Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Pieces of Earth

The Sun passes into her final quarter of sky, and the day becomes a lovely Spring evening that wraps like delectable silk around my out-stretched fingers and newly exposed toes. The lushness of grass and clover, the delightful brassiness of dandelions, and shy beauty of violets surround me, a Winter urchin, rubbing her eyes in disbelief at the bounty of green and good. My parents, my two little pieces of Earth, came back into my consciousness this week, and the day before Mom's birthday was studded with poignant questions. What would you say to your mother and father, if you could let loose on the heart-channel you intuitively sense runs directly between you? The words themselves, Mother and Father, leave a sacred taste on the tongue, a taste untarnished by the wrongs mere humans have made to one another. Those crazy people who one senses could be the truest of friends to you if only you saw eye to eye, if only the march of years and experiences could allow for a moment of heart song. To stare across an ocean of meaning at another person, one who was given to you in recognition of your deeper spiritual needs in this lifetime. So alike, yet so far away, we pass by time together in moments of silliness, in moments of dancing around the chord sounding between us. Unspeakable significance, unfettered longing for the welfare of the other, a gift wrapped up in a person, a strange, familiar unknowable person, to drive us crazy with the sensing of the unattainable. What would I say to my mother and father, if given the chance? The words would fail me, maybe the words would fail them, and we’d continue on, in unspeakable companionship and love.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Giving over to newness

A sunshine beautiful day. The dandelions make a debut, shuffling the lingering daffodils into a quieter residency - no longer the singular golden wonder, now they seem a bit shy. Fruits trees are displaying ever so modestly, one iota of movement toward flowering. To give, now here is the question that has occupied me alternatively with feelings of emptiness. The feeling that I have something to give, yet not knowing where to put it to good use. It can explode sometimes, or seep out against my better judgement, just hoping to be received. Finally it became prayer the other night, and I saw an image of myself holding a shining, deep blue stone in my out-stretched palms, and I beseeched my Creator for someway to share the gift.

Changes overtake the now empty property, and I feel the tingling materialization of a common childhood dream - the being let loose after hours in a well-ordered place, no one watching, and being completely without malice or ill-intent. Some great force of energy was released today, and I enjoyed myself, both in my activities and in my every-moment being. I felt free from my self-constructed stereotype, more just plainly a unique human spirit - sensitive, delighted, perceptive, intelligent, and resilient. Like Spring taking shape, and becoming real; like the spongy grass over-taking its phase of novel growth, and hurtling headlong into mowable mess. I am a part of this world, and I'm learning to like it.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Rain-soaked greening

The chorus of unfolding green has begun to sound too vociferously to distinguish separate effort from separate effort. So begins the yearