"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."
- .ibid
"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..."
― ibid.
"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.
