Tao is the flow, the Way.  The practice of “going with the flow” is ancient.  And the practice is hard.  Where does the flow go?  Sometimes water crashes down hundreds of feet to sharp deadly rocks.  Sometimes it is a miniscule trickle.  Everything bends to the flow: trees, rocks, villages lost in tsunamis, hearts lost in twisted love.

Love is a hard one to know the flow.  We are buffeted since before birth with what love is supposed to look like: do you give your son a lot of money to start a business that he is seems unprepared for?  Or do you just support him when his luck is down?  Do you try to take care of yourself with retirement planning or do you go with the absurd but strong feeling that you don’t really care.  Is love taking care of someone or is it taking care of yourself first–or is that selfishness?  Sounds ridiculous doesn’t it.  That’s love for you, a test between faith and flow.

I await the gentleness of Her compassion that forever flows out of Her curved bottle.  I sit beneath Her statue just so Her eyes rest on me.  Just look at me, and I will know where to find You.  Whisper in my ears of silence, and I will turn my head to find You always.

Gods are personal forms that embrace me, soothe me, talk to me and love me always.  But the Tao is endless, limitless and formless.  It is bigger than a god, because it encompasses all.  Some days I rely on Her voice soft behind my ear.  Other days I walk with a 9 foot tall warrior with arrows of love.  There are days when I need a gremlin or a fairy god. 

But every day I rest in the Tao.  It is not comforting, and helps me breathe.  It will be with me when I die, and further.  It is the keyboard clicking and it is the Great Nothingness of Grace.  I depend on the Tao to be within and behind everything.

And i call to Her still for her soft fragrant voice to sweeten my day.

With every cycle there is a now.  All the ups, downs, insides, outsides, rollercoaster days are just illusionary “times” of a million “nows”.   Every once in a great while, I am able to sit in that precious moment of timelessness.  The here will change, my chair will change, you will change and i will change. 

But the now will never ever change.  It is that grasping of endlessness, the comfort of here–right here.  Claiming that the Divine is reading this over my shoulder, Her sweet breath whispering Presence at my tender neck.

I take this magic carpet with me today, leaning on Her, watching the bush leaves so still after soft night rain.  The brilliant and exquisite world rests for just this now, here.

My Tao reading this morning talks about devotional practice helping me have a body that is an unshakable monument to spiritual devotion.  That sounds so far off for this tiny piece of protoplasm on a small planet in a mid-sized system on the edge of this galaxy.

I’d like to be unshakable.  Lately I feel like a twisted leaf in a rushing river–and not floating well at all.  I feel torn at the edges and my persistent human brain keeps fighting the flow instead of lying back and enjoying the ride.  There is a warrior inside–sometimes with the notion that it is a “spiritual” warrior–that wants to let others know how “unspiritual” they are being.

The irony is not lost to me.

Today I practice a life of serenity, allowing Her to have Her Way with me.  The Way of the Peaceful Warrior is path of a familiar labyrinth in the deep woods.  The deer of Diana nibble at the edges, and Her rabbit consorts run through the middle gracing my steps.  Frogs belch deep love songs to me from the stream.  With this surrounding me, I am unshakable.

I love going to sacred spaces.  I’m not one for long travel, and my sacred spaces are mostly those glorious spots in nature.  But I have been in cathedrals built over centuries, and stood next to those glimmering areas that have been treasured by humans for eons.  The honor, respect and prayers can be felt through my skin.

What would it be like to approach each day as if I was entering a shrine?  How would I act if a meeting was a gathering of wise women in the temple?  What change would come over my attitude if I was stepping onto an ancient holy hillside instead of walking to my office building?

There is something to practice today.  I am a priestess in my morning meditative walk to light the candles in Her Temple.  The world around me shimmers with Her Presence and Grace.

Today the sun shines–even if beyond the clouds.  Today our part of the glorious earth is warmed by Her rays of light.  Every plant on the globe knows this; all the animals are clear of the height of the season.  Here a tiny human bows in deep respect.

