I wake.
A day shows itself naked.  What shall we wear?

Oh that I can see
Beyond my bloated nothingness to
You.

I seek the view
From Your love-terraced
Garden.

When the fog bank of
Indecision, self-seeking, fear, abandonment, anger, frustration, ambition, mis-placed loyalty, codependency, dysfunction, irritation, self-righteousness and arrogance, boredom, and
down-right crankiness
distracts me,
I seek the sweet clear breath of
Your inspiration.

I relax.
I release all struggle.
I let go of the rope and
Fall back into
Your arms.

We sit on Your soft magic carpet
Above all strife, sickness and death–
Siddhartha is driving–
I need not run this show.

My soul is refreshed.
My body is restored.
And I dwell in Your Garden
Forever more.

So what is it that my blood pressure is up?  What does that mean, metaphysically?  I guess it is about the arteries (or is it the veins?) that seem to constrict, thus the flow of blood reveals to be more pressurized than normal.  The arteries become stiff and not elastic.

Hmmm, me–rigid and stiff?!  HA.  Yes.  Well, that could be.  Thus exercise can help that flexibility.

Maybe it is just the illusion of life’s busyness.  Maybe it is the calcification of belief systems that this or that doesn’t work, I’m too old, can’t teach an old dog new tricks, etc.

Today feel the release and the bending of my heart.  I sway as I stand in the morning life of Divine Love, thus life becomes a dance–a lilting waltz of flowing fire.

Sometimes sharing the light inside yields a brilliant golden glow that falls all over our shoulders in the sun having a picnic.  The face besides me laughs in the bright realization of human fun.  The furrowed brows open up and the head lifts up in a loud chuckle with a new view.

But other times I pull the covers over me and know that any sliver of sunlight that breaks out of my creviced body and heart will only bring a growl of resistance.  There are times and people who are determined black holes–sucking in the light, the earth, the hope, the possibilities around them into the densest despair.

And often the light merely bounces around from mirrored face to reflections in the lake.

I polish the globe of me around that light every morning and shine shine shine.  It’s not my business where the light goes, just to hold it in my heart and do everything I can to let it shine.

My life is rich with conversations with people in all kinds of recovery–it is like being on a spiritual hamster wheel–seeing the same concepts that I’ve lived, relishing the newness of more pleasant ways to choose life.  So here is a typical conversation that I think hits some normal human conundrums.
________________________

“I did not pay for any of it and I feel so small.” What an excellent and
familiar phrase.  Receiving has been an astounding spiritual practice
for me.  It was explained to me as if we are a circulation of good
inside of us.  If we don’t open up and graciously receive, the pipeline
to goodness is blocked.  I kept just giving all my money to the kids,
and my spiritual mentor said to me, “If God gave you a beautiful jewel,
would you just throw it away?”  “No!”  “Well then,” he said, “Appreciate
everything you are given, and hold on to what you are given and cherish
it.  Then you might share it with others.”  I was then aware of all sorts of gifts–lunches, presents,
friends, time of rest, messages, etc.  And saw the world as a gift to
simply breathe in and open up to receive.  Plus we love to give to
people, yes?  We should then let others enjoy the true pleasure of
giving–to us!

I remember having to let
go of what others thought of my marriage.  When you mentioned the
“inequity and control in our marriage”–that’s someone else’s opinion of
what they see–based on their own personal experience.  If you want to
be like them, you might value their opinion.  If you want to enjoy where
you are, see it from your point of view.  I hear much much balance and
increased depth going on with your conversations and self-assertion.  It
looks to be like you are both learning more ways to be open and kind to
one another. 

“I know he isn’t going to leave but I also know I probably will not
get
my way.  I feel stuck in a box.”  The techniques I would suggest
for that is to again, practice your truth in a compassionate manner. 
The fear (barking dog) of my partner leaving is ever-present, actually. 
I believe it is the ageless human fear of being unloved, and it being
“my” fault.  It is a classic adult child of an alcoholic fear–that the kid, powerless over
alcoholic/dysfunctional/

I’ve been hearing offhand stories of weird deaths lately.  Of isolating men dying inside apartments and not being discovered until their decaying bodies alert the neighbors.  About murder outside someone’s door.  What’s that about?

