I know a woman who doesn’t choose to believe in god, but she believes in the power of prayer, so she calls herself a praiest (not an atheist or a diest..).  I’ve got to agree with her.  I don’t believe it makes any difference to what we think we pray “to.”  I believe it is the vibrations of the words that aligns this dear obtuse body and jumpy child-like mind into harmony with the timeless heart and soul.

Even the chanting of “ooooohhhhhhmmmm” can bring my body back to a comforting “hhhhhoooommmmmmeeee.”  My constant declarations “I’m safe. I’m safe. I’m safe.” or “I love you. I love you. I love you,” (spoken to me and to nature, a tree, a god, the cosmos) both help to calm my anxiety and fears.

I heard a prayer from a huge hollowed out cedar tree yesterday–that despite it’s wide empty trunk that I could stand inside, there was thriving growth at the top.  The words I heard were “Be empty and grow.”

Be empty and grow.  Not unlike another chant I’ve heard: Be still and know.  Today I choose to practice being–merely being–empty and still, opening my heart to knowing my growth.

I want my mommy.  I wish she was here.  She left so early in my life…well not as early as some, but maybe it always seems too early.  I feel like I was comforted and seeded well, but then not polished, not told about adulthood, being grown-up, and being a mom myself.

What an experience to mate and hold a human seed in my belly.  Watching that bump turn into a baby.  Carrying another heart beneath my heart.  When my children were pulled from me, I could feel their heart beating for years outside of my body.  The invisible cord pumped love and support and returned beauty, wonder and a depth of dimension to spirit.  My children are my spiritual teachers, there is no doubt.

Twenty-five years later, she sobs on the phone and the pull of her body grabs my gut, twists my heart and wrings weeping tears as I type.  There seems to be so little I can do.  My words seem so small, so far away, so trite to comfort.

Thus I turn to my Mommy.  I lean into Meera, Durga and Mary.  I rest my head into the breast of Grandmother Spider Woman and let her take my sobbing to Her arms.  I breathe deep and know that we are always together on this astounding, mysterious, heart-spirit Path together.  She is as close to me as my pain, as near as my skin within.  I rest in Her Presence.

Here I am again trapped with the voices that want me to eat, drink and imbibe with substances that don’t freaking work in my body.  GEEZ.  Carbos stuff me up, my soda pop drink of choice is filled with crap that poisons my body and the argument is endless!

Let’s eat.
I don’t want to eat, I’ll just get tired.
for chrissakes we need fuel.
don’t care, wanna stay frosty.
frosty?!?!  You mean frosted?!
whatever.
we need fuel.
have caffeine–it will kill the urge

it’s late, let’s have a snack.
it will keep us up and clog us up.
I don’t care, I want something sweet
you’ll be sorry
I don’t care.
asshole.
jerk.

And then I eat more than not, and sit in the bed with that little hack trying to clear my chest of mucous.  (Sorry, this is not quite an inspiring morning meditation.)  But I have to admit and honor that essential human voice or I cannot tally the votes that motivates change.

So sometimes I eat, weep, get snotty, cranky and out of balance with the human being–being human.  Since faith and fear can always be in the same place for me–they HAVE to coexist, I can also stop for a moment, close my eyes, breathe deep into the center of every cell and know that I am that I am.

Breathing in, I claim the One.  Breathing out, I honor the little one.  Breathing in, I own the Divine inside, breathing out, I play this dear, exciting, hysterical, beautiful human game.

Hello there big cat coming into my life.  Mr. Simon, my Dad’s cat finding a home with me when Dad moved across the country.  Of course I would take him in–keep him in the family.  No matter that I was not allowed a cat in my rental home.  It was temporary, after all.

Eight years temporary.  We moved two different places, had kids coming and going.  He made friends of sorts with the huge dog we had.  Of course, he, growing up with a huge dog, maintained his alpha status.  When chastised by us for hissing to get food, he would casually walk across the room to where the big 85 lb dog was sleeping and swat the dog! 

Now goodbye.  A little tiny body melting into his bones.  Staggering when he walked, bumping into the water dish.  But still getting into the kitchen and right underfoot when we starting cooking.

Set free now to dance and sing and fly.  I salute you, Mr. Simon, for the grace, fierce independence (he was mayor of the neighborhood, after all), and singular presence that you brought to my life.

What a wonderful place for God to play with me. 

What a treasure to be so close to someone that you can see the tiny shades of the skin on their face.  To touch someone’s hair and feel the soft texture, to caress the neck beneath the tresses.  I hold onto these moments remembering so many who I have touched now so far away. 

And to touch the fur of a dear one that soon will be on the other side.  To remember the wagging tail, the soft conversational howling and wiggling butt of animal lovers.

I sent love to all those who have touched me and that I have been honored to touch.  May our endless forever spirits always dance.

It is a conversation between the heart, mind and body.  Sometimes the body says “Oh come on!  Please stay in bed!!!”  And the heart goes “I really want to see my buddies, they meet early.”  The mind says, “What is the right thing to do?”  There are days when they argue as I sigh, pull the covers up and claim those last few minutes before whatever deadline they choose.

The body will veto and we oversleep.  The heart just can’t stand it any longer and we jump up and walk to meet the dawn.  Actually the mind at this early hour often sits back and lets the other two wrestle it out.

But by the time we get here, we sit and open my heart, mind and body for the Presence.  A breath or two aligns us in a powerful triad of purpose.  We are here to be human and to be spirit and to cherish this adventure of Earth, form, beauty and choice.  As I embrace the grace in my right here and now, we flow.

We talk about “accepting” things in our life: death, changes, loss, lessons.  But one of the meanings of “acceptance” is to receive a gift.  I’m sure I’ve spoken about this before, and will again.

I am slammed and blessed into acceptance.  It is most often in retrospect that I see the gift.  “What a delightful present to be partnered for so long in such a harsh relationship!  It is just what I wanted! (????)  How did you know?!”  It was certainly exactly what I needed to see that I had choices and could choose, that I had preferences and opinions and desires for my kind of happiness.

Today I feel more of a chance to see beneath any cloud or doubt for the gift–the Presence.  Like any coin, being human means that the ache is intimately connected with the grace.  The pain is the point of healing and the struggle is the path to peace.

I walk today along a gravel dirt path along a swamp, sluggish, brown, littered with water-soaked trees.  It is filled with pairs of ducks, turtles and tiny creatures rustling the twisted bushes.  Even the so-called dead things in my life are filled with treasures that I hold close to my heart.

What a wonderful gift today–life.

No matter if I have to say no to something I want.  Or that I need to allow unfinished business to flow by.  Even if my dreams come true and I get frightened, I am surrounded with blessings. 

To bless is to call it good.  Calling something good does not mean it is fun, or seems right, it is a form of acceptance–seeing the gift.  Sometimes we don’t see that a gift is just what we need.  Sometimes gifts look like curses.  Think about Sleeping Beauty who slept until her Prince came.  Now I was very cranky when I realized how that myth kept me looking for the knight on a white horse, and when I was first kissed into a long term relationship, I can’t say that after 10 years I thought it was a blessing.

But it was one of the most excellent gifts.  I am thankful for that long time seeing how I chose.  Seeing how I screamed as a victim and was really a volunteer.  Now seeing what a dear true friend and blessed angel my partner was to turn my head so distinctly around, seeing how I did have a choice.

I choose blessing always everywhere all the time today.  It may take me a moment to clear my vision, or to slow down and touch a tree while crying, but I cherish the blessing of this earth and this life.