a QUEEN

Clad in the finest of everything the EARTH has to offer.

 

Because -- in TRUTH -- that is exactly what I am.

 

The walking, living, breathing SUM of all that is,

Reflected for a passing INSTANT in the eye of God.

 

PERFECT

Strong

WILD

Royal

FREE

 

The Great Beyond... [8.29.17]

Run run, my Beloved DREAMER
Awash in silk -- hair flying -- helm trailing

Lit up from with the deepest all-consuming JOY
Brow kissed with the hot, hard-earned dew
Of a thousand lifetimes of EARNEST PURSUIT

Run run, my Beloved SEEKER
Run now with all that you have

While you still have TIME

Time FREE
To find your own HEART deep in the thicket

Tucked away from this hardened hurried world
Hidden down under it all with the FORGOTTEN FRUIT
Of a thousand brambles and countless thorns

Time HERE
To collect your people one by one

PRECIOUS TRAVELERS
Forgotten friends
As fast as you can
From the far flung corners of this VERDANT STAR

Time LEFT
To remember them
AND FEEL YOUR SOUL SMILE IN RECOGNITION
To grab hold of their hands
FORMING A CHAIN AGAINST THE DARK
Of all this hurting world
ALIGHT now, ALIVE now
AWASH WITH LOVE

Time AWAKE
To figure out how to meet up again
On the next trip you take around the SUN
HOW and WHERE you will FIND THEM here

What will RECOGNITION be for you?
More CERTAIN SIGNS make for less WASTED TIME
Faster and faster you will FLY with each rebirth

Run run, my Beloved WARRIOR
Wake up, seek out, remember, connect
To RETURN to where you left off
To get there as quickly as you can

No time to WASTE
You are at it again

Bare feet on cold certain soil
Legs burning, blood pumping
Seeking, beginning, believing

RUNNING out against the INEVITABILITY of TIME
While TRUSTING the UNDENIABLE TRUTH of DESTINY RISING

LIFETIME upon LIFETIME
Up the chain of KARMA
LESSONS flying like SPARKS under the WHEELS
Rubber meeting Road

SOULS
RETURNING
Seeking
Making
 Churning
BURNING

LIGHT
ONLY Light
ALWAYS Light

YOU
I
ME
US
WE

BELOVED
DIVINE
Unfolded
UNFOLDING

Beyond the HORIZON
And just under the VEIL

Duck the curtain like the velvet rope that curves
Like a serpent there before the line
WAITING

It is just inside down the stairs
The rich DARKNESS thick with ENERGY
Like the RESTLESS BEAT of Saturday Seekers

VIBRANT
Vibrate
Relentless
Driven
VITAL

UNDENIABLY
Purely
Viscerally
ALIVE

Run run, my Beloved FRIEND
Find them quickly now
Grab their hands
HOLD TIGHT
Hands locked in wrists like knots
In the thick rope of ships sailing

RUN INTO THE NIGHT

Find the loose corner of your CONSCIOUSNESS
And all together surge against it
Like a high stakes game COSMIC tug-of-war

Until it gives way and you can duck down
-- bringing a finger to your lips --
Shhhhh.... 

Before you DISAPPEAR
INTO the UNIMAGINABLY BEAUTY
Of the GREAT BEYOND

Guarded and Guided... [8.10.17]

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We are all guarded and guided.

Beyond measure or qualification.

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Unquestionable. Certain. Definite. Truth.  As undeniable a force in our lives as gravity.
Or the changing or the seasons.  Or the ebb and flow of the seas or an ever-shifting moon.

There is never a moment when we are alone.

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Never a time or a season when guidance is not readily available to us.

It is what we all seek on some level and yet we so often get it wrong somehow. We look without rather than within for the answer, the teacher, the lesson, the lover, the symbol, the secret, the friend.

When in truth all that we most need is within us.

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Connected.

Pure.

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The wisdom within is available to us with each and every breath we take.  Unhindered by the passage of seemingly leaden seconds and the blinding blur of years that have been and those yet to be.

We scurry and hurry and bustle and worry our lives away.

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We miss the moment.

And in it we lose the opportunity to hear ourselves.

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To seek one's own counsel alone is the most powerful, terrifying, liberating, life-affirming, sacred, gut-wrenching task that can be undertaken during these human lifetimes that we lead.

In the instant we choose to rely on ourselves alone -- and to trust and live out the wisdom our of heart and to honor and commit to the deepest truth of our soul -- we are laid bare and everything shifts.

