Looking beyond a column of winters
Inside a marble hallway
I glimpse the opening
It is round, glowing
Putting my eye up close
I see fire and rain
My song
Is fleeing from this moment
My texture is one true word
Spoken from the lips of God
...
Placid waters hold no pretense at peace
Confusion can strike at any moment
From underneath the sand
The mind has unconscious ways of telling the truth:
One with words, breath, and the moment eyes meet.
The other with body,
Or a tone of song waiting to take flight
I am still figuring out how it goes
One plus one is one plus one is one...
Forgetting the fruits of my labor,
I pick memories to hold
Like apples in an orchard
The ripe ones call sweetly,
The rotten ones smell underneath.
Still, the taste of air is made whole
By the ripe and the rotten
And a tree grows tall at the center.
...
Speaking out from unchurned waters of my mind
The violin sways,
Abruptly ceasing desire to maintain a reflection that was utterly not me.
A pinprick on the tender belly
Leaves no mark.
Like an idea,
Devoid of form,
Pregnant with possibility.
I collect these words from the rough scrawback of my mind
My song unfinished
I am still singing and composing to a deer I meet in the woods
Alone, but free.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Monday, May 16, 2011
Nine Muses Retreat Center, Idaho
I would like to remember this moment, poised between space, eternity, and light. I sit on a cream wool carpet inside the circular yurt. Six Shamanism students lie on sleeping bags, journaling or art-making. A view of sun-streaked grass, dandelions, and a red brick path out the front door. Laughter in the background, a dog barking. Douglas firs stretch upward behind the bones of an undressed sweatlodge.
By the pond, a swallow dips down from a pendulum flight, sapphire back gleaming, to crunch on a tiny water-borne insect. Three orange fish emerge into view from muddy depths of the pond. Hazy reflections of trees, sky, and air ponder thoughtfully upon the water's surface.
I sit here alone, longing for sky and earth to hold me again. I remember when I was little and talked with apple and maple trees in my Iowa backyard. I remember rolling myself in long swaths of dry grass underneath a country sky. I long for an open dream of space upon which to alight, like an insect finding itself in a world so utterly huge it has no choice but to be here in this instant and breathe.
I desire to be small again, to hold myself in a miniature cocoon unseen by light or flavor. I delect in the painted cloud canvas, atop turrets of trees subsuming waves of grass.
I remember who I was one year ago. I am afraid to admit that I may not be any better now than I was then. I cast off the illusion of growth and betterment for the truth of immediacy and homecoming. Why continue bartering with myself over issues of self-worth when time and sky are intermingled like cupcakes and icing? This place is not a judgement room, but a seminary of the soul.
Illustrious sky beings come to press their faces against the curve of earth's atmosphere. Their breath coalesces in pungent airdrops, forming clouds and rain. There was a time when no humans lived here. It was all trees, grasses, mud. Other beings have left their footprints and still live on in light and shadow.
I have forgotten how to walk up and over a mountain. Today, I feel the journey is not so as to stretch my limbs but to taste the circumference of my own destiny. As I walk, I circle closer and closer. This way, life is not a conquest but a meandering through beauty.
Nature brings me to tears when my body re-enters it. Something fills me like a glass vase that can never be broken. Soft, nonlinear, round, flexible. Going this way and that, meandering like a stream.
Realizing I am not alone is a marvelous thing. In the country, my walls crumble and I come to touch the skins of other beings who know the vastness of time and space. I am more attuned to the gentle nature of hugs. My thoughts don't scream quite so loudly--the din calms and I can sense the flow of waves again. Softness is an all-encompassing feeling of place: the trees affect it, the birds sculpt it, the soil holds it, the waters cleanse it. I am most alive in places where the unknown unleashes itself on landscape without plan or reason, where the mystery sculpts my flow and rocks me into a closer openness than I have ever felt before.
