I want to go straight to flat out open heart no exit end-of-story surrender.  No arguments, no contest, no control, no conniving, no excuses yielding.  But I just continue to struggle and wrestle with the day.

Welcome to earth Ms. Human.  You will be constantly subject to the idea that you are in control.  You do have choice, but the hypnotic effect of people, places, feelings, ideas and events will trick you into heart-palpitating excitement and anxiety.  This is the ride you signed up for, so just snap your seat belt into the slot and hold onto the railing.

You will fall off eventually.  If you’re lucky, you’ll be ready for the rest and look forward to getting out. 

But for now, take a deep breath and know that I AM right beside you.  We ARE having fun, and this IS a place to laugh and squeal and giggle, even when it feels that we are going to fly off into outer space without a parachute.

As my first boyfriend said to me, “This is supposed to be fun!”

Open up open up open up like

Hands reaching out for an infant, your first grandchild,
curled up like a fox, nose tucked under its tail,
little elastic pink human newness in your arms.

Flower brazen center nipple fearlessly puffed up
Big fat buzzing honeybee snuggles his proboscis
Deep into your now fruited womb.

Grabbing your lover laughing out loud together
Falling back onto the comforter-topped bed
Tumbling and rolling into the purest present.

Ripping your chest apart with senseless sorrow
Missing the clicking of his toenails on the wood floor
Taking that wet heart and breathing into it
Making a clearing in the forest of the day.

Golden shafts of sunlight memories
Soft moss and towering fir-lined fragrance that
Takes you all the way to your

Office desk cluttered with pinecones and buddhas and
Papers and heart-shaped rocks.

Open up open up open up.

Lab notes:

The labyrinth made of yarn hung on the tall grass in spots.  There was no dew, and it went down with a giggle on the grass.  Millions of blades of rich unique thatched green, thick, dead and glistening alive.  Good shoes allow me to find the holes without stumbling.  Being prepared for life with the comfort of Divine Love.

Some corners sharper than others.
Walking together in step.  Walking at different speeds.

Mountains of full lush berry blossom snowbanks hiding huddled sleeping earth beings, cuddled as tight as thickets can. 

The bushes and thistles tug on my clothes begging me to stay.  To dive beneath their protective shelter and curl up in the arms of Gaia’s love.

Being human and all, I snapped, snarled and thrashed the other night.  A bunch of excuses and no reason.  Just being very human.  The next morning I knew I needed some spiritual solace, so I walked along the lake.

There, clustered right on the edge of the bank of the water, lulled by the soothing soft waves, were daisies.  Bight open full white and yellow full sun daisies gathered together soprano singing.  “Ha!” I said to them.  “You are never depressed.  You’ll never understand what I’m feeling.”

“What do you mean!” yelled out one of them choking down a chuckle.  “Look at me–I’m depressed!!” 

“Sure, sure.  Now you’re teasing me,” I said.  And a eavesdropping duck laughed out loud.

That was enough to remind me that my feelings are just the leaves on me.  I can bend in rain, but I don’t break.  I can succumb to seasons, but I am alive within Gaia’s soul forever.

Today I plan to be a daisy and tease the pouty human self out to play.  The glory of Gaia’s chorus serenades me eternally and my heart is an open and great-full audience.

A soft gray sky allows a dim view of the rolling hills across the sleepy lake.  The mountains are gone completely.  I did not wake the birds.  They were up before me. (I am that I am)  Their underlying symphony rising from the green make it a glorious gray day.The orca rise from the dark and begin to circle in the field below.  The breeze is easy.

Allowing my search for meaning to settle and fade into simple being.  A human simply being.  Like a bird or foraging raccoon or lounging cat.  I bustle and wish to make a difference.  That is what I am I am.  Right now allowing.

Dancing with the labyrinth of life.

