Choosing Magic Choosing Grace

This morning on my walk I noticed a solitary deer as I walked back. She stood in the flat grasses as I stood and watched. My little heart opened. As I moved to walk on she slowly walked parallel to me. I stopped. She stopped and turned her head and watched me. Sometimes she would move in my direction, then pause and we would chat. A couple of times she pranced, not an escaping bound but a prancing like a thoroughbred horse. Sweet mercy so beautiful.  We walked parallel for a bit. I thought maybe she might like to be on the other side where the lake is, so I stopped and told her I would wait. She stared at me and then slowly walked ahead in my direction. Paused and looked at me and then crossed prancing to the other side. I watched until she was well on her way, and saw her look and we said good morning and good bye.

I thought of the morning. How my body not perky made me linger just a bit before I left. How my little dog and I stood for a few moments by the car to take in all we could see. And then on the walk, to linger against the Old One Trees. To stop briefly and touch the most amazing delicate blue flowers. Little pauses or speed ups here and there and was gifted my friend the doe who walked with me.

To another who may or may not have seen the doe, other explanations are easily offered. But perhaps, I ponder, that is indeed the thread…how we choose to see what we choose to see.

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. 

Grains of Sand

               To ponder all the things and people we move from, outgrow or replace. We spackle nail holes to hide where pictures and objects once were visible and had significance. We donate clothes that caught our attention in the store, adorned us for special occasions or perhaps hold memories of simply growing. We move from a home that made our hearts gasp the first time we entered and saw all the possibilities or even simply a place to feel safe. Or to ponder all the things or people that have left us, maybe or maybe not with spackling, re-gifting so others would enjoy, or leaving us feeling safe or breathless with possibility.

               The wise ones teach that change any one and the “me” that writes this scrich would not be the same. Better or worse? Who can say.  Victor Frankl’s experience in the holocaust concentration camps led him to observe between every stimulus and response there is a space called choice. Remove but one of the experiences and another choice would have opened that may possibly have changed all others. As the Buddha said, everything and everyone is our teacher, the grains of sands upon the path of choice.

               To ponder all these grains of sand overwhelms my little mind and heart. But to ponder the choice, that space in between humbles me. In the humbling I am lifted by one thought…the gift of choice. The power of choice. That the Sweet Hands of Life, the Universe, the Creator of all would trust me with choice. To think of such love leaves my heart with only one whisper…

I shall trust myself for I am the Divine’s trust.

Composite

Sometimes I marvel at the ability of the human mind to see only the pieces of shells lying upon the ocean or gulf shores. We scour for perfect shells, whole and complete.  To see only pieces, making even more as we walk over them never taking the time to look at their intricate colors or feel their texture and marvel at the intricacy of design and divine creation.

What makes this picture special is not the color or wholeness of the perfect shell.... it is the mosaic of the other shells in pieces or those so small they are unseen unless you bend down to look. The picture, the gift is a composite. It is not a portrait.

And so it is with my heart resting upon the shore of my life.

Why I Sit

               I walk. I walk a lot. Walking, especially within nature, is my sanctuary. I also sit. Sitting, unlike my walking, is simply that, I sit.

               I often think of life as the metaphor of a river effortlessly flowing. Fact is, I have seen not so beautiful and effortless rivers. I have seen muddy rivers, polluted and dying rivers. I have seen rivers overflowing their banks drenching and rotting crops. I have seen the power of rivers racing towards a mountain’s edge with the roar of an ocean hurricane. Yet, each one is a river at a different time, a different place and still a river.

               I sit because the metaphor of a river reminds me that life is not always a verb. Life is also a noun. Rivers, like a noun, can take on so many different adjectives and become verbs, but they remain a noun, a state of being. A state of being that is in time, space, colors, power, seen and unseen. Sitting is a noun. Sitting is my OAR with which I can navigate the rivers. The O is for openness. Sitting is simply a noun- a state of an open heart and Love. Nowhere to go, no verb to become, simply sitting open and loved. The A is for alignment. My body finds the posture that breathes and sits grounded upon the earth as an extension. The R is resilience. My body, 237 seasons old, learned too early to bend, slouch, and become small and unseen. The resilience of sitting reminds me of my essence which is long, extended, seen, and weighted with presence and life alive. I have withstood and now it sits forsaking the smallness.

               I sit because the rivers and the day do not. They move. They flow. I cannot sit all day. I must be about tending to life, love, light and being. I sit because I have to rise and leave the earth, floor or mat. I sit because the noun must become a verb and yet the root of the verb remains forever a noun. I sit because I must stand and walk. And when I arise, when I stand, I do so holding my OAR as my walking stick. I sit so that no matter the river and its verb, I stand open, aligned and resilient. I sit to hear the whispers of the oars of Love gliding through the rivers.

               May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings everywhere be free. May all beings sit. And may all beings rise and stand holding their oar.

Making Visible the Unseen

And what have I seen?

What seems long ago, my heart, not my eyes, softened the earth with my tears. The eyes knew only the slings of arrows in vengeance cast towards the hawk. The hawk soaring effortlessly free upon the thermals with no resistance had left my hands, like the thermals, holding the tiny red squirrel’s body. Death offering no resistance or the tear softened grave I dug.

