It’s hard to find a lot of words for greening of the soul.  Hildegaard had one: veriditas.  I throw myself on the greening of the season to remind me of my timid new season of soul.

Overnight the bushes busted buds.  The sun teased them out, now with a bump in their loins promising progeny.  The poplars reveal tiny appendages at regular intervals.  Little woody branches that will transform to full fleshed leafy green.  Still brown and stiff, their bare bones flaunt the miracle of change.

Is my life built on fear or love?  Is each of my actions a flag of faith or a foolish human detour?

A huge log shows the sign that a big dog gripped the wood with fierce determination to haul it with him–a sign of strength and prowess.  Is that what I do with struggle and challenge–to show off my so-called toughness?  Or is that just the way of human life: back and forth, faith and fear, spirit enjoying a human experience.  Am I in the joy of it?

It looks like a little girl got up early and put curliques on every branch.  Little hearts and spirals and circled dots.  Green is happening in the fields and forest.  Weed stalks vermillion in stead of brown, grass soaking up mud making slender chartreuse spears.  Even the moss looks brighter, face shiney and full.

Patience is paying attention to my surroundings for Divine signs.  Impatience reminds me to watch the path for a seasonal shift and gives me moments of deeper breathing.  To surrender into the now–just the way it is.  When my best ideas dissipate into the greening of Her perplexing peace.

I missed this space in virtual time.  The last four days have been spent finding the kiss inside of me reflected in the miracle faces of hundreds and hundreds of women.  Each of us had died but didn’t leave.  We have been transformed–most of which was despite our kicking and screaming and crying despair.  The earth has kept its sweet hold on us and we have found the bliss of love in the now.

Being me should not be a struggle.  Being me should be easy as the poplar tree: I get the best nourishment, excellent light, sweet air and the passion of seasonal change.  Yet this moving thinking human merely being finds the sharpest shadows in the brightest sun.

The path says: There is always mud before spring green–silly human.  Millions of bare branches giggle and wave at me: Green is guaranteed!  Everything dead is a seed; all flowers yield to fruit.  Bare is the open elbow space for tight rock seeds to burst and sweet love to nest in birthing.

I am a timeless suspension of love and now.

We bought a lift for motorcycles the other day–solid steel, few moving parts, dependable and immensely helpful.  With this shelf that rises to waist level, there is no pressure on the knees to bend and look inside the intricacies of repairing a scooter.

I need a lift.  An easy lift to rise above the bumping and scraping and crabby and crankiness that accompanies the complete lack of control.  Timing, over-commitment and no visible signs of support collide like a nuclear reaction inside me.  Keeping me awake, fueling the frantic, maurading mind.

There are no timetables in nature–everything happens in perfect time.  Dawn waits for nothing, nobody.  Yet some days barely rises at all.  There is no schedule for the birds to begin their giggling chatter.  There are no yardage lines in the open field beyond right and wrong.  The sun rises each second of the day as Gaia slowly twirls in dervish elation.

Here and now.  There and then.  In the sky, on the ground, the path reaches my heart.  The Way soothes my soul.  Each slow long breath reminds me of Her grace and comfort–her sweet warm whisper at the nape of my neck:  “I am here.  I am now.”

Mother tree be in me.  Father tree stand with me.  Brother tree shelter me.  Sister tree dance with me.

The roddie bush flaunts the snow like an ermine wrap.  I walk through the towering trees in my neighborhood weeping at the vision of the ancient forest that was once here.  The few that are left stand forever forgiving.  Trees are not judges.  They are witnesses of love.

Unlike the pot-bellied crow that screeches a haughty threat that he’ll take on my dog if we make another move.

The tallest fir branches wave through with the fluttering snow fairies.  Thick arm branches beckon with blessing.

Ferns don’t even feel the snow, snuggled at the feet of the giants.  Yet their tender roots are entangled with the Divine tendrils of trees beneath the blanket of Gaia’s soul.

Sometimes you have to bow to the Dear One that clears the road.  She empties the day of all plans, all future, all hope.  It is a blessing to be wiped clean of hope, it is the true sign of surrender to the path alone.

The snow bends the bamboo so low the treetops touch the ground.  But they will slowly stand straight again.  The tallest pine loses a thick lush branch to the wet heavy crystallized water weight, and is thus pruned by Her Grace.

Ideas of the day shift within seconds.  Trust in some kind of feeble intuition causes her laughter to ring through the cold house.  But it is not evil laughter, it is gentle. 

