Three days of family, friends and feasts!  Human traditions from the first fire, warm meat and gathering of more than one.  Huddling over the flames, we play out versions of festivals and holidays of the eons.  Loud laughter, meals prepared over days and eaten in minutes, anticipatory concerns and post-mortem reviews.  Plus the dear gift of digitizing old family videos brings a self image so jolting and foreign to my eyes.

It is those brief kitchen conversations and quick glances across the room that sometimes resonate in my heart and mind.  I breathe through the slamming of my heart that the only focus is the moment.  But, being human, there are moments later on in the middle of the night that I review and replay and wonder with worry about what the glance meant and what deeper telling was intended in the words.

I met God on a walk the other day.  She was dressed up as a Grampa from Boston, looking for the Grateful Bread Cafe.  I was enjoying my melancholy and chuckled at our little inside joke.  Walking with him, She reminded me that I can walk briskly and purposefully, even sharing the path.  When we parted ways, She kissed my hand through my gloves and smiled through his eyes.

Today I begin a new song of my beautiful self, gorgeous love, embracing brilliance to me and through me and from me.

Lights shining throughout the neighborhood!  Brilliant colorful shows of lighted gardens flash like firecracker plants!  Tiny row of icicle whites dripping from houses.  The lights on my tree in the dark room.  All of these are symbols of hope and love in the dark times and long nights.

The woman who lost her husband less than a week ago whispers jokes to me during the meeting and we get glares as we giggle and shake.  A daughter with her dying dad wishes me a bright holiday.  Brief visits with comings and goings I crystalize the precious moments being filled up.

Overflowing comes naturally when every tiny blade of grass sings a brilliant existence.  Hurray for my decision to come to this beautiful planet with delightful souls, huge tree-kinfolk, stars and the night to see them by.

To all those with loss, with memories of loss, this season.  A party nite filled with fun and friends and the next morning your husband, father of your children, drops dead in his tracks.  A meal with an empty seat.  Faithful walking companion dog gone.  All these losses during the time of hyper-memories pulls at the tears.

Tears tell the truth of human love.  We love.  We lose.  We cry.  It’s just the way we are.  So cry for the love we have cherished.  Cry for the wrestling anger at time and space, scream at the split second he was here and now gone.

It is all love, even when it hurts.  Today I claim the arms of my Beloved mother, father, dog friend, cousin, grandfather and grandmother Divine to hold us all.

There is a story about this season, actually it took place in the spring, where a son was born to a humble couple traveling on a rough road.  They said the angels sang to the shepherds and royal visitors followed a star to honor the infant.

Today I am One with Mary, who holds the inexpressible treasure of mystery in her arms–her son.  One minute we are struggling with the labor of new life, one being twisting in two.  The next minute the tiniest human light shines through my son’s eyes.

And when he goes away and returns home for a visit, like today, the light still shines in a son’s eye.  Sparkles of stories, laughing out loud, mysterious slitted glazes, touching glances, high five celebrations and cheers.

I prostrate myself in the most grateful bow that I was gifted with a son.

Ahhh, the healing conundrum of night.  Darkness, unknowns, strange noises, shadow creeping fears.  Days feeling useless, despair and break downs.  Saying goodbye to a dear companion.  Transportation challenges.  Loss of computer access.  Mars retrograde and soon–Mercury retrograde. 

I’ve been been in intense spiritual training and my faith muscles ache.  But they are stronger than ever before. 

I don’t have to worry about my value, as there is never a second on this earth that I am not filled with unique integrity.  My eyes and mind are limited, however, and I most often do not see how the archway above me connects the “emptiness/despair/loss” column with the “forever/easy/fulfilled” column of one of the millions of mansions inside the House of my Divine Friend.

In the middle of this archway sits the Priestess.  My mentor, my rock, my Lover for all days.  She hums so softly that I need to lean closely to Her to listen.

This Solstice I celebrate what feels like her absence.  When She teases me with “hide and go seek”.  To draw me into silence, bend so close to Her that Her breath tingles the hairs on my neck.  May I–and you–always feel her gentle Presence.

Like a pinball in a maze I’ve been bumping against walls: computer crash, changing plans, abrupt calls, stories of heartache, missed appointments, then poof–a connection!  Good news!  Satisfaction!

I am reminded of a song I heard Judy Collins sing:

Tis a gift to be simple, tis a gift to be free.
Tis a gift to come down where we ought to be.
And when we are in the place just right,
We will be in the garden of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained,
To laugh, to love, we will not be ashamed.
To turn, to turn twill be a delight
Till by turning, turning we come round right.

I am turning turning, a dervish twirling in the Divine’s Dance Hall.

I am a flute for the Divine musician.  All I need to do is to keep myself clear of old memories, past experiences, future worries so that She can use me to dance the spheres in the galaxies of unfathomable dimensions.

To those I would meet and play and love and work with, I seek to be a channel of mindful attention and care.  Filled up with loving kindness, I merely open my heart, mind, and body to overflow the waterfall of light sourced within me.

There is nothing we need to do for the river that rushes from the glaciers; no coaching or pushing, no supporting or cheering.  The river of Her love has no source and has no ending, it is the mantra of each breath, spark in each eye, comforting shawl around my shoulders.

As I lifted my head up to the huge oak tree, feet in the brown lobed
leaves, a tingle passed through my hair and felt a tender message
massaged.

“We are not asleep, though we have bared our limbs.  Stand still, let the cold embrace you.  It will crystallize the truth.  You are forever.”

I am forever.  Despite that my surroundings change, have changed, will change.  I am forever.  My hopes can reach out in thousands of diminishing branches.  My faith can sink deeper and deeper into the truth of the material earth and the eternal spirit.

Right here, right now, I claim forever.

Being at a crossroads, I lie awake wondering about the possibilities.  Will I be there?  What will that be like?  How will I get there and how long?  What will happen to this car?  What will I get next and how will I afford it?

I return to chanting.  I set it aside and fold my hands to meditate.  And the brain chatter ambushes me again and again.  Training the monkey mind is a life-long practice.

Opening my eyes to listen, the bare stretching tree outside my window instantly reveals the enlightenment of nature.  Thousands of tiny branches reaching out smaller and smaller, yet still in the winter cold.  Beneath the icy earth there is a mirroring spreading root system of thousands of tiny end points.  This whole entity is complete, whole, everywhere and present.

Ahhhh today, I watch and listen to the heart in the trunk of my body.  I let the endless branches reach out into the air and fade.  My mind can wander and I am here and now at the same time.  If my human life is not a paradox, I’m not doing it right.

Walking with the trees this morning, the houses were still.  We caught the eastern mountains playing hide and seek with the sun.  Dawn covered the western mountains with a soft pink kiss. Then there was light.

Dads beeping, moms in cars clogging the tiny streets near the school.  Kids in small groups, one by one shivering in the sub-zero weather all suddenly cleared.

The road opened to stillness.  Only the Tall Ones were left with their silent Ohmming.  Reminding me to take a stand.  That I am beautiful no matter what the weather.  And love is all the “protection” I will ever need.  Holding Love in front of me, around me, beneath me, above me and surrounding me, I am transparent and invisible to the shadow.

Keeping that quiet lullabye in my heart, I take a stand.