*

*

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We have nowhere to hide. We have no one to blame.

We seek no more advice and spread no more fear. Gossip and dishonesty and pretense fall away.

Raining down like tin pennies on smooth marble. 

The sound they make is without the resounding weight of something meaningful or robust.  

A flat clink rather than a clear metallic ping.

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They fall away.

People fall away.

So much falls away.

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We are reborn. We begin again. We are new.

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We are like the wise old trees that wiggle their toes way down deep in the water table and sigh.

Unperturbed by the cycles of life unfolding far above them because they know beyond all doubt that they are nourished and held gently by a loving Earth. They are rooted and will not fall. The wind is no longer an enemy, but the whispered song of a beloved kindred soul. The rain is not a threat, but a jubilant celebration of the rich gifts of heavens falling. Those who pass through the woods walk among them like pilgrims.

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Reverent.

Reverence.

Reverberate.

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Nothing will ever be the same once you know your depths.  

After you have knelt at your inner waters and bowed down before your all-knowing teacher.

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You are a lone spark of divinity incarnate.

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You are a star walking.  

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You are more than worthy.

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You are pure Light.

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Wake up.

Remember.

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Root.

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Become.

Begin.

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Arrival [6.18.17]

I have found that if I cannot ever get really truly fully quiet, 

Then I cannot really truly fully think.  A modern peril. 

That of arrival. Yet never arriving. Anywhere. 

Silence. Stillness. Are so important. 

They return you to yourself, 

And let you breathe.  

Ours to keep... [3.28.17]

When we remember clearly that we are all just passing through,
It makes it a lot easier to relax our grip on the specifics of life.

None of it is ever ours to keep.
No matter how hard we might cling to it.

If you can sit with that fully there is a certain ease that opens up.
You relax as your heart teaches you to appreciate everything,
Like it is both the first and the last time you will ever see it again.

Because it is.

This moment is the only one of its kind.

Be it funny or joyous or dark or mundane and anywhere in between.
It will soon roll onto the next.  The march of time as relentless as ever. 

Better to wake up to the miracle of it all

 – the whole glorious mess –
Before – it too – is no longer

Ours to keep.

The messenger... [3.25.17]

What if pain is a messenger?
What if instead of running from it, or seeking to ignore it,
Or to somehow outsmart it, or to numb or drug it away,
We invited it in to sit beside us at the hearth and rest?
Asked it to stay a while and tell us stories.

What if pain is a messenger?
What if we were able stay still with it and listen?
Really, truly, fully listen for once in a long while.
Listen to the lessons that it brought to share.
What if we could linger with calm acceptance,
In the hollows and valleys and furrows,
That it carves into our days?
Sitting with that particular texture.
The raw quality of presence it demands of us.

What if pain is a messenger?
Can you sit quietly with it and listen?
Curl up at its feet like a child at story time.
And find the wonder in its words softly falling?
What could you learn about yourself if you did?
If you were able to rest here in the stillness,
And the silence and the discomfort of now.
Humbled by the your own fragile humanity.

What is pain is a messenger?
Its near silent voice nestled close to your heart.  Both subtle and fleeting. 
Like the glistening gossamer dust falling from a butterfly's wings in motion.
Like the sound the ocean makes as it stirs seaweed in time with its waves.
Like leaves falling before winter and buds waking with the first sun of spring.
What unspoken wisdom does it carry gently for you?

Will you hear its whisper?

Forever blue... [2.10.17]

 

Sometimes a plant looks dead when it is – in fact – simply resting

 

Taking a needed pause 

The leaves may whither and fall but down below its roots are fine

It is simply waiting for the right moment to be reborn

 

People are the same

 Sometimes we need a fallow period to regain our strength

Before we can reenter the fray or return to the fight

 

Rest is vital

But finds precious little support and few proponents in today’s accelerated world

 

Yet in order to do anything of true value in this lifetime

We must learn to rest and dream and linger again

With people

With beauty

With life

 

And most importantly

With ourselves

Resting gently in our own hearts 

 

Because that is where we find our purpose and our joy

And without purpose and joy life can look pretty darn dark sometimes

 

Even when in truth the sun is always

Smiling there just above us

And the sky behind the clouds is

Forever blue

Surrender... [2.9.17]

Many people. Most people.  

Suffer under their pain their entire lives.  

Under the illusion of the unfairness of it all.