Today when I tell Her my plans, we will laugh together, hold hands and skip through this new foggy forest together.

Today I will spend my time in the clearing in the deep old growth forest with the pines reaching to heaven out of sight.  Leaning against the eternal strength of their steadfast bodies, I remember who I am.

A walking tree, I choose to carry their infinite peace and stillness throughout my day.  Rooted in the heart of Her forest, comfort and love.

I’m supposedly a human being, not a human “doing”.  And right now I feel like completely NOT doing, but it is so against all my codependent instincts.  From the time my gramma would say: “If you feel bad, do something for someone else,” my nature is to serve.  At least it seems that way.  That is a well-developed instinct that is certainly out of balance if that is my sole source of personal value.

So how do I switch from a human doing to a human being?  I know for a fact that sitting in quiet, indulging in that space between my breathing will allow me a glimpse of heaven while I am still on earth.  But even that seems to be such an effort of “doing.”

Paying attention to nature helps.  Rain is not doing, it is being.  Bare bone grey tree branches are being–while inside their sap is beginning to circulate with dreams of green sprouts.  And in the front yard tiny vermillion sprouts are throwing off the cover of the brown dead leaves to grin at the mist with accomplishment.

Once again I must leave this day to the inspiration of Heaven.  I bow and listen to Her most gentle whisper of goodness.  At the dearth of any despair I hear the brilliant light of intrinsic value that She has instilled inside me–walking the planet in Her name, Her spirit, Her creative delight.  Perhaps today She wants to do nothing and merely putz around the house, watch a movie or nap.

I let Her have Her Way with me today.

It is in the nature of gravel to crunch.  Of trees to stand and stretch and of me to wonder, wander and worry.  It is my nature to think, compare, discern: “This is not that.”  And just as the tree with a fence too close or gravel shoveled, I adjust to what is.  Whether we plan it or not.  Nature is not into preplanning.

The trick of living with a thinking mind–and it does many tricks–is not to take it too seriously.  It discerns, then the heart feels, and hopefully wisdom calls me to the right path.  I do not need to dive into despiar or jump through hoops of wild futuristic conclusions.  No matter where thoughts take me–I am always on the path of heaven.

Yet we do get disoriented.  Standing at the crossroads today, I allow myself to stop right there in the middle of the safety and comfort of the path and sit.  Peace to settle around my shoulders, through my body and like silt in the pond, rest beneath me.  Clear water of calm.  Sweet breath of heaven.  Stillness.

Resting in that song of silence, I hear the tingling tune of the Lady and her fairies calling to me, caressing me, serenading me to join them on a deeper path of Her heaven.

There is no such thing as hope in nature.  No hope, no belief, no faith.  The grass doesn’t gossip amongst itself wondering if that lazy sun will rise again today.  The chirping birds aren’t arguing about if this was the longest winter we’ve had.  The gravel and rocks don’t get worried if the next season will really come like is supposed to.  There are no risks, no gloom, no worries.

It just is.  Nature is purest being.

However, I am a human merely being “gifted” with this “advanced” organ called a thinking comparative mind.  It cannot stop reminding me of yesterday, something out of place, plans askew, and, of course, the horrific illusions of the possible futures.  It is a story-making machine.

So today I release this fabulous organ to its stories, but allow my heart and soul to be natural–to have no hope, no fears, no worries, no future, no past.  Today I indulge in the warmth of Her rising, surrounded in coral and lavender.  I embody the brilliance of Dawn.

Being comfortable with uncertainty is one thing.  But accepting the uncomfortable is another.  I am not uncertain about being uncomfortable–I just don’t like it.  I’m used to fixing something (even if it’s not broken), leaving, slamming the door, arguing or indulging just to avoid the uncomfortable.

Change is naturally uncomfortable.  You’d think as a human for many years now that I’d get used to change.  Someone once said to me: It’s just change!  I was appalled that anyone could consider it “just” change.  It is like the ground has broken apart, shifted and the whole geography of my life is different.  Past looks different, future still in the fog, self-perception in flux (at best).

Breathing the now, I ask: “Are you there?”  And I always hear the answer: “I am right here.”  It is a clear sweet whisper near my neck and my ear.  It tantalizes me into softness and I lean my head into Hers.  I reach and grasp Her hand, holding it tightly like the little scared girl I feel like today.  With Her love, I can accept the pain in my heart as taffy twisted into candy.