The bush says: “Still.  The wind will move us.”  The rocks say: “Roll with it.”  The dog, though, is clear: “Piss on it.”

Grass, once covered with a layer of rounded stones, pops in: “You’ll grow up and out of it.”  The crows just scold and clack to get us out of the way so they can patrol for pickings.  They can’t be bothered with me.  I have my thick rubber boots of safety and faith–I can walk on any path with comfort, fearlessly faith-filled.

Branches are bare, but the subtle scent of spring foretells green.  The red wing black bird has already started singing out the call for nests and love and creation.  In gestation we are turned away from death and endings to the bursting miracle of birth.

The field in the forest says: “You need a wide opening for spring to refresh and restore the green in your soul.”  Brown leaves on the path once brilliant yellow surrender in relief to melt into the warm soil.  Briar brambles sneak out little bright green leaves with no mind to the lush dense bank of thorns, blossoms and berries that will set up a formidable wall around the clearing.

“You need a wide open space for abundance to grow,” they say to me.

And the hawk appears.  Black, big, singularly still high up the bare bones of a tree on the horizon.  My heart cries out: Let me have your wide sharp eyes.  I claim your power and stillness, confident of the next meal who shakes and hides in the burrows beneath. Tear at my piteous flesh and eat out the guts of my maudlin sorrow, rip apart the tendrils of my adolescent anger.

That when my tiny bones melt into the path, I still sit.  Sit in black warrior stillness.  Sharp eyes watching the wide open field for life.  Today I sit in motionless wonder.

The frosted grass said to glisten with gratitude like stars.  The pine at the corner said to keep my head tall in the heavens high above the pain of pruning. The fir across the street said to spread out and make myself some shade.

Shade in the darkness before the dawn.  Well, I’m still pouting for the pruning and grudgingly grateful.  Letting go, surrendering, allowing, and setting all thoughts aside for peace of my mind.  My mind is in pieces, and to let them scatter, to let them fall all over the floor in a mess, is just what is needed right now today.  They are all still safe, I am safe, and when it is time, they will all be gathered up and gently put in the play box for another day.

I work for Allah, Adonai, the Mistress.  I am Her executive assistant.  On my list is to find another computer, set up all the programs and documents again, follow the path to another place of service, and just glisten.  The grass does not move, but it shines like diamonds in the streetlight.  The moon and Jupiter are not frantic or flailing and their brilliant pattern, crescent and shining light, are a guide for me to merely be.

In love.  In Presence.  In life.

If I could truly stop struggling, refraining from trying to figure it out and understand, there wouldn’t be any harm–especially to myself.  If I could absolutely allow the river of goodness to take me through the beauty of the forest, I could relax and breathe in the rich green sweet fragrance of my life.

But so much of me is a warrior.  So much of me is like Michael–ready for the thrill of battle and the contest.  Unlike Arjuna, there is a righteousness inside me that is ready to take everyone onto the field, to arm wrestle a best practice, to debate the validity of a contract–and on and on.

Still the lavender-skinned Krishna has a message for me: “Is this your dharma?  If so–go to it!  If no, let the river of life lead you to the game of your life.”  When I struggle, this is not necessary my place.  And sometimes I need to struggle to find that place–like Arjuna.  We don’t hear much of his battle, except (I think) that his side won. 

It is his intriguing conversation revealing the Highest of All, the Glorious One, the Magnificent that is the story.  Thus even the distraction of my wandering mind and rebellious feelings invite the Friend into my heart for a debate.

He always wins with a smile, and today I lean into His strength as I let him drive the chariot.

No dawn show today.  Gray dirty white sky clouding the view.  But I know it is there, has happened.  Light reveals the day.  Despite tears and furrowed brows, truth is visible.  Just this stubborn pouting snotty addict that wants to run or hide or both.

“Change is freedom,” say the birches that were once straining through a wire fence.

Where the field is mowed, it is green.  Where unmowed, it is white, brown, tall, scraggly and brittle.  Trimmed or untrimmed–all good.  Old, young, green, brown, alive, dead, working, working.  “Work” what the freak is that anyway?

Perhaps the pollywogs are swimming swimming towards croaking singing and dying.  Keep swimming and singing they say.

Bright and brilliant!  The first red-winged blackbird bursts with a clarion call to spring!  Soars my heart to the top of the twisted reaching bare poplar branches where he sits singing out to a new love, renewed life, and creation.  Daring spring to burst out of bare branches.  Making the mud soft and supple, molding the new season.  The scout, the man, the trumpet call to creative action! 

I am warmed by his song to create more and more love of the Spirit always spring.  Always green within gray.  I happily tromp through the mud with my tough Christmas boots, as loving You keeps me warm and dry.  I am preprayered for the messy season and let my heart following the springing call to sing.

In the dark, the path is lit up glowing with a dust of snow.  It is winter.  Time to retreat.  Time for the height of summer to remain as a triumph tower, setting a beginning point for the sprig.

We move more slowly, the old dog and I, sniffing at frozen leavings, wandering in flurries of thought, just following the path.  I am drawn by the horizon and wonder about the view around the bend at the top of teh hill.

