Balsamic moon.  Angel clouds dancing down from pink to purple.  I found a tree that saves a seat for me, with slabs of old concrete tilted in the water over the lake below.  A fruit tree now bare bones with winter.

The flock of geese honk above making a wake that heralds the dawn.  I chat with these trees who stand as the shore and see the plank of hewn wood high in a crook of her branches.  A perch to watch the sunrise or ducks.  The chickadee says ducks.  She holds a seat for me whether I choose to climb up or not.  Oh that I could spend my last moments in such a tower in her waving branches and safe arms.

When I spill tears missing my oldest walking four-legged friend, she listens and a heart rock smiles.  Clouds and mountain play hide and seek.  Woodpecker furiously drums machine gun rattles pounding on wood.

Tiny point limbs of would considering the season to unravel.  To leave a season behind.

I cherish that seat saved for me above the water to watch the ducks dipping in the dawn.

2/2009

I take my glasses off to frustration,
and put them on to see my farthest intention, to the path following my heart to
that which calls out to me.  I rest in
the now of the neutral zone.  I am safe
on a boat that is guided by my heart’s desire seeded by the Divine One.  I sit wrapped in Her arms on a dry soft seat
while She pushes the boat through the fog, through scary shapes and mournful
sirens with bumping waves and cold air that wants to pull me off balance.  I can not fall out of the boat.  I am safe. 
The journey is guaranteed.  The
destination is a carnival ride that brings me back to the safe landing
platform.  After a breath, I am ready to
go again.  Here I take my breath.

Surfing on gratitude, letting Her set my
sails, turn the boat, I allow the Skipper to set me straight, bouncing on the
waves, jibing and slanting and tipping and soaring in a timeless suspension of
a loving now.

My favorite image of the Way, seen in the east, displayed on ancient rocks on the Isle, wrapped around colorful cloths in the southern hemisphere and even in the far frozen north is the knot that never ends. 

It is the path as I stand, the here and the now.  It is the past, the “then”.  It is tomorrow, forever unattainable.  It reminds me that success is irrelevant, failure is a false idea, and the destination keeps sliding past the infinite horizon.

I claim my tiny space on this earth.  I indulge in the soft green, caress the firm trees–kin to my soul.  From the stapler to my heart, through my fingers to the millions of parts and people who fashioned these keys.  Across the universe to that first glimmer of light from the Prime Creator to this stuffy office on the second floor of the last building in a small park at the end of the continent on a mid-sized planet of a modest galaxy in the corner of a fringe universe.

There is a continuum of spirit that wraps me and firmly knots me in Her soft always embracing green  scarf.

Sometimes I feel too tired to be spiritual.  Eyes droopy, body creaking, brain dull.  This is the human part of my morning.  Stuck in mud like molasses, resistant to the Light or lightening up.  A blob that types mindlessly.  Wondering about the purpose of it all, feeling useless and small.

Doesn’t matter really.  I insist that I am as true and clear and brilliant as a patch of grass.  Or a tiny cedar with flat hand branches showing off jewels of tiny cones.  I am as firm as the moss that covers south and north of trees in these forests.

All of this in my mind’s eye as I sit in a cluttered mess of a desk.  Yet every single paper, pen, toy, cards, clips, keys, poster, old printer, stapler and tiny pencil-topping Buddhas have evolved with as much use and integrity from this green-blue earth.

I stand for every piece of paper I clip together today, honoring it as the tiniest part of the smallest bit of the most eternal me.

From
Greenlake to Sandpoint

My feet trace

            the hill

                        once

                                    washed by

                        waves.

            Up and down,

Pulling in,

                                                pushing
out.

Salt water

                        rippling

                                                rushing

            rubbing the rocks to

Sand.

                                                My
own sour tears

                                                Polish
me smooth.

                                                No
edges to grip.

                                                The
finest sandpaper:

                        Pain

ktk, 1990

My dad was going to be one of the first married deacons in the Catholic church years ago, but my mom thwarted that by dying before it happened.  They always played games on each other.

I’ll tell you the story tomorrow.  He was closer to the Divine than I ever realized.

Like the Ark, so many different animals of us–and not necessarily in pairs–we crowd this ship together.  Bonded by pain and hope, we meet to trade notes on our progress.  We laugh at the idea of perfection, tell jokes about being sober control freaks and being managers with unmanageable lives.

We may profess to be powerless, but we are aligned with an ultimate strength: each other.  I lean on you and you lean back into me and like an archway, we stand and stand and stand.  Beyond and through death, on the other side of disease and loss, and together doing the happy dance about another day watching the grass turn green.

Sometimes I feel we are a ship of fools, but then again, we did all choose to be here.  Whether it was going for the golden ring or the crazy idea of the rock-o-planes of life, I am deeply thoroughly completely tearfully–in every cell of my body–thankful that you are on this ship with me.

What if death was just a gal at the keyboard with cold fingers?  She knows she has a job to do, and geez, her fingers are cold tapping the keys programming the end of life for those on the slate.  Perhaps everyone already has a timetable they arranged before they got here, and she’s just doing her job making sure the docket gets attention and duties are fulfilled.

Yeah, what if death is just a paralegal trying to the get attorney to the next action.  “Time for another life, we have a deadline here, can you sign the contract please?!”

Actually, I think it is more that we just get a bit tired of these bodies, or acted out the drama we chose, or set up the dominos just so–ready to topple in an neverending one after one after the other, mother-daughter-mother-daughter-sister-brother-father-son down the line.

Like we all hold hands across the sweet blue-green world, across the galaxy and sing.

Today I let the Tao speak for me.

The Master
does her job

And then
stops.

She
understands that the universe

is forever out
of control,

and that
trying to dominate events

goes against
the current of the Tao.

Because she
believes in herself,

she doesn’t
try to convince others.

Because she is
content with herself,

she doesn’t
need others’ approval.

Because she
accepts herself,

the whole
world accepts her.

Tao Te Ching

My department was labeled “useless” the other day.  Yes, I certainly took offense, but managed to keep my warrior down to a snotty message to my boss about how I’d like to “clarify” my “use” to this other snotty person.  I did not maim anyone.  I am so spiritual.

“To be of use” is a title for a Marge Piercy book.  Can’t remember much about it, but it reminds me also of “Sirens of Titan” by Kurt Vonnegut in which the whole earth was evolved to finally produce a small essential mechanical part for a stalled spaceship on the backside of the moon.  The Great Wall of China was a message “help coming soon!”  And the whole earth was being used.

Since I really can’t be sure of the meaning of life, I have to allow this to be true.  I eat plants and animals, why wouldn’t some greater being be cultivating me for dinner?  Would it be so bad to end up as a great piece of steak and home fries for a satisfied customer?  Can I love my life with the tweetering spring birds, eager perfect flowers and blueberries from South America if I really knew I was a small gear in a gigantic sportscar?

Again this proves that in this moment, gentle clicking keys, off-hand conversation with my loved one, wet sleeve from making chili in the crock pot, soft meowing of the cats, that I claim my existence as exquisite.  Right here, right now that makes any and all “results” moot.

Hurray for me today, hurray for whatever thought all this up, hurray for being a part of this sweet earth.