With the help of Heaven,
I’m strong
I’m healthy
I’m good.

Every day in every way
I’m getting better
and better
and better.

I am
I can
I will
be healthy
wealthy
wise and
safe.

I wish I could be as excited every morning as the pre-dawn birds.  They seem so bursting with chatter and bustle and dancing song that it is indeed another morning.  Maybe they are souls that were trapped in prison and now each day they wake they are thrilled to be flying and free.

Near death experiences can bring that joy of living.  The idea that we’d leave this magnificent blue-green planet for another dimension makes it seem more beautiful and precious.  There are those, I’m sure, who do not see their lives in that glow.  And certainly I’m here in the morning, a bit slow, tentative, feeling like I’m pushing to enjoy the idea of going out in the cold to greet the day.

Let me be a bird today.  Let their chirping enthusiasm fill my body with that energy of endless hope and joy.  I claim the flight, I embody their tiny hollow bones that vibrate with their powerful call to life.

There’s a then a couple days later was no where to be found.  He wasn’t in the tomb.  His mom and girlfriend were dumbfounded, but not surprised.  He was a curious fellow when he was alive.  He was met on the road later, glowing like a radioactive flower, and freaked most of his friends out.  Full of surprises.

The story, however, has spread around the globe.  It’s not the only story of dying and walking again.  What is so special about this story?  Spring does it every year.  Renewal is an old story for Nature.  Other gods did it too.  Whatever the hero, it reminds me that I’m in a cycle. 

Maybe I’m a washing machine just waiting for the next cycle.  Next life.  Next horizon.  It reduces all today’s drama to another story.  My goal these days is to make a really good story.  Today.  My stories, like my dad’s and his dad’s and Christ’s and Buddha’s and Hermes Tristamagistus, will fade.  But while I’m here, I’m the story teller of my life.

That IS my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Branches near branches for squaking crows dropping things.  Coral dawn peeking between the gray clouds then snuggling back under the covers.  Flat polished stones embedded in the narrow road revealed beneath the fine chatting gravel.  Firm bedrock beneath surrender.

Control cravings are like moving gravel around a path.  All paths are paths.  Some wet and cumbersome, tangled, flat, rocky.  Some more trodden than others.  Rocks revealed and gravel appears from boulders that are the earth that is my home.

An English daisy finds its way to landscape all soccer fields.Divine songbird singing words of eternity’s bracing boost with spring.  The Presence dancing.through my heart.

So here it is–today only I’ll share it with you.  You ARE God!  Yup, but it’s a big secret.  Nobody else knows, but I’m letting you in on it here and now.  Right here, right now you have all the power in the universe.  Ok, ok, you can’t move to Monaco or make a motor home appear in your driveway instantaneously.  BUT you can get to that warm Mediterranean city and secure a motor home when you want to–because you have all the Prime Creator’s faculties!  God news–I mean–Good News!

But you HAVE to keep it a secret.  I mean, if everyone knew they had this Energy, heck, we’d all be happy and carefree.  It still is the case that we chose a certain kind of life to play with–but the religious rules, political games and family dynamics would be trashed if everyone actually completely recognized that we all have a choice! 

I gave up sacrifice and martyrdom for Lent once, and I just haven’t chosen to go back to that.  I’m still working on humility–but that’s all about being teachable.  I think that’s why we’re here–that the Prime Creator is ultimately teachable and wanted parts of Herself to come down and learn new tricks.

So today I’m going to get out there and trick and treat and be the best Fool ever!

We’re here for some reason to mix it up.  People, things, places, trees–mix it up.  We have the illusion of control on some things, like who we mix with, how we mix, but inevitably some new element comes in the mix.  A big black young man in a Southern white family, a cat and a dog, two very different people knocking heads, a night person trying to stumble through the early morning, aliens living among humans.

Ok, I’m not completely awake here, but lately I’m seeing how life just mixes us up, and our contract and vision of being here is to be ok with the mix.  So what if your cubicle neighbor yells at you?  So what if you’re called on to referee?  So what if misunderstandings create anguish and wounding?  So what if someone intrudes on your life?  How do we navigate through uncertainty?  How are we comfortable with a new mix? 

Better yet, how can I be comfortable with ease, serenity and satisfaction?

It’s always about a better question, never about any answers.  Maybe the Prime Creator is up there laughing out loud at all of us curious angels playing in this glorious lovely mud!

What is it about sharing your worst times with those also in tough spots that seems to heal?  How could it be that when I talk about the hardest year of my life, and now 20 years later my heart still beats hard and my breath comes out short and forced, that it brings hope to someone else?  It certainly reminds me that I’m grateful to be here and now instead of there and then.

It reminds me of gratitude.  That I’m really sunning myself now, even if I’m going out in the cold and rainy dark morning.  My home is safe.  My days do not include screaming and yelling and terrifying children.  I have not ruined anyone’s life today–and haven’t for years.

I have the Divine to lean on today.  There are those that think this is the sign of weakness for some reason. But I know my limitations–I am not god.  I am not a channel, I am not an angel today right now.  I am an earth-woven, soft bodied, mushy feeling person here for less than a blink of an eye. 

The love of Her, Him, It, Nature, whatever I face, is what I lean on.  And leaning into this warmth of eternity, I always feel it lean back into me.

The nice thing about storms is that they clear the air.  Branches might come down, but they might have been rigid anyway.  The rain drenches the earth like tears releasing feelings.  The harsh words pushed out of aching hearts bend the trees of friendship and test if they will fall over.  The landscape may change, rivers move, logs block old pathways.

But the earth remains galactically huge.  Sun never went away, just hidden by transient clouds.  The only constant is change.  The trick for us humans is to get used to that change.  Bend at the knees on a ever-moving snowboard down a brilliant mountain with moguls, trees, good and bad snow, ice and even dirt spots.

Hurray for the devas, fairies and Divines that giggle with me as I soar.

I didn’t think of the title, but it sure describes the core of nurturing a relationship–no matter what kind.  Us humans–ok, ME anyways–make assumptions, have hysterical invisible barriers to asking for what I’d want, terrified of speaking my feelings, doubtful of all that I am/feel/do.

It is just dips.  When it rains, it just rains.

So now that it has rained, the flowers glisten, birds reawaken with trills and spills of cascading ripples through the sweet air.

She restores and refreshes my soul.

Hopefully not an earthquake, but ready for a shift.  A new job, a new car, now what does that symbolize about the new me.  How do I want to be different?  What would I change?  How would I act?

Probably more movement.  That damn exercise shit.  Some reason to run or time to walk or maybe dance?  Yeah, Goddess likes to dance.  Except maybe Diana who is truly a runner through the woods–ooo that sounds fun.

Asking myself questions and listening.  Allowing for the Divine song to come through my reluctant bones and pouting blood.  I tilt my ear to the melody of dawn.