Cycles within cycles within circles within seasons we dance.  A labyrinth path with a safe solitary trail into the heart of the matter and then out again to the twirl of human life.  We go round and round, turn and turn until we come ’round right.

I let my body completely dive into the brilliance and symphony of nature today.  I allow all humans to be restless, wanting and shaking and trembling to run through the fields and forest with the celebration that surrounds us.

We praise the sun, we raise the sun, in the name of Light and Love.

At each change of the season, I lay out a yarn labyrinth atop a soft open hill field near here.  It offers a wide promontory point view of a lake, hills and, when it is clear, a range of mountains and a volcanic magnificent cone of a summit to the south.  Tahoma.

I go out early and cherish the time watching the sun change night into day, birds chatter furiously as if to their surprise, they are alive and glorious once again.  The dark shadows slowly turn into green and the gray lake begins to sparkle.

Today I carry that view of miles of splendor in my heart as I have conversations that need me to take the high road.  I will sit anchored on that open field and not be pulled into the ravine beside old dirt roads.  I will admit my failures, and move on to the lessons learned.  One of which is to stay seated on the easy brilliant soft persevering and humble grass.

I am now and always am completely at one with the essence and beauty of Gaia, from whence I was born and to whom I dive through the years to cocoon.

I claim down time.  I claim it as long as I need it.  Licking wounds, cocooning, hiding–whatever anyone would label it.  I just grasp and sit in times when I don’t want to make extra effort to be around people. 

Sometimes it is people who know me, and I guess I don’t want to be distracted assuming what they are thinking of me.  Certainly it is not my business, and massively less than I believe they think of me.  But it is distracting.

I don’t share myself well.  I never thought of myself as a perfectionist, but I do certainly get out of whack if I make a mistake.  At those times, I want to stay close to nature.  Trees don’t judge.  Bushes are very neutral and allowing.  Grass is busy being infinitely persistent and persevering.

And my Dad–gone now for years–says to lighten up, keep flying and enjoy the ride.

Feeling quite human today.  That is, face to face with bad acting.  Or rather, acting badly.  The Taoists say to expect it.  The 12 steps uses it for improvement. I guess the 10 commandments, eightfold path and Torah wouldn’t be needed unless we stumbled, yelled, slipped, cheated or stole.

What is a bad man but a good man’s job, says the Tao.  Well, I suppose I should find a good person to make a job out of me.  I yelled at a co-worker the other day, and she called me on it.  Sure I had reasons–she continued to do something I pointed out to her–and she admitted–wasn’t right.  Oh well.  Now my anger is out there for people to point at–as they have done before and as I have humiliated myself.

Like a baby learning to walk, I sit there from a sudden fall on the floor and wail.  And pick myself up again to totter drunk-like staggerig across the room.  But when I was a kid my mom was there cooing for me. 

Perhaps here is the time once again that I see, hear and feel my Dear One smiling at me, loving me despite my anger and frustration, as She waves to me across this day, encouraging me to know that I am here and now being merely human as best I can.  I look up today and keep Her smile in my heart.

I visited my ancient kin this weekend–deep wide tall trees.  Ostensibly it was a women’s retreat.  That is for another time–always life-shifting.  But I must speak tree talk.

There is no doubt in my mind that I was once a tree.  The yearning to root back into the soft soil makes me cry each time I need to leave them.  I beg them to stay, and they remind me of my choice this time around–I am a walking tree, a human sprout, a tree with a mind of my own.

When I sit tiny among my fellows, their stillness and soft movement dwarf my spirit until they lift me up to their swaying tops.  Like them, I am where the spirit meshes with matter, where my soul dove into the dear earth and grabbed the life that bowed before me and sparked it into this fragile form.  We breathe each other; their sweet piney breath is heaven to me.

As the pine is committed to the earth, so I am wedded to my Creator, the Dear One who breathes me, whose blood runs through my heart, whose Voice is the container of my soul.