Unveiled Gifts

I sit to savor my coffee, the glorious ahhhh morning and the incredible pre-fall breeze. But I am hot. The breeze is not blowing in the right direction to enter the windows. I chuckle at myself. Because the breeze does not suit me, nature is mis-queued. I notice the piece of paper next to me looks to be breathing with its gentle rise and fall. My chuckle becomes a bellowed laugh. Nature is trying to gift her delicious touch. The curtain has drooped and caught the breeze flowing towards me.

Today, sweet Life, may I with gentle hands, move all curtains within and without that would block the breeze.  

Riding through Windows

The anticipation made my body quiver.  Trying to figure out a way to keep my jeans on my disappearing body made me laugh. Too excited to wait, I left almost an hour early for the one hour drive. Windows down, sun roof open and the iPod playing new songs.  The car and I danced through the curved mountain roads, singing and remembering.  I was on my way to ride a horse through the mountains.  Remembering my horse from childhood, I tried to remember the feel of my foot in the stirrup, grasping the saddle and pulling myself up, swinging my other leg until I nested into the saddle, into the embrace of gentle power. I would ride across mythical plains and mountains, chasing dragons, racing the wind. More often than not, I would just sit, letting the sun warm my body, feeling the breathing of the horse beneath my body, and knowing an unknowable peace.

After a cup of cafe coffee, my body and heart  quivering even more, the cell phone went off as I got into the car. Just five minutes from riding my wind horse, they called to cancel.  Too much rain last night, upon the parched earth, unsafe for the horses, reschedule for tomorrow.  My heart eagerly agreed, knowing how dangerous the mud would be for the horses. But, still.....

Putting the car in reverse, a direction I know too well, a smile gathered the gentle sweet tear.  Pausing, I opened the windows and sunroof, caressed the steering wheel and clicked my tongue. "Giddyup" I whispered, "Tomorrow. Maybe. For now, my little horse of steel, time to ride."

Upon my horse of steel I rounded the mountain curves with gravity pulling me towards her body. I traveled mythical plains, raced the dragons and with windblown hair I sang....

"Sometimes a dream is just like a window

Like a window that opens on blue.

Some windows are just made for looking

Some windows for climbing through..."

~Deidra McCalla "Some Windows"

Between 'Now' and 'All Else'

Sacredness will find the heart.

When I am ill, I can let the illness run its course or go to the doctor and not experience a longer illness. When a friend or loved one needs help I can risk my vulnerability and time, giving them my hand, or knowing they will figure it out and be ok, stand aside. I can intend on perfect health, serving others, time with loved ones, traveling, painting, writing or singing, or one day to be worthy of love and accept myself...when all else is done.

Sacredness will find the heart. It may come when we discover we have no more time, or experience a moment when time itself is threatened, but sacredness will find the heart. Between "now" and "all else" ......

"Thy infinite gifts come to me only on these
very small hands of mine. Ages pass, and still
thou pourest, and still there is room to fill." 
-Rabindranath Tagore,

Gilligan's Three Hour Tour

A riddle - how many times does a hiker have to pass a bench - gracefully placed on a mountain path- before they realize they are lost and going in circles?


Answer - at least four and I smile.

A new path and mountain to hike. An hour to enjoy the quiet solitude of new.  Three hours later - and four passes of the bench - I realized I was lost, had lost the path and no one knew where I was. Not even myself-specifically, that is. I stood pondering which way to go, began singing softly the theme song to Gilligan's Island - emphasizing the chorus .... "A three hour tour."  


Turning I saw the tree growing out of the mountain ledge, my sigh of wonder and awe replacing the song. Turning once again I saw the road. No path to the road, but the road was there. I thanked the tree and plowed my way down the mountain to the road. Sometimes I get so caught in the journey I do not notice I am lost and going in circles.  It is when I still myself that I can see the strength. In seeing the strength I can find the road and return.

Cup of Tao

The Tao says the function of a container is in its emptiness. I remember weeks ago, having just cleaned the kitchen and mopped, I made my treasured coffee.  When the beep sounded, saying it was ready, I entered a kitchen with coffee pooled on both the counter top and floor.  I had forgotten to empty the old.  The new had nowhere to go, no emptiness to fill.

Yesterday’s walks birthed the whisper to the trees of “I am completely stripped of all.”  This morning, Life whispers back, “I know.”  Carved, molded and baked in life’s kiln, the cup of my sweet life, in its emptiness, awaits her filling.  But in truth, it is not the longing for the filling, but the emptying of the sweet nectar to give others drink and then the return to readied emptiness…to be filled yet again.

I cannot pour what has not been filled.  I cannot be filled without being emptied.  Trust.