 

They cannot see the lessons. 

So they believe that they are victims.  

Not so.

 

The choice is yours. 

In every moment.

Just as you breathe. 

 

To put down everything and everyone that ever hurt you. 

And to walk away unburdened, grateful and alive. 

You can simply put it down, bless it and walk away. 

 

Towards the horizon.

Into the sunset.

Where all good things live. 

 

The warmth among us... [1.21.17]

I find that I am tired around the eyes today...

In a raw soulful way, a bone deep way, a heart heavy way.

It is like a profound and all encompassing tiredness has fallen.

Over us all…  Over the scared ones.  The sad ones.  The different ones.

We are all on an even unconscious collective level experiencing a profound loss.

A loss of our better nature.  A loss of our highest selves.  A loss of the goodness and loving strength of character that we know we undeniably possess. And in its place there is only the stench of ill-placed hate.  I lit a candle yesterday and to my great horror the match – unlike any I had ever struck before or since – released upon contact a dozen odd dark ghostlike droplets of soot that hung in the air and lingered. 

I tried to swat them down and they laughed.

I felt then – as I do now – that the darkness had come.  The darkness has come to this country.  The light that held us together – previously protected from it like a candle shielded from the wind – is in danger.  I can feel it in my bones.  The light of our collective goodness has been exposed.  The lantern that held it has departed just as the torrents have come.  Left to face the elements alone we now have a choice. 

We must either commit ourselves to the daily preservation of that flame or risk it going out. 

The flame of decency and courage and goodness and honesty and integrity is in us all.  We must fan it and tend it and spread it and share it like our lives depend on it – because they do.  We are alone here now.  The darkness has come. We must protect those that who are less powerful, those who suffer, those who feel fear, and those who now wonder where they fit.  We must protect the least among us lest we become the last among us who can remember what it is like to feel the warmth of that bright and most loving flame.

Future flowers... [1.5.17]

I spent much of the early afternoon today carefully sorting out the seeds of my beloved hollyhock that I rescued from the side of a busy highway.  It seemed to me that she could use some extra sun and as I shifted her gently out of the shadows I noticed for the first time that she was heavy with a rich bounty of laden seed pods. The seemingly dusty dry remains of bygone flowers were actually fully alive with potential.  Always there and yet somehow hidden from view until a few precious seeds fell before me on the balcony floor.

And so I sat there in the winter sun and harvested the seeds from their delicate pods.  I shelled them like peas into a red and white antique china teacup and thought about what an incredibly apt metaphor it all was particularly at this time of year.   Each of us on the threshold of a new year. All beginning again. All of us hoping that we will do a little bit better and be a little bit more during this new trip around the sun. And there I was literally harvesting hidden potential.  The same sort which lies in us all.  Seeds full of hope, life and beauty. Setting them aside and keeping them safe now so that my dearly loved little plant can live on in future bright red flowers.

Is that not in so many ways what we all long for?  For the chance to be remembered.  To matter.  To remain here in legacy and spirit, if no longer in body or form.  To somehow find our way into the realm of the transcendent.  To be more than these husks in which we now wander and from which we will one day depart.  To still bring joy to those who walk upon this earth even after we have gone.

Yes.

Yes, that is exactly where we should aim to arrive through our earthly efforts here soaking up the rain and putting forth flowers.  We must carefully pour it into those seeds that will sustain our legacy.  Now latent -- housed in dry hardened husks waiting until the day they again bloom. So as I swept up the dry debris of my efforts, I watched carefully for any lost seeds to avoid allowing even one to go to waste if I could help it because there is simply no way of knowing from which seed the most beautiful flower of all will spring.

The watering balls I use in our plants threw these rich perfect rainbows onto my pile of seedpods.  It felt like both a metaphor and a miracle.

The watering balls I use in our plants threw these rich perfect rainbows onto my pile of seedpods.  It felt like both a metaphor and a miracle.

All that stuff...

Some of it was stolen
Some of it was given
Some of it was left
Some of it was lost

But in its absence
--- All of it ---
--- For me --- 
Is freedom

Arriving here by all these varied means
I am nothing but grateful --- so very grateful ---
To finally be able to breathe
To breathe and to live

Because that is what we aren't doing

While we are sifting and sorting and buying and coveting and shedding and all of the rest of it

That is what we miss -- the living

And that is all that has ever mattered
All that will ever matter
All that truly is

This life and us living