I have since watched the lightness of the coyote’s trot carrying a Canadian goose in his mouth, his drought gaunt haunches and ribs soon to know the brevity of fullness. I bowed and gave thanks. I have gathered the cat and hawk’s calling card of dove feathers piled and dancing with the breeze, and buried them with corn meal. I knelt and offered thanks to the sky.

With corn meal and blessings I have laid within the earth the form of tiny finches that could not fly into the trees’ reflection in the window that gifts me sight of their feeding. I have wished safe journeys to both the coyotes on the hill top and the bunnies playing below. I have bellowed with laughter to see a fish struggling….on the end of a tiny little boy’s stick fishing pole as his squeal of joy and his dance echoed upon the lake of fish.  I have stood face to face with a wall of stone reaching straight up into the clouds, no slants, no easement, here and no further the wall of stone mountain declared. And I have bowed to the trees bent out and then upward from its stone closed doorway.

And what have I learned?

A tiny red squirrel now has wings and soars upon the thermals seeing trees that look like specks of dust beneath his flight. A goose now runs, leaps, howls and has a den to call home, a place to rest. A dove no longer timid and cooing now screeches its strength to all below, soaring and diving and has learned to purr, stretch and chase the shadows and wind. Finches now fly wherever they wish, even window panes have cracks that bid them enter and their invisible undenied reflections are seen in dancing grass and swaying trees. Bunnies and coyotes laugh to play hide and seek and some bunnies no longer hide beneath the earth to rest but lay in the grass, warmed by the sun, fearing no thing. A fish has learned to dance, read and write, dreams of flying to the moon, and knows the gaze, touch and kiss of love. A stoned mountain’s closed door has softened eyes that reach down and carry you both within and upon its top as it whispers….”here and beyond.”

And what do I see?

I have a form that gifts pleasure to those who like to count and put pieces of paper into neat orderly piles. I have a form that gives order to ques...some go this way others go that way, this door that door. I have a form that has been given a name much like the names of coyote, Canadian Goose, Sharp Shinned Hawk,  or Red Squirrel. But does not the coyote feel the migratory call as it lays in his den or the vibration of wings that would take flight? Does not the hawk giggle to see nuts on the ground and its claws flex as if to hide them in the clouds. Or does the goose look to the mountains and hills feel its webbed feet immersed beneath the water stretch as if they were running across the mesa? Or the dove hearing the screech knows no fear, the claws and descent are her own?

I have a form that chafes and burdens me at times, weighted heavy like the boulder Sisyphus slaves to roll up the hill only to see it roll back down.  I have a form and eyes that have been graced to see…I am a form of forms. No one separate from the others. And unlike Sisyphus I do not have to push the stone up the hill. I can sit and feel its warmth, our warmth The Warmth…for I AM the stone. The stone is me. And we are where we are meant to be. In One. The ALL of One that Is. Formless forms of Light, Being and Love.

Presence Being

Good morning little one

Deer this morning. They were in the lower yard eating what seed the birds and squirrels had not eaten. Four doe. Beneath the New Moon. I was looking upward and thinking how bright the stars seemed upon the New Moon’s sky. Felt a movement and then saw movement in the drive way and then on the other side of the fence walking up the outside of the yard, up the street back to the mountain. A straggler followed and then turned and stood still beneath the street light on the opposite corner and looked towards my direction. I do not know where she was looking but to see her stand beneath the light took my breath away. An artificial moon showed her winter gray coat.  Giggle, I sometimes forget how big deer are. 

Oh little one, they belong in the mountain area not where cars fly upon the streets not expecting deer. And yet, I giggle, why should we not expect them? This was their home before homes for human forms were built. Before cities were carved into the mountains, the mesas, this was their home. Yes the drought has called them from where they have gone to escape the cars, the cement and human activities, they have left the small areas where they can still live and returned in search of food to where they used to roam. The bears will soon be here as well.

Sometimes I think we are like the deer. Life, definitions, roles, responsibilities, desires of the hearts moved further and further away from nature’s own, until we become remote to ourselves, where our tribe used to roam beneath all the moon’s faces and starlight. Every now and then we forage outside the fences of safety to see if perhaps the geography our heart remembers has returned, is there. Our feet upon the cement instead of the earth. And yet, and yet, as I watched the doe beneath the moon we created, her body still, her head gazing this way, I wondered…what did she see? And I knew, beneath the new moon she saw what she saw…… her Tribe roaming freely, grazing, dancing beneath the New Moon and stars that celebrated the New Moon in their brightness, offering back to her the light she constantly gives to them. She stood and saw past what I was seeing in fear…cars, dogs, homes and cement. She saw what was, what is, and what will forever be….nature’s sweet call to be as one is, as one was, as one will always be…free and unconfined. She and the others had heard the Tribe’s call just like the blades of grass growing up through cement cracks, tree roots lifting sidewalks or holding firm in the side of a mountain. The heart of the Tribe, of Life, not to be denied. The New Moon sang and they left their space of fear to stand and see. To leave their presence Now with, upon, and One with the All. 

I bowed with open hands to my heart, a tear melting upon my face, like the snow, giving drink to my smile. As I stood to turn back into the house, one last gaze back and I saw her turn, heard her footsteps upon the cement and upon my heart as she slowly walked back…to the mountain, beneath the New Moon and luminous stars. And I whispered, when the sun kisses the New Moon goodnight, may I be graced to see the Tribe as did she. To know wherever I walk, I do so upon sacred ground meant to be experienced. May I answer the Call of Being she stood and saw.