Diurnal liturgy,
this dance of flesh and bone,
discomfort and spacious opening,
self-judgement
and expansive loss of self in a warm river…
living symbol,
outward and visible,
wrapped around space and time,
and then another breath.
This body a canvas,
an unplucked harp,
an intricate carving
dissolving back into tree,
sap flowing in spring
… apprenticeship in sand temples,
fleeting offerings to the sea.
And why is it only now
with the encroaching comforting midlife belly
and haggard love lines
and soft tolerant resignation
that I see the adolescent longing for company?
This teen who wanted to be known
and heard,
and merged and understood
and now must learn new gratitude
for the flickers
when faint whispers cross the chasm.
That day
when housework seemed the most loving act
of violence,
the best way to channel
creative destruction,
deep yearning restlessness and anger
provoked in a fury of sweeping,
a silent scratching at the pans,
a ripping asunder of bedclothes and the front hall…
the voices kept strident companionship,
carpet of history dusty underfoot,
shining taps of vision revealed
and even briefly washing away the grime.
You can turn your back on the sunrise
and still it grows,
so that with each burden you lift,
not watching,
it will flush more pink into the sky.
And every time you return to the east,
staggering,
to the place where you set your burden down,
the sky has painted a larger canvas
for blue and pink salmon to dance.
This net,
strung in the cold heights,
alone before dawn on the mountain,
just sits.
Or stands or waves in the breeze,
defined by its limitations,
supported by deep branches extending into earth.
Immersed in cold damp cloud,
it does nothing;
no subtle invitation,
no picking and choosing,
no rarefied invocation.
On days when the cold is cold
and the damp is heavily moist,
the passive collector
drips liquid
to thirsty villagers.
Dark days – literally – with the winter solstice tomorrow. We are all sleeping more and I feel the enfolding quality of darkness, a season of wrapping up, keeping close, making room to brood and ponder and prepare for clarity by making space in the night. A time to rest and to play with the blurry edges of wakefulness.
Rise and fall and rise and fall. Wish I could truly let go of the desire for stability, find more joy in falling and rising. Recently made a mistake in not speaking honestly at the right time and my hesitation created this bad vibe. I notice my need to patch things up quickly, so that neither one of us feels uncomfortable. I hope there is an opportunity here to just sit with the discomfort and sense of harm caused, the feeling rift and separation, so that a process of repair and right action can emerge from authenticity and have some lasting effect.
There I go again with a desire for “lasting effect” – of course, I do hope that I can embody more creativity than entropy, more love than hurt, more joy than fear. But I also need to expand my willingness to succumb to falling, to truly go where the journey is taking me.
I am really enjoying – and being challenged by – a series of free podcasts on a range of life and spirituality topics.
If you have read this far in these postings, then you have probably already discovered the audio wisdom at www.soundstrue.com
My thanks to Tami Simon and all the wonderful voices she has collected there.
If you turn off the lights,
present in darkness,
there is a time before morning
when the cold fingers of moonlight
have released their trailing grasp
and the sky tingles with uncertainty.
A time when sky suffers
in bruised patches of grey,
discernible areas of isolated transitions.
Faint lines of bright
scratch pale in the east,
the promise of day like deep blue welts
on a passive skin that cannot move.
And yet…
the watching brings movement,
the slow suffusing broadening of blue,
awakening and orientation.
Passive sky is warmed by rising azure spread,
grey bruises healed in the passage of time
as watching builds anticipation.
Alert, the sky attentive to its toes,
the heat like icicles melting on the eastern edge,
watching for the piercings of dawn.
This waiting in questions,
this not-knowing,
a wallowing in distrust….
slowly consumed by the movement of light arising.
And the gift of this tree
outside the nurturing window
brings me to the now
in a way that touches on
both yesterday and tomorrow
its lush dancing at the end of summer
deep green with just a hint of dry,
the wind blowing a frenzy of joy
and its thusness
includes the yellow orange celebration to come
the riot of extinguishing bright light
the slow spinning into freefall
a gradual stripping away,
the purification of a branch
and blanketing of earth with brown possibility
the stark lovely grasping
brave against the dark
until soft snow
and bitter ice do their work to armour it
a brittle layer of lonely isolation
that will melt again
to juice up with tenderness
the vulnerable buds
and the soft shedding of their protective tips
will create a new unfurling
for another wave of dancing.
Grumbling toward enlightenment,
there is movement in this whine;
it is not as loud as yesterday,
not screeching down my spine.
I’m making room for silence,
for the buzzing flies to still
but they make insistent music
on my nearby windowsill.
They are trapped and hot and bothered
and they want the nerve to fly,
but although the door is open
they can’t seem to find the sky.
Swatting doesn’t kill them,
it just makes them mad as hell;
feeding them just seems to be
a useless plan as well.
But sometimes they are quiet
as I breathe and don’t complain,
and their iridescent wings provide
monotonous refrain.
Grumbling toward enlightenment,
there is solace in this pain,
there is quiet from the might-have-been,
and moisture in the rain.