"Each succeeding year
unfolds wisdom,
beauty,
and holiness." - Mary Baker Eddy
Like the leaves I am starting to change colors
brown to white, pale to something as mottled as the fragile shell of a woodthrush held softly beneath a feathered breast
like the blossoms I am beginning to change texture
from firm, to delicate
plump-lipped, to lined and deckled all along each petal's fine edge unblighted, and still ripe with the fragrant first kiss of that summer, long after morning's dew retreats to touch the sun
bright days, busy with the bustling pace of earlier seasons -- diaper bags, snacks for soccer, the hurried meal before rehearsals, give way to shorter days and longer nights filled with quiet gratitude, reflection, remembering...
my steps, once brisk with self-determination and sure intent, have slowed to a pace less driven by a future I can only, almost, grasp
less haunted by a past I once ran from
If I spend countless hours looking out to sea, it is because the soft ebb and flow of timeless days soothes me with her rhythmic reliability, comforts my fear of endings with this promise, "there is more, there is more..,"
my branches once limber and willowy are now strong from years of holding on while they -- like Isis -- reached for the sun
today, I'm learning the gift of self-compassion
of letting go without pain, regret, or sorrow -- I am ready
to give birth to, yet, another season's colors
the new blush of another rose...
"...seedtime
has come
to enrich earth
and enrobe man in righteousness;
may its sober-suited autumn
follow with hues of heaven,
ripened sheaves,
and harvest
songs."
"God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all..."
- I John
I think of a pitch black night
a darkness so impenetrable that the I cannot see my hand before my face, no pinprick of starlight, no streetlamp to distract, no shadows to dream by... now, i try to think of light void of its absence, a light without the any darkness at all... and it is almost unimaginable... no shadows to give texture, establish distance, nearness, the juxtapositioning of hierarchy... who's on first, who's on second... all things in the clear, Light-saturated, present-tense, in the all Beingness of now... His I AM no foreground of importance, nothing falling into the distance... I try to to imagine it but it is without precedence on this timeline of past, present, future... this bar graph of good, better, best...
I can only know... light without any darkness Love without any hesitancy Health without any fear of the unknown Peace without any hidden threat of chaos Trust without any lingering doubts Giving without any expectation of receiving... Light without any darkness at all... "...no darkness at all..."
"As a drop of water,
is one with the ocean..." - Mary Baker Eddy If a drop of
water is one with
the ocean...
is it also one
with
the cloud?
and if
one with the cloud,
then what of the
mist,
the dew,
the drenching rain,
the steam that
turns raw
dough into
dumplings for the
evening meal,
hard grains of rice
into a
banquet for
the
starving...
two molecules of
hydrogen
bonded to a single
oxygen
molecule
a family
so
small
that what
we see as
"a drop"
is actually a
tiny collective,
a small
community,
a village of
molecular adoption...
individual
elements
coalescing,
uniting,
converging,
cooperatively
working side-by-side to
feed,
cleanse,
sate,
assuage,
refresh,
buoy,
energize,
lift
a
world...
and when they dance
apart
into
a swirl of
vapor
rising from the
boiling pot,
the steaming bamboo...
in its wake there
is another
meal,
a day without
hunger,
an opportunity to
share...
but, where
is the grief?
what of the drop
of water...
no longer round and
heavy,
wet with promise,
cool on the
tongue...
is it lost into
the ether
failed of remaining
fat and liquid,
formless and
forgotten
does density of
mass
define purpose,
beauty,
life...
no...
the eternal cycles of
Being
rise and fall,
and
fall
and rise,
they
gather,
adopt,
condense,
surrender,
fall,
be,
give,
evaporate,
rise...and yet rise, again
to
gather,
adopt...
become
a single
family of three...
two hydrogen
one oxygen
ceaseless cycles of
opportunity for
shared
good...
yet
always rising,
ever rising
to fall
and rise again
what is unseen
is not lost
just different
a vertical horizon,
a change of perspective,
a journey of
grace
no loss...
never lost
just liquid,
to solid,
to liquid,
to gas,
to vapor,
to liquid....
a beautiful lake,
an inspiring cloud,
refreshing rain,
steam that unlocks the
grain of
rice...
each stage
a gift of Love
rising,
and yet rising,
on the
wings of
eternity
only to
fall
"...Life is eternal,
and love is immortal,
and death is only a horizon --
and the horizon is nothing,
save the limit of our sight..." ― Rossiter W. Raymond
I love this Carly Simon version of Raymond's poem, "Life is Eternal" it has invited me to climb higher so that, perhaps, someday, I can see further.
"There was a time
when men were kind.
When their voices were soft
and their words inviting..." - Alain Boublil
I have dreams that
are my own,
and dreams I share with
men of vision,
women of
charity,
children who refuse to
give in to the
cynicism of
self.
I've heard their
dreams in
speeches,
seen on them placards,
felt them pounding
under the feet of a million
men
marching for liberty,
dreams I've reached into the
heavy air of
a Washington afternoon
and
grasped so tightly
in heart,
that
my pulse became a
pledge to
never let
go
until we
had overcome...
I've dreamed dreams that
seemed but specters on the horizon of
a thousand fallen hopes,
and dreams that
held the lives of countless in
the balance.
I've fought for the right to
dream of freedom
and wept for the
freedom to dream
I've marched and
rallied,
chanted and sung,
I've prayed for the imprisoned
and wept for the ones who died
never knowing
life without chains...
I dreamed that men from different sides
could build bridges of
kindness towards a common
future,
and that mothers would
never forget to remember
that
for every child we
send to war,
there is another mother whose
son,
or daughter,
faces them
across the
great
divide...
I still dream dreams...
but my dreams are simpler now...
I dream that men will be kinder,
that children will not go hungry,
that women can walk safely on the streets at night,
that all are sheltered,
that when we don't agree,
our words are soft,
and our
hearts are open...
to the power of Love.
for this,
I dream...
"... I dreamed
that love would never die.
I dreamed that God would be forgiving..."
― ibid.
I heard this version of "I Dreamed a Dream" -- as sung by Anne Hathaway in the trailer for the new release of Les Miserable -- and found it heart-breakingly beautiful, and hauntingly lovely.
"Make me a channel
for thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me hold love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope..." - St. Francis Assissi
I've been thinking
about this "channel"
I keep asking you to
make
of
me...
a place where
the river of Your pleasures
can flow without
obstruction...
ahhh,
now I see...
that all Your deep carving --
the honing away
of
pride,
self-certainty,
arrogance,
and me, me, me
thinking --
was part of the plan
to
make me
more
useful to You...
only a channel
can carry
waters deep enough to
buoy a sound vessel
towards the sea,
the Source,
the headwaters of
divinity
only a deep and wide
channel can
hold enough water that
one is cleansed in its broad
arms and
not muddied in the shallows
of self-absorbed
churning...
only a broad
channel can bring the
ferried hopeful
home to
"the other side,"
and
navigate the shoals of
time,
memory,
accomplishment,
regret
without
shattering the
keel
so, make me a channel
of your peace,
a fathomless passageway
for your
Love...
carve out all ego-based
debris
I now know
that
Your deepest cuts
make for purer waters...
I am not asking to be
treated gently,
to be pacified or handled with
lavender kid gloves...
remove the
detritus of self-will,
self-love,
self-preservation...
anything that would
obstruct
the pure,
clear,
refreshing,
transparent
selfless
waters of
You...
carve deeply
for
I have
no other purpose...
I
am
Yours...
"...that I may not
so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned..."
― ibid.
