Freeing Shadows

               What is the difference between knowing and feeling? It’s like the space between water and ice, the sea and sea bed, or the wick, flame and wax. 

               I walked the hilly mountain path. Into the wind. I sang and chanted the Knowing of Love, being Love and giving Love. In the wind I heard a whisper and thought it only the sound of my feet slipping on the rocks. But I knew the voice. I was walking into the wind. It began as a whisper. Grew quietly into a cry. “I am unloved. I am not loveable. I will never be good enough for anyone or anything.” I knew the voice and the 237 seasons that had shaped the words and then silenced them. Even the Knowing had, in some ways, silenced the voice but always knew it was there.

               I walked the hilly mountain path. Into the wind. I walked with Knowing. And as I walked I listened as the voice became stronger lengthening my stride up the hills. As I walked with Knowing I sat the voice free to cry, to yell, to fly. I walked the hilly mountain path. Into the wind. I walked with Knowing. The voice, the silent fear flew ahead, soared above and hung like a bird in the sky, so effortless, suspended in time. I found the Knowing and my heart chuckling softly as we walked into the wind. Even shadows deserve to be free.

               What is the difference between Knowing and feeling? It’s like the space between water and ice, the se and sea bed, or the wick, flame and wax. The space where no voice is silenced. The space where you walk into the wind with Knowing, watch feeling soar and fly no longer afraid. The space where feeling and Knowing become trust. 

Knowing

You know when you sit with someone and hand them a gift, and you watch so softly but intently as your friend opens the gift and his or her eyes equally soft and intent wondering what they hold in their hands. The knower and the knowing unopened. Those  flashing moments just before the gift is opened, exploding like a sprout emerging from the soil.  The sprout cresting the earth to see the sun for the first time knowing, always knowing even in its shell, that the sun surely exists...and then to greet its knowing.

An odd night last night, giggle. When I took my little dog outside I could feel the wind. The sky was filled with dark night clouds. Checked the weather and saw thunderstorms coming. As I was saying good night to my hobbit house, the lights turned off, I heard a banging and the garage door, pushed by the wind trying to move the rock keeping it in place. I went outside to see if I could secure the garage door better and caught the force of the wind in my face, but was not so much the wind I felt as the dust. As I lay in bed, even my little dog seemed vigilant, unsure, and would not settle down. Usually with winds like that you hear the wind. Not last night. Did not hear the wind. You only heard the thud and banging of who knows what ... I will have to wait until the sun rises this morning to see.

I lay there listening and was carried back to my first memory of the Gulf's waves at night on a cloudy night without the moon. Sitting in darkness you hear the roar of the waves, the splash, the swooosh of the water lapping up on the shore, pulling back and crashing softly into the new rivers flowing in. You could not see the waves. You could not see the sand. You only saw darkness. And in the darkness you heard the waves. That sound is woven deep into my soul and even my body, it is tangible, palpable. I've listened to wave sounds thinking they would bring that same feeling, but for some reason they do not. Oh yes, comforting and make me smile, but it is not the same. It is not just the hearing, it is the power, the energy, the motion of waves in the air crashing upon you that creates the tapestry woven. Like the wind last night that could not be heard save for the motion of waves in the air crashing upon objects outside.

And so I ponder...is that the same experience of the seed? The knowing. Is there sound when the earth is moved with roots digging down and when the sprout pushes through? Is there sound we cannot hear...unless we listen to the breath of the earth carrying the whispers "Come and greet your knowing."

Eraser of the Heart

A tree I had not met, a rock or feather I had not found and a path that I had not walked called me to come and find.  May my life always be a treasure hunt to see each moment as a wonder and surprise. Discovering the treasures awaiting me and leaving my own for others to find.  

My Story is not written by the hands of others nor the physical. My Self's story is written by the heart. I can tell you the story others would tell of me. Or I can tell you the Story I know. These scriches I write tell the latter, each word an eraser so that only one Story my little heart knows. So off to nature I went to find the tree, rock or feather and the path. To sit with the paper of the soul, the eraser of the Heart, and to discover the treasures waiting, leaving a prayer here and there that others would find what simple gifts I have left for them to find.