Returning rain reminds us nothing is static, and nothing progresses in a straight line - so many curves converge, and this point, right now, is the continuing apex of grace, stillness through which seasons move and strong arcs of support are formed.
These days, officious yellowjackets throng to our every task - hanging laundry, chopping wood, installing siding
And they seem to want to know - Where's the cutlet that I ordered? Who's in charge here? And why was I not told about these plans before?
Could be the season, or my own myopia, not speaking yellowjacket, not hearing the urgent message they would relay
Or maybe, like New Yorkers, and other eager noisy social beings, they have a rhythm that works just fine for them, and who am I to question what they do?
We wake up to find we are born with a love for everything that can say "I am" - with its sensing, with its moving, with the patterns it reprises in its living, in its growth
It's the individuality of all these things, and all these people, that points to the infinity of Love, big enough to intimately know each one of us, warm and bright enough to fully care.
Waiting as the cymbal's tremble moves from crash to dissipation, waiting in the space defined by its detonation, waiting to see where I'll find myself once the sound has settled
I could go on, then, as if my inner membranes had not arrested their normal breathing as they reverberated. I could make a big story about it, a problem, a set of things that need redress
Or I could let the silence become attuned, let it deepen, go with it to the primal order, align with trees, and night, and stone, and seek the sight of stars.
Once again, it's obvious I can't hold this up on my own, can't hold the line against the booming voice of doom
But that's alright, for I don't have to. You hold me up, and everything pertaining to me. I can wake to see what you have prepared, how you so comprehensively hold us all.
This seed I am to sow I need to plant where your soil is deep, in your honest and good heart which anchors your intentions and will defend against any false impressions or dispiritedness
Your honest and good heart will keep the seed, will feel it, tend it, feed it with its fertile warmth, and hold the tender net - water and air - that lets your life grow strong and bear much fruit.
Mortality rattles along like an old cart. Wheels may fall off, or a side, or the bottom may fall through
And we are asked to think about where we will take it before it fails utterly - if we will trundle on rough roads, or seek out asphalt, or park ourselves in some garage
But there are no choices here. It's all the same. Mortality lacks the spirit of what we are, so it can never satisfy or even be relevant
Day by day I turn away from these questions. Day by day I walk my feet in steps of freedom.
Evening comes. Red disk sinks behind an invisible hill, showing its trees' silhouettes. Smoke sits between us and them, flattening and fading the landscape
I seek refuge in humility, so I can feel the lift of the Mind that breathes all things, the Life that lights awakening, that leads to where we all forgive and are forgiven, and so relearn the way to reestablish heaven.
In this meeting, the fountain which comprises me thrills up. I find my shape entirely within this flowing - constant surge and free cascade
All of me voices my satisfaction at being this outpouring gift, letting the infinite be what fills me continually. All of my being rejoices to be evidence of its presence.
What is true about this day - smoke filled, a sullen oven, suffocating yellows, wan sun still punishing?
What is true? - the conflicts and the inner raging? A sinking sense of falling down in flame, face of futility, large numbers of enumerated fears?
Or is it the intelligence I see standing in the stands of trees surrounding our abode? And every living thing, which, with its being, affirms the present mindfulness? - And so remains alert, and can't be swept up in mindless conflagrations
In this awareness, I briefly glimpse the basis of true fearlessness - Love which is Mind holding every mote in place, intelligently placed to form the priceless whole.
Well, if I don't tell myself the truth, who will? And yet this truth is not the stuff of petty disappointments, layers of them, self-hidden by my self-image, the sense I should know better than to feel this way.
No. This truth must embrace stepping outside the borders of myself to look around. Losing sight, thereby, of any self-sense. Picking up, instead, kind eyes, eagerly receiving all of these most interesting beings, offering acceptance, and coming back around to be accepted, in the easy way where none of us is judge.
Your presence compels my steady attention. I take a half step back from myself to align with the sensing of what you are, this cause of me, this Principle, that which my full being must express, here for me with all its surging prospects
I notice the iridescence at the name of you, the name of me, the place where what I am is wholly redefined by you, who, after all, defined me in the first place.
I need to learn to keep this promise, to keep on knowing you, knowing myself, this way. I need to stay with you and know you with me, too.
Little tree, I thought I came to see you better when I glimpsed the sprite within, bright energy that spreads out in your growing roots and limbs, which then contracts in winter - sentient strategist, choosing your way to grow
But then I got an even clearer view - how you are emanation of the one intelligence that thinks us all. Your sentience is no more separate than mine, your joy as much the thrill of life's ride as mine is. The rush of being so precisely what you are, as much a gift as mine - proof of our common Principle, our parentage the same.
The picture that I drew didn't look like him, and yet it somehow captured something of his voice while reading, something of humanity in deeper tones than casual good will
She drew my foot - I didn't see her work but my foot felt it - all its surfaces in high alert
We took turns reading while being drawn, ideas and images joined the room, different people picked them up and held them close
Afterwards I found my affection throwing a fond net to draw everyone in - these artists, their experiences, points of view, ideals, and the mutual respect that holds us bright and safe in this salon.
This is my permission, this is the open door, this is the touch of welcome - hand touch, eye touch
We step beyond the steps, beyond technique, beyond the thinking - we toss our touch like pups, we play like babies
Impulse shadows impulse, roll follows roll, one secret link allows us all to be connected, hand to hand, foot to foot, lean to lean - we are each other's rest, also incitement lift to lift, spin to spin, flow to flow, contact leads us to our common Soul.
A place you might choose to be by yourself, a place of quiet, and of soaring feasts for the eyes, a place you might be still until you feel the source streams that connect you - how their energy holds you up straight, gives you the power to move
You shift into deeper awareness of their constancy, how you can move now strongly and with certainty
No step alone but fully in the flowing of this dynamic life which is your being, and why you're here.
The words are all here, the ones that make clear what we are, what we see, what we know
The truth is right here, it ever leads us to drop assumptions, see things new
I paint the word, the truth, on what I see - the land becomes my illustration - its wide upsweep, the trees atop it - I rest my eyes here and feel at peace.
As people remember world shaking events, and ask each other "where were you at the time?" so they are saying, one to another, "what was it like for you?" in the dawning of this, the Jubilee
But no one has loudspeakers, gathering crowds for orations and punditry here - instead it is like the quiet chime of a tuning fork, and all the strings, (one within each of us) clear in their closeness, majestic in their joining, vibrate their accord and the following harmonies, on and on, the diapason ringing into the stillness of bright fresh morning.
