angelbirdflies

Butterfly,          slender stalk,           petals and pollen,           blossom nectar,           wings stir,           breeze blown,                      f          l           i           g           h           t. I used to wait for the time when all would be well, when the ever changing tides of life would shift to calm, clear waters reflecting idealized bliss and saintly assurance. I used to wait for "enlightenment" and "transformation" and "redemption". I used to work hard to that end…books, classes, hours on zafus, practicing inadequacy. The butterfly,      becomes the butterfly,            only by relinquishing all that it has known,      all that it has been, and trusting the life within to express itself in flight. The flower,      becomes the flower,           only by relinquishing the bud, and opening tender petals in bloom. Why does human add such pomp to the occasion.  The caterpillar doesn't strive for "butterfly

Where to begin? The first word written on a black page sets the trajectory of thought. Where to begin? I don't know. I stand captivated by uncertainty and the gross human need to explain the unexplainable,       define the undefineable,           comprehend the incomprehensible. I listen to the jumble of   w    o    r    d    s      bumping about in mind and wonder at the preoccupation with thoughts and the artificial buffer they create, affording us the illusion of control and certainty. I wonder what it might be like to       b     r     e     a     t     h     e ,     without judgment or criticism of the breath itself or the quality of the air…     just breathe. I wonder what it might feel like to cease, for a moment, our mental/emotional hustle and let all that is arising BE exactly as it is. Then we, like flowers swaying in the breeze of our own belonging, simply bloom.

" I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars; (I am large, I contain multitudes) I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable: Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof... Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes it out of the soul. Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune." -----Ah Walt Whitman and the Leaves of Grass

Sleep was a wayward bedfellow last night.  By 4 AM I was already sipping hot tea at the kitchen table, eating gluten free toast coated with cashew butter.  By 5:30 AM I was winding my way up the mountain, newborn sun kissing my morning face, wind softly caressing my curls and birds talking in aviary chatter like music on a new day. Nature!  In her embrace I always feel at home, even after the most restless of nights, I walk into her arms and I am reminded again and again to let go, to relax and to trust. What better gift could I hope for?

Make a wis h?        A   desire,   longing,   or   strong   inclination   for   a   specific   thing.    When walking with children,  wishes are everywhere.   Dandelions are plucked from slender stalks.    Fuzzy promises        brought toward puckered lips              exhaling wonder                   from lungs filled                        with possibility.   Great gusty breaths,  hearts strong with belief,        send  delicate wish seeds  on a dance across the sky.   Children don't see weeds to be plucked or worried over.   They see wishes,       everywhere,            and a world ripe with possibilities. Next time when a life weed presents itself, perhaps we can look with eyes of wonder and just maybe, we will find wishes blown across the wide sky of our own longing.

Okay, I am falling once again, with abandon, into the beautiful poetry and deep reflective wisdom of David Whyte.   Here is a beautiful treatise on pain by that amazing artist: “ ...Pain is a lonely road, no one can know the measure of our particular agonies, but through pain we have the possibility, just the possibility, of coming to know others as we have, with so much difficulty, come to know ourselves.”

The Truelove (one of my many favorite Whyte poems) There is a faith in loving fiercely
 the one who is rightfully yours
 especially if you have
 waited years and especially if part of you never believed you could deserve this 
loved and beckoning hand
 held out to you this way. I am thinking of faith now and the testaments of loneliness and what we feel we are worthy of in this world. Years ago in the Hebrides 
 I remember an old man who walked every morning on the grey stones to the shore of baying seals who would press his hat 
 to his chest in the blustering 
 salt wind and say his prayer 
 to the turbulent Jesus 
hidden in the water and I think of the story
 of the storm and everyone waking and seeing
 the distant
 yet familiar figure
 far across the water
 calling to them and how we are all 
 preparing for that 
 abrupt waking, 
 and that calling,
 and that moment 
 we have to say yes,

Do you ever find yourself exhausted by the questions themselves?  And the minds continual distraction with answers that can never begin to approach the complexity of Life. I do. At times I wonder what it might feel like if the brains busy thinking were silenced and the great unknowings of life were given a chance to simply be within the human context of self.  What then?  What great horrors is the mind attempting to avoid with all its thinking?  And what great horrors is it actually inventing? Life is. Perhaps the invitation is to allow the horror and heaven, the fear and love, the pain and pleasure, the light and dark to rest within a spaciousness, in which no thought is necessary. Just life. As life. Perhaps.