We all die.  We are all visitors.  Sometimes slowly, quickly, inadvertently, easily, or with anguishing struggle, we wear out.  The earth of us gets tired.  We have pull dates when the skin, the heart, the toes, the nose simply spoils.  Time to return to the sweet loam of dead things under our tired feet.

Thus it is essential that I keep the conversation going with the other side of the veil.  “Hello God!  Hi Mom!  Yo Dad–whassup?!”  Or like the brilliant awareness of my ancestors, I have a death chant that I keep on my lips as much as possible.  While standing in line, riding a scooter, feeling pain, taking risks, wandering the office halls–“I love you I love you I love you I love you.”

It is a lullaby that is sung from me to you, me to Her, Her to me, trees to me, me to trees, breath in me, to my breath, earth to me, me to the dear tender real home of earth.

Today I claim the presence of Inanna, who rescued the World Tree, a huluppu poplar tree, with roots in the earth, branches in the sky.  At its roots was a sacred snake, in its truth a lilitu a female spirit, and in its branches the Anzu bird, with a head of a lion.

Thus I am grounded deep.  I am female and flexible.  I am a boundary creature, slithering on the earth, swimming without limbs and climbing in spirals.  I fly above the earth, I rest in the branches and I am strong as a lion.

Today I rescue the world.

The heart can be as cold as stone.  Yet it can crystalize stories, faces, places and hold them clenched inside.  My heart wants to stretch out, hug the unhuggable, reach the unreachable–as well as use hands for helping.

But not everyone really wants help.  Not everyone sees they need help.  The diseases of denial, addiction, despair and self-loathing keep many tough and rugged like worn out leather.  Clearly change will happen, with or without my help.

Detaching with love is a bizarre phrase, thankless practice and essential surrender.  Don’t do something, just stand there.  After a life of running and helping and finding myself sinking backwards into muddy black dead swamp, as I stand still I can be fertilized.  It will help that I stop digging deeper.

I call upon the mother gods today: Juno, Mary, Miriam, Pavarti, and the compassion of Kwan Yin to stand for me, as I help others by doing nothing.  I hold my heart within my own chest and let the light shine out.

Sometimes just a phrase catches my heart, other times it is a constant practice of retraining my brain that wakes me up.  Many metaphysical mornings I am sluggish to see the clarity.  Even when the sun shines on my fingers over the keys.

I still see Diana’s deer standing tall and simply proud in the soft endless Michigan fields and gentle scattered forests.  Gazing into Her doe-soft eyes, I affirm my trust in the path toward being more of who I am.  My heart has to open more, my arms need to rest out instead of closed tight around my chest.

May I be a heritage tree in Your forest, deeply rooted in Your cycling seasons of affection, nourished in rain and sun, branching out as I am called.

Last week I was in Michigan.  It is flat compared to the northwest.  It is hot, humid and the landscape is endless fields.  Corn was as high as my shoulder, deer stood still watching me speed by, careful to freeze unless I slowed down to say hello.

This trip reminded me of the endless landscape of a family–continuous fields of the same, hot and humid intensities, and dark clouds of cool rain showers.  Grandma sat and enjoyed the show from a high perspective of soon releasing all bodily limitations.  Little kids explored tiny cannonball jumps into the richness of a pool in hot summer.  Fancy dresses on little and big girls revealed the dreams of the young.  Men in fancy suits strutted their strength and power to please.

The sad scenes of addiction, victim, emptiness and frantic hiding were there, are still being caressed as reflections of true human life.  I am practicing not to suck on them, but allow them to drip out, tear by tear.

I prefer today to see Diana standing near the purity of a doe beside the Path.  She stands for me, clear and content.  Her eyes remind me that I am safe in Her forever forest of true love.  Right here, right now.

Again with the old man drunk on the Divine.