What’s nice about being human/spirit is that no matter how much I delve, dive and dig into the endless ground of humanness, I can turn and POOF! there’s the spirit standing in the pre-dawn light.  Tall and huge, wide and strong, any tree reminds me that there is more here than meets the eye.  And what meets the eye and body and feeling and touch and smell and sound is spirit infused into matter.

That’s what matters, after all.  To see the spirit in what matters, in the stuff of me, the trip of time and flow of blood.

Every morning the dawn happens–whether snuggled eyes tight behind the clouds or brilliant flashy throws of pink scarves across the eastern sky.  It is not really that the sun rises, but that finally we turn our faces to the light.  After sleepless or dreamless or restless nights of the soul, we can always turn the face of our hearts to the warming love of Her gaze.

I need not search for you, Dear One, you are as close as the skin to my bones.

You should’ve gotten up early and taken a walk.  You love taking walks early in the morning.

I was tired.

But you would’ve loved the walk.  And it would be good for you to get SOME kind of exercise.

Shut up.

Really.

I know, I know, I know.  What is it about ANY kind of carbo that beats up on me?!

Not good for you–you don’t process it like you used to.

Damnitall.  It’s hard to avoid burger buns and a french fry now and again.

Yup.  And how do you feel now?

Whatever.

Well those walks just help adjust your attitude–which really needs shifting!

Yeah.  I know.  Lots of little changes get to me too.

I know.  There is that which is changeless inside.  Let’s breathe together deep and long.  Let’s hold hands today and when you are cranky, I will just let you be.  You are never lost, always safe, even if you struggle with the Way, you are safe on the Path with Me.

Safe on the Way with You.

That’s right.  Safe and dear and sweet and clear and love and laugh and now and then. As it was in the beginning, now and ever after loved.

I throw myself on the Path of Heaven.

My heart is open to the Way of Your Love.  Whisper to me the deeper forest paths of loving You.

Build with me as You will.  Have Your Way with me.  Inspire me with the power, light and ease to surf on every briefest second of this treasured life.

Relieve me of the hypnotic bondage of the tiny frantic human self and let it giggle and flitter like the hidden wrens chirping in a briar bush; let me enjoy the day without wrestling it.

For yours is the power and the glory and the most precious center of me.

Nice thing about humans is that we can restart our day at any time.  Review and revise feelings and attitudes.  Make new choices.  However, we’re also subjected to the illusion that we are controlled by everything outside–and inside of us! 

Back and forth–the weather holds us back, my boss didn’t like the idea, we can’t control the economy, my kids won’t cooperate.  Astounding barriers bump us from all sides!

Choice, however, reminds me that I can make a turn at any point.  I can take a breath, look out the window and be on that branch out there with the wind gently moving my heart.  I can allow the cool gray sky to nurture the firery energy inside me.  I can let the silence soothe my bones to stillness.

I may play volleyball with my body–excitement, anxiety, heart pounding, frantic–and I can set my sails to catch the wind of Her Word.  I move only along the Way of Her love.

Sometimes I just get tired.  This is a human talking, after all.  The spirit is alive, bright, open, warm and full inside me.  But the body feels worn.

Nothing is wrong.  All is what it is.  Don’t add anxiety to the feeling.  I feel what I feel and then something changes.

I’m amazed at how religion gets so stuck in right/wrong, yes/no, duality.  Even the new age stuff–if you have a reality you don’t like–well it’s your own fault.  Interesting to add guilt to hard times.

Christ, Buddha, Martin Luther King, Billy Graham, and the Dalai Lama all had hard times.  They sure don’t get accused of doing something “wrong”, or not praying enough.

We’re human.  Human things happen to humans.  A perfect human makes a good mistake every day.  A good mistake is one where I see what I stepped in and don’t need to track it through the home of me.  And I have a better idea where to step next time.

But there is always more manure on the earth–that, after all, is what humans are made out of–dust of the earth. 

Now that is a wonderful thought–that I am as lovely and valuable and deep and full and blessed as the dirt of this most amazing planet.