Through The Gate

Coming through the gate
its' handle brandished with others effort
of oiled hands
its' hinges creaking with mild resistance
I pause
Have I been here before?

The ridge rises with openhanded wildflowers
The lupine particularly pink this season

I do remember the blue lupine and the scattered
Indian blanket flowers
The black-eyed Susans waiting for
harsher sun and parched soil

The moss edges the stones from
spring rains
Rains that buried seedlings under
the sandy soil until now

I do remember this place but is brighter now
and perfected in wildness of textures and whispers
Sounds primal and resonating the stirring valley

I cannot turn back this time
I am propelled with older vison to not turn around
This is where I belong
In the wildflowers and in sundrenched vistas
In the wildness of forgotten dreams

The gate closes behind me with the next breeze
I look forward to meeting the next visitor
resting in this place with me

Squander

My body's vortex is lifeless
dangling on a string
swaying with the internal winds
to nowhere, from nowhere

The life in me
squandered on created worries
and bold imaginative plays

The life in me
spun outward
spraying its truth and intentions
into the void
Nothing to nuture it into
mature dominion

The life in me
dispersed without telling me
or did I not listen to its prodding
and dramatic performances

Wait

Could it be this recognition of life once held
returns lightly on golden wings
places it's rooted core upon my navel?
Where once the breath ignited

I hear you life

I acknowledge life

now our
conversation may reconvene with curious
expansion of the spiral winds

Greetings…...

Act LIke Me

                             DIRECTIONS

1. Take 4 steps away from the house, remember to take a large glass of water and hairbrush
2. Plant feet, no shoes allowed, solidly on ground
3. Reach skyward and outwards with your arms, back and forth
4. Pay no attention if your torso is straight or not, this is not yoga
5. Act as if there is honey and feathers attached to your fingertips and flail incessantly for one minute.   Notice how many beautiful feathers are scattered around you.
6. Swat mosquitoes and wish them good luck elsewhere
7. Now find a part of your body upon which you can place a silver dollar and set is there
8. Breathe deeply in and out , finding a perfect resting position for yourself
9. Next brush your hair and flip it upside down.  Let nature set its perfect style. no mirrors allowed.  See how many strands break off onto the bristles or how many strands or are shed to the ground
10. By now you are parched , drink your water and wiggle your toes as you do so

Rest until you are ready to go a second round  and if there is sun, you may turn into it


Act like me, a simple tree waiting to shelter you and your silvery gifts
Act like me, a simple tree bridging wind and rain
Act like me, a simple tree reaching as high as I can every day, even when branches have broken
Act like me, a simple tree shedding my nature to help the nature of others.

Look to the other trees for protection.  Welcome critters amongst your branches and let the rain and the underground rivers bring growth and regrowth. Act like me, the simple tree in the corners of your soul

Collaboration

Space     void and inert

Floating between past and future

As if this” me “ never swelled into existence

Never wept nor leapt in dance

Peace hovers around each corner that I touch,

 clockwise and counterclockwise

No face of time, no clock to measure

Imagination diminished, this new perception of Now

Not unsettling, not weary with precipitated frolic

Sitting, the striking swirls of nowhere fill my body and soul

Nothing arduous, nothing profound..

My past and my future collaborated into Nothingness,

Immense and expansive the essence of me within the mesh of spirit

 floats in uncharted waters

Silently, unrecognizable,

SERVICE

Arriving here
It is clear
It is not of me
       nor for me

Time balances me
but is not with me

Moments that whisper
Others' names and invoke my body to move
and to serve

The valley is covered with
worn out stones
and stones recently released
from their mothers' form

I am at release and ragged
Tumbling with clearance
Churning within motionless action
in service prescribed

Autumnal Equinox Afternoon

It is that time of the day when small swirls of leaves dance beneath overfilled gutters and the sun peaks around a cloud only to retreat within seconds.   You could be wearing sandals or sneakers , eating watermelon or tomato soup.  It is a reflective time.. the pause that punctuates where your heart and soul will remain.

It is that time of year when the overly zealous clamour, “ Is it over already, where did the summer go?”  The picnic basket and coolers, the kite and frisbee, still sitting on the upper shelf waiting for someone to teeter on tiptoes to reach them and add some more smudged marks.

It is that time of the day that sways towards night.  It will be only a few weeks before the school bus and its squealing brakes drop off 

the enthusiastic participants of the day at dusk. With their crunched and marked up papers the troupers will splay out like a jar of jam dropped on the floor.

It is that season in my life this Autumnal Equinox , when I slow down but not from too much sun, rather probably not enough laughter.   It’s that season when my outer layer of dermis, sags and speaks of bumping into things and years without sunscreen.  My legs and mind spin forward to the winter to come and inquire how might this point of gravity be received.  Yes, I do not cherish autumn. It is not the autumn of my youth, with its sugary treats and galloping ghouls.  I crave that youthful anticipation.  A warm bath with epsom salts and a few drops of essential oils treat my fall as I  cocoon into winter and maybe a gluten free pumpkin pie with half the sugar.  I lament this passing of summer to fall and I have since I was a child.This year heaviness weighs me down a bit more than usual. What have I wasted besides calories these past autumns?  Is it any different?  I suppose the grading of my papers with my inherent worry of success would be one, but now I sit and worry will my legs and energy take me where my heart wishes to go and where my slightly fogged vision views on the horizon.

Autumn for me is acceptance,  my greatest lesson this year. The brittle leaves, the stained concrete and shortened days are not too dissimilar from my osteoporetic bones and bruised body from “ personal training” and my less than expedient morning risings when it feels like night and the furnace flames are slowly surging

“They say” there is a reason for every season and so I look to this autumn to reveal to me my reason for forging ahead like the child seeing Halloween candy in September .

How will I treat myself this autumn?  How will I engage outwardly in community when hibernation  inward feels so normal ?  How will I express my inward failure to jump into fall like I bound into summer?

These words begin my transition to a different fall in my life and an evaluation of the ceremonies I have placed on my calendar.  Perhaps this Autumnal Equinox is the perfect time to revisit “ equal light and dark” and not the time to snuff out the candle so soon.

Nature’s cycles are amazing and forgiving, each proud of its place in the circle and not demanding of past or future.  This autumn is for acceptance in all forms of body, mind and spirit, knowing I cannot transition when alone on this course, but allowing all that is to find its perfect place.    

IMagine

Imagine the possibilities
The tender tendrils sliding
silently along the wall and
out the door

Knowing that the unknown
remains
Yet receptacles waiting to receive and tethering tendrils
go before


This structure
these tiny treasured
movements, creating an environment of
Trust and Acceptance

Writing from Nowhere

Write, they say?
What? I ask

So many clusters of ideas and promises
Floating in my head

Why pass them to my fingers?
The extentions  of me that waiver with pen
that glaze over the  keyboard with tendency

Perhaps it is time to release the cloistered images
Propel them out to the nothingness from which they came
Letting new life and fantasies birth
in my
old hands
and old frames of reference

Today I write
About what ? they ask
About nothing, I say

The nothingness that permeates creation

I AM BAMBOO

My fine roots whispy
Slippery muddy water and silt
steady my pace
Ground me in their essence

No difference between soil and heaven
bending and blending like shifting clouds
and darting schools of fish in turquoise water

My stalk is segmented
Not in the way of an etching or tearing points
but one lifts the other higher and at the same time
pulls the other tenderly downward

We clump together and spread breath and height
not within our own bodies but within our Oneness

Bending, limping, sprouting and dying into our shelled empty cores

There is no loss
There is no gain
It happens because We are bamboo
Resilient, flexible , true to our own nature

I am bamboo because of You, because of We