By the pond, a swallow dips down from a pendulum flight, sapphire back gleaming, to crunch on a tiny water-borne insect. Three orange fish emerge into view from muddy depths of the pond. Hazy reflections of trees, sky, and air ponder thoughtfully upon the water's surface.
I sit here alone, longing for sky and earth to hold me again. I remember when I was little and talked with apple and maple trees in my Iowa backyard. I remember rolling myself in long swaths of dry grass underneath a country sky. I long for an open dream of space upon which to alight, like an insect finding itself in a world so utterly huge it has no choice but to be here in this instant and breathe.
I desire to be small again, to hold myself in a miniature cocoon unseen by light or flavor. I delect in the painted cloud canvas, atop turrets of trees subsuming waves of grass.
I remember who I was one year ago. I am afraid to admit that I may not be any better now than I was then. I cast off the illusion of growth and betterment for the truth of immediacy and homecoming. Why continue bartering with myself over issues of self-worth when time and sky are intermingled like cupcakes and icing? This place is not a judgement room, but a seminary of the soul.
Illustrious sky beings come to press their faces against the curve of earth's atmosphere. Their breath coalesces in pungent airdrops, forming clouds and rain. There was a time when no humans lived here. It was all trees, grasses, mud. Other beings have left their footprints and still live on in light and shadow.
I have forgotten how to walk up and over a mountain. Today, I feel the journey is not so as to stretch my limbs but to taste the circumference of my own destiny. As I walk, I circle closer and closer. This way, life is not a conquest but a meandering through beauty.
Nature brings me to tears when my body re-enters it. Something fills me like a glass vase that can never be broken. Soft, nonlinear, round, flexible. Going this way and that, meandering like a stream.
Realizing I am not alone is a marvelous thing. In the country, my walls crumble and I come to touch the skins of other beings who know the vastness of time and space. I am more attuned to the gentle nature of hugs. My thoughts don't scream quite so loudly--the din calms and I can sense the flow of waves again. Softness is an all-encompassing feeling of place: the trees affect it, the birds sculpt it, the soil holds it, the waters cleanse it. I am most alive in places where the unknown unleashes itself on landscape without plan or reason, where the mystery sculpts my flow and rocks me into a closer openness than I have ever felt before.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
It's Normal
I am my own Universe
I am my own galaxies
I am my own sun.
I hold myself to myself
Like outer shells of valence electrons.
Coming home to the abode of my All-ness
Feels like a joke it is so easy.
No one ever told me,
But it's normal.
I am my own galaxies
I am my own sun.
I hold myself to myself
Like outer shells of valence electrons.
Coming home to the abode of my All-ness
Feels like a joke it is so easy.
No one ever told me,
But it's normal.
Heavy Bellied Cloud
Sometimes I feel
Like a heavy bellied cloud
Rising,
Falling
With each breath of wind
Carrying rain I cannot carry alone.
I wonder where the clouds are drifting to
And where my rain will take me
Letting the water come down
Brings resistance to a halt
Even stone melts in water
Even fear goes away with love.
Like a heavy bellied cloud
Rising,
Falling
With each breath of wind
Carrying rain I cannot carry alone.
I wonder where the clouds are drifting to
And where my rain will take me
Letting the water come down
Brings resistance to a halt
Even stone melts in water
Even fear goes away with love.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Dying with Grace
Through my work as an elder care companion, I was called to sit with a dying woman and be present with her as she fell asleep each night. Not many people have the privilege of sitting with a dying stranger. Tonight is my third night of sitting with Grace (name changed) by her bed at the nursing home. I smile at the wonderful opportunity she is giving me. I wonder how my presence here beside her bed is affecting her. It certainly is changing me. This evening I picked up a book by Stephen Levine called "A Year to Live." It has been on my shelf, unread, for the past two years. I am reading it now, as I sit with Grace, and I am becoming more and more convinced that this is how I would like to live this year, starting now, as though it were the last year of my life. I also like the idea of living it as though it were the first year of my life and I was suddenly thrust into the adult body of an young woman.