White with winter, city lights hold steadfast against the wind white darkness that thwarts the dawn.

The grass persists, holding rooted entwined hands with Gaia.  This is me today.  Holding hands with Her, chattering and giggling, two little school girls, oblivious to the wind white winter.

Just for today, I’m allowed to feel sad without a distinct reason.  I’m allowed to be a bit numb, I can revel in the humanness of feelings.  There is no need to react to them–even crying, or screaming or pouting.  Just to be.

The old rose bush outside my window is more of a stalk now.  It has snowed again and the aire resonates with cold.  The trees are black line drawings agains the white morning sky.  The sun is so chilly she shines a frosty white instead of bright yellow.  But she still shines.

That star rising in the east reminds me that it will be warm today.  That there will be smiles and laughter.  A tear might fall, and then it will, as all water does, trace its journey to the wide ocean of love and life.

I claim the peace of the backyard today.  I call on the Deva that resides with the fairies under the bushes, giggling and snuggling beneath the dead autumn leaves, singing winter holiday songs with the chattering sparrows.

I needed some consolation this morning, so I consulted a local big tree.  Don’t know what kind it was, still had leaves on it despite the clear dusting of snow that indicated the winter.

Despair!  Doubt!  Fear!  What do I do with this!?

About what?

The future, money, security, a job, what I need to do, how to do the right thing, what turn in the path calls me, what if I make a mistake spending this, what if I fail?

It’s just a turn in the seasons.  Sun still here.  Gaia still here.  Just a season.

But these feelings, emotions, rollercoaster of illusions?

Drink it up.  Use the useful.  Release the rest for the universe to use.  Pass it on.  Ride the season.

I wish I were a tree.  These feelings are hypnotic and disturbing to my body, they seem so real.

You chose this.  You were a tree and said “PICK ME!  Pick me to be human this time!”  And you went forward.  You are a walking tree, forging ahead to a new land.  You’re doing a really good job just feeling them.

And salt water flows from my eyes and my nose and my mouth and circulates through my heart and my blood and my life.  Salt water is no good for a tree, but today I remember my wooden stem, my reaching branches, my tall heart and tangled hair high into the heavens.

It’s not that I’m still growing, it’s that I’m learning and deepening in how to be still, silent, unmoving in the midst of hysterical loose ends.  Endings, uncertainty, insecurities and fog everywhere.  I root myself like a slender tree on a hill in the mist.  Nourishment seeping into my leaves, minerals and moisture drawing up to my heart through the warming earth.  Rays of invisible sunlight sneaking into my tough skin.

We can’t help but grow.  Growth is change, change is growth.  At least that’s what it looks like from the human viewpoint.  It’s not that a seedling simply changes, it grows.  So despite the failing eyes, the aching joints, the recognizition of limitation, I am both growing and changing.  Deeper and deeper into faith.  No matter what I believe that is!

Stillness and presence in th emoment remind me that whatever I believe in, whatever a Creator is, however Her face appears to me, I am truly a splinter of her star and I yearn in my silent moments, busy action, human foibles, to shine the light She has planeted in my heart.

Human life so often seems to be a pendulum between willfulness and willingness.  Slight and huge difference.  Will-full is that place where I am sure of what should be done.  I am an expert, I am full of confident knowledge and experience and therefore it follows that you all should listen to me and acknowledge my righteousness.  It rarely works.

Willingness is that empty mind of surrender and listening.  That place where I am open to hear you, not tell you about me.  It is a place where fear has no grip, and love makes life like teflon and we all slide and giggle as if on a glorious hill of snow.

Mindful of compassion and doing no harm are good markers on the path, good walking sticks to take with me.  At the same time I reach for the hand of the Lady next to me, the Lord next to me and like wonderful ever-present parents, they lift me up and swing me in complete joy.

Sitting on the edge.  Bobbing around in a tiny boat in the middle of a big foggy lake.  At a crossroads with no landmarks.  Making a change.  A change happening to me.

They tell me that I create my own reality, that my thoughts are seeds and in every second of my day I sow these seeds.  Many of them, with little thought and tiny feelings, are just washed away with the daily wind.  Some are rooted with continuous attention, conscious or unconscious, often subject to pulling up, checking them and ruining their chances.  And the others are firmly planted, passionately watered, constantly fed, prayed on, yet surprisingly spouted.

In the middle of a change, it’s like the early spring in a garden: the ground is plowed, rototilled, turned up and over, mulched, and fertilized (and you know what makes good fertilizer–shit and dead things).  It is muddy, it is spotted with tiny weed hair and branches, little rocks and it is a mess.  But we have sown the seeds, water the bare wet soil and have faith.  In an absolute miracle, without any applause, tiny green shoots show themselves pushing the clods of earth away and reaching for the sun.

Here I am in the mud.  Faith of the future, feeding myself as much shit as I can actually, and turning it over and over and over for the sweet air of peace to keep me soft and loose.  I pull the blanket of Her musky fragrance around me and rest in the middle of this transitory but ongoing path. 

She is ever constant and as near as the hairs on my ear when She whispers the song of love.