The wings set down in slow motion, the beat, the beat, the fold, the shift from flight to stationary balance, a daily sight, a wonder to behold
And may the wings of my great aspiration stretch out from stillness in the morning air to gather wind beneath them and pump higher, and take my wonder with them everywhere.
Who wouldn't like to know their song has been like this one is for me - profound experience of coming home
The well known journey language of the music scale, used simply, but with a reaching honesty that finds the deep tones supporting high, sweet shifting harmony to tenderly induce in me this longing, this relief, this gratitude, this peace
We ply our art, we let it go out in the world - we never know if someone, somewhere, has found that it transports them to some inner chamber or some wide, wild view
I will fill my world with the lights of others, I will use them to understand the way we're knit together, the way each of our gifts can multiply collective bliss.
I don't mind being rendered silent, my words, heretofore, having, all too often, served a regime I didn't even know of, and certainly would not support now that I know
Let me serve instead what speaks for itself in the web-connected movement of every atom reaching into its purpose, into its bliss, every being finding, in its living, exaltation in its joyful contribution to the One.
No shadow is cast upon that which glows with the light which is given to every thought of it, every one of its conceptions
No shadow can cut across the fact of love, known from within as the only cause of being, a care so infinite, it wouldn't let any state be a mere reaction
Every mote of consciousness is love, is loved, is caused alone by Love, and so the whole of it is ever free.
All of us want to be seen, and all of us want to be known, and each of us senses the worth of our being, the light that is wholly our own
And none of us want to be judged, and none of us want to be told of changes we need to make, habits we need to break if we would enter the fold
All of us want to be free, and want our connections, too - we want to belong in a place where we're honored, and honor our friends through and through.
For after all, what are we about but kindness? It's our best sense of ourselves, our best hope. It is what fills us up with sweetness, enough in a moment to last a day, enough in a day to rocket us clear up to the stars
So how could we ever think there is some score to settle first? (I would be kind if only others weren't mean to me)?
We've never really been about reaction. What we are comes only from ourselves, and what we are is kindness, that dear embracing wisdom which resonates within as deepest truth and solves everything.
And if you seek a meaning somewhere deep beneath the surface, if you seek a core, a source, a point that doesn't move with winds or time or changes of the light, as you're coming closer you will know you hope to find what touches you, and what you touch, as home
It is a well known feeling, it's a tune around which symphonies are written - when you hear them, you will circle, you will settle, and your peace will ring out like a truth you've always known, will sound you as a song that is your own.
It was a reminder that February is still winter, and that our rising plans need patience built into them, and that nature's gifts require our attention:
What looked like moonlight at 3 AM proved itself a carpet and a sweet wet falling of night time snow, and displayed itself, come morning, as early brightness, and an invitation to go out, to take it in, to be directly under geese, in constant commentary, emerging low over the woods and landing in the pond
And hearing blackbirds with their morning exaltations, and seeing blue stretched out along the white in what became shadows when the sun emerged
It became a snow gone conclusion, as is often the case, augmenting our gratitude for our brief immersion.
Just let me have each day be as this one, a practice within the art of perfection, nothing essayed but that which arises in service to the love and hope that signal life
And let my practice come to full fruition so the truth I know is seen, and celebrates what holds us all in presence, what brings up our desire and sense of purpose and satisfies them.
If a word could be a touch, if a touch could change a mind, if a mind could take in every fact of presence, that's the word that I would want to use
We spoke of something beyond language - the next, a deeper, comprehensive way to share, communicate, express, and come to understand
We felt the longing for it, felt the hope that it be something we will learn, and maybe, truth be told, this hope is proof that this is something we already know.
If I could put this picture into your mind, if I could have you feel the way it feels, if I could draw the links to show the concept that it illustrates, maybe I could fully grasp it, too
And so I seek the language that doesn't hinge on words, that doesn't need the fraught traverse from my thoughtscape to some guessed construct that I have of yours
Instead, this language holds your heart as something infinitely dear, and offers it a hearth and traces what it longs to hear, and lets you feel the welcome that all home is made of, and your heart will draw the picture, absolutely clear.
The central peace doesn't care if plans are wild threads flung quickly across the hours, snagging where they will, or if the day unfolds as grass grows, steady, but too slow to see
The central peace finds ways to touch down in consciousness, with a task, with a smile, with some small outreach of help that stitches a moment in place
We are all embraced in the central peace, which means even if we think we don't have time to pause, and let it come, it still will find us.
In the still, early morning, when high fog masks what the day might become, in the span before colors start to emerge from shadowed forms, the internal song and the heart of movement rise up in the pre-dawn light
I must not direct this motion lest I stifle it, lest I frighten it away with expectations - I can only present myself, willing, bare feet to the floor, and feel what happens
And the song starts up, or maybe the movement first - they incite each other, and that consciousness I know of as my body rides in the perfect harmony, expressing, not inventing, exploring, not directing, making the dance its own, knowing as it is known.
Nothing really broke except a taillight. Though it seemed for a moment that every path had shattered, that there was no more sense and nothing more to follow, in fact, the way that we could navigate was still there - we could still take the needed next steps, we could come home with a load of trees and a replacement part, and our sensibilities could break through like sun after all that rain.
And as for the things I was thinking about, in the air that feels like spring while frogs sing in the north pond, and the list of things to do is long enough that whole categories routinely drop into the void, and we feel good if there's one thing we can check off the list (though fifteen more creep onto it)
I forget what I was thinking about, or what leaves me this odd contentment while the fire has warmed the room as evening slides towards night and our moments, while prosaic, show small signs of the gravitas of eternity.
Memories flicker like lights in the fire, in the windows' reflections, and their reflections of each other's light, dimmer, smaller, greener in more distant iterations
The lights were real, and they still are, however faintly I perceived them then, however tenuous they may seem now
They may not light or warm me on their own, but they do show me the constancy of light through all my times, which, when I turn to now, lights up my present, and also all the tunnels of my past.
Young trees, we have great hopes for you - we'll set your gangly roots down in our earth, we'll try to keep you safe from what would gnaw at you, we wish you each a life of robust growth
We hope your limbs will soar and branch, and birds will rest upon them, we hope your roots will travel far, communing with your neighbors
May your blossoms nourish bees, and may your leaves be splendid, may your shade be sweet and broad and child befriended, may we tend you well enough that you, in turn, will flourish in your tending of the earth.
I can almost touch the sun-colored ripples, when they come close, by my shoulder - reminder of my essence and my source
So I remember: my intimacy comes from there, the present shimmer gives me my constant light
No need to throw myself headlong, down among the shadowed rocks of circumstance, of social history, of old and current wounds - there is no comfort there, no guidance, there's no solution there, no truth
And since the truth is here, I will not leave. When I am tempted to, I will be still, and bask. I will be still and draw, from my life source, all that I need, and all I ever want.