Right now I notice more compassion arising in my heart and in the space between thoughts. This compassion softens and gentles the edges of every opposite that occurs in my mind. Compassion is beyond argument or debate. It simply is. And I like that.
...
She is dying, sweet Grace
As I am dying
And you are dying.
We all die as we live.
Grace's body
Softly melds into white pillows under her legs.
Her arms are crossed in her lap.
When her eyes open,
They gaze into space
And seem to open from the inside,
A light radiating
Layers unveiled.
I wonder if she can hear me now
As I write this poem.
"Yes," she says. "It is very beautiful."
Grace,
As I write this poem
I am fluting a beautiful memory of you
Out into earth
For others to read and be touched by.
You may not have friends or family
But you have me and my pen
And I will do my best
To let your light shine through it.
...
Last night
As I was leaving Grace's room
I saw her roommate lying asleep
With a look of utter bliss on her face.
A slight smile on her lips,
Slowly,
She removed her hospital gown.
Smiling more brightly now
She touched each of her breasts
With a look of ecstasy.
A few moments went by
And she touched one arm,
Then the other.
I should not call it touch,
For what she was doing
Was more of an exploration
Or a discovery.
Sunlight shone out of her complexion
Even though it was nighttime
And she was sleeping.
...
I am sitting by the bed of an old woman.
She is preparing to die.
She eats no more food,
Takes no more pills.
He breath moves in and out
Calling her home.
Death stands by her head
Cloaked in black
Hands resting behind her shoulders.
Sun angels shine on the other side of the room:
Bright newness, eagles, dawn.
How interesting that both Death and Dawn Light
Are here in the same room together.
The old woman is wrapped in whiteness
In layers of sheets
Like a mummy
Being prepared for the next stage of the journey.
Whiteness moves into the Spirit realm
Where the owl and the wintertime are waiting.
The old woman is cradled in between,
Held amidst presence and past,
Time and eternity.
She wakes again,
A brief fit of coughing,
Then struggling no more.
Her eyes are open but see nothing,
Breath moves the folds of her neck
Up and down,
Mouth open, lips relaxed and parted,
Chin hanging down.
I wonder which breath will be her last.
How will she go?
Where to?
Perhaps down the infinite galaxy of time
Through a whirlpool of stars
Back home to the Mother.
...
I sit and see
My birth and death standing next to each other.
My warm baby body
Curled up
Pulsing with newness and Spirit.
The same Spirit encircles me on my deathbed.
It is very beautiful.
I am wrapped in white
I see loved ones around me, friends, family.
I am moved by the spectacle of community love.
I am receiving myself
Again
Through the ritual of body.
I am ancient.
I reach back to touch ancestors.
We are all linked by arms and hands
In a chain of forgiveness.
We pause
And look at each other
With the same familiarity
As a husband and wife.
We pause to remember where we have been
And where we are going.
For we are here,
Quite alive,
Ready to be seen and heard in our beauty.
...
When we get old, approaching 100, we become like infants again. We must have other people feed, bathe, and clothe us. We cannot do the simplest things we take for granted most of our lives - other people must do them for us. They say that a baby dies if it is not loved and held. What happens when an aging beauty is not loved and held as she approaches death? In Grace's case, this is her choice - when I ask permission to touch her, she says no. But in my case, when I am old and dying, I would like to be held, touched, and cradled one last time in my corporeal form. That way, when I get to Heaven, maybe I can better remember where I was and who I was, like a fingerprint on a stained glass window.
We are helpless when we are born and helpless when we die. Perhaps this is so our lives will be surrounded by people who care about us, so that we know we are cared for at the edges of our innocent lives.
...
Death is not such a burden. I like to think of death as an old friend who walks beside me. We are living and dying together all the time, in every moment.
...
I see Grace's tongue
Crackled and barren
And wonder if my tongue will ever be like that.
Most certainly, it will.
It will grow old and die and dissolve into earth
The way all tongues do.
Maybe the point is not to have a pretty tongue
But to use it well,
To make beauty with words and song.
Then, if mine gets old and crinkled,
I know it will be because I have used it up completely.
Finished and totally spent,
My tongue will slither into its grave
To sleep happily ever after.
Right now I notice more compassion arising in my heart and in the space between thoughts. This compassion softens and gentles the edges of every opposite that occurs in my mind. Compassion is beyond argument or debate. It simply is. And I like that.
...
She is dying, sweet Grace
As I am dying
And you are dying.
We all die as we live.
Grace's body
Softly melds into white pillows under her legs.
Her arms are crossed in her lap.
When her eyes open,
They gaze into space
And seem to open from the inside,
A light radiating
Layers unveiled.
I wonder if she can hear me now
As I write this poem.
"Yes," she says. "It is very beautiful."
Grace,
As I write this poem
I am fluting a beautiful memory of you
Out into earth
For others to read and be touched by.
You may not have friends or family
But you have me and my pen
And I will do my best
To let your light shine through it.
...
Last night
As I was leaving Grace's room
I saw her roommate lying asleep
With a look of utter bliss on her face.
A slight smile on her lips,
Slowly,
She removed her hospital gown.
Smiling more brightly now
She touched each of her breasts
With a look of ecstasy.
A few moments went by
And she touched one arm,
Then the other.
I should not call it touch,
For what she was doing
Was more of an exploration
Or a discovery.
Sunlight shone out of her complexion
Even though it was nighttime
And she was sleeping.
...
I am sitting by the bed of an old woman.
She is preparing to die.
She eats no more food,
Takes no more pills.
He breath moves in and out
Calling her home.
Death stands by her head
Cloaked in black
Hands resting behind her shoulders.
Sun angels shine on the other side of the room:
Bright newness, eagles, dawn.
How interesting that both Death and Dawn Light
Are here in the same room together.
The old woman is wrapped in whiteness
In layers of sheets
Like a mummy
Being prepared for the next stage of the journey.
Whiteness moves into the Spirit realm
Where the owl and the wintertime are waiting.
The old woman is cradled in between,
Held amidst presence and past,
Time and eternity.
She wakes again,
A brief fit of coughing,
Then struggling no more.
Her eyes are open but see nothing,
Breath moves the folds of her neck
Up and down,
Mouth open, lips relaxed and parted,
Chin hanging down.
I wonder which breath will be her last.
How will she go?
Where to?
Perhaps down the infinite galaxy of time
Through a whirlpool of stars
Back home to the Mother.
...
I sit and see
My birth and death standing next to each other.
My warm baby body
Curled up
Pulsing with newness and Spirit.
The same Spirit encircles me on my deathbed.
It is very beautiful.
I am wrapped in white
I see loved ones around me, friends, family.
I am moved by the spectacle of community love.
I am receiving myself
Again
Through the ritual of body.
I am ancient.
I reach back to touch ancestors.
We are all linked by arms and hands
In a chain of forgiveness.
We pause
And look at each other
With the same familiarity
As a husband and wife.
We pause to remember where we have been
And where we are going.
For we are here,
Quite alive,
Ready to be seen and heard in our beauty.
...
When we get old, approaching 100, we become like infants again. We must have other people feed, bathe, and clothe us. We cannot do the simplest things we take for granted most of our lives - other people must do them for us. They say that a baby dies if it is not loved and held. What happens when an aging beauty is not loved and held as she approaches death? In Grace's case, this is her choice - when I ask permission to touch her, she says no. But in my case, when I am old and dying, I would like to be held, touched, and cradled one last time in my corporeal form. That way, when I get to Heaven, maybe I can better remember where I was and who I was, like a fingerprint on a stained glass window.
We are helpless when we are born and helpless when we die. Perhaps this is so our lives will be surrounded by people who care about us, so that we know we are cared for at the edges of our innocent lives.
...
Death is not such a burden. I like to think of death as an old friend who walks beside me. We are living and dying together all the time, in every moment.
...
I see Grace's tongue
Crackled and barren
And wonder if my tongue will ever be like that.
Most certainly, it will.
It will grow old and die and dissolve into earth
The way all tongues do.
Maybe the point is not to have a pretty tongue
But to use it well,
To make beauty with words and song.
Then, if mine gets old and crinkled,
I know it will be because I have used it up completely.
Finished and totally spent,
My tongue will slither into its grave
To sleep happily ever after.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Poems of Heart and Good and Evil
There comes a time
When the sound of your heart
Becomes the most important voice you hear.
Other voices can be loud, frightening,
Even when they say they come from Spirit.
Ancestors, Spirit Guides, Power Animals, Teachers, Friends, Therapists,
They all think they know who you are
And tell you what they believe is the best path for you.
But if you see them
As anything other than extensions of your true self
You will be guided into confusion and anger.
Confusion comes when we do not trust our own voice.
The heart can be as clear as a bell,
Yet what the mind thinks and the ears hear
Can tell us differently.
The mind deals in opposites,
The heart dwells on unity.
The heart always has a simpler answer,
And it is always the right answer.
Not trusting the heart leads to fear and abandonment,
Trusting the heart leads to homecoming, presence, and celebration.
There is nothing you must do or achieve.
This is the old way of thinking
The belief in good and evil
The illusion of separation.
On one level,
Good and evil are real.
On another,
They cease to exist at all.
They are together,
And in being together they make each other whole.
...
The same occult war of the world
That happens between Good and Evil
Is happening in our own minds.
The peace we find in our hearts
Is the same peace that solves and undermines this war.
The spacious eye of the heart
Is the whole-ness
That has been there all along.
Never bragging,
Never choking.
Biding its time
In quiet depths of the soul.
...
There is no symbol
That can stand for the unity of God.
Perhaps a sun
Suspended in the center of my heart
Will suffice for now.
When the sound of your heart
Becomes the most important voice you hear.
Other voices can be loud, frightening,
Even when they say they come from Spirit.
Ancestors, Spirit Guides, Power Animals, Teachers, Friends, Therapists,
They all think they know who you are
And tell you what they believe is the best path for you.
But if you see them
As anything other than extensions of your true self
You will be guided into confusion and anger.
Confusion comes when we do not trust our own voice.
The heart can be as clear as a bell,
Yet what the mind thinks and the ears hear
Can tell us differently.
The mind deals in opposites,
The heart dwells on unity.
The heart always has a simpler answer,
And it is always the right answer.
Not trusting the heart leads to fear and abandonment,
Trusting the heart leads to homecoming, presence, and celebration.
There is nothing you must do or achieve.
This is the old way of thinking
The belief in good and evil
The illusion of separation.
On one level,
Good and evil are real.
On another,
They cease to exist at all.
They are together,
And in being together they make each other whole.
...
The same occult war of the world
That happens between Good and Evil
Is happening in our own minds.
The peace we find in our hearts
Is the same peace that solves and undermines this war.
The spacious eye of the heart
Is the whole-ness
That has been there all along.
Never bragging,
Never choking.
Biding its time
In quiet depths of the soul.
...
There is no symbol
That can stand for the unity of God.
Perhaps a sun
Suspended in the center of my heart
Will suffice for now.
Empty Space is not Empty
I do not believe that empty space is empty. When I am hollow inside, I am not a vacuum. I am full of rich soil twisted with deep roots. As my roots twist around darkness that lives in me, I feel more surely that I am whole. Darkness and shadow are companions of the light. We do not exist without our opposite. We have form and being precisely because we are a mixture of light and dark. To cast out darkness is to dismember a part of who we are. To cradle the unknown places in us, the edges of light, the deep thresh holds of darkness, is to widen our love to be large enough to hold all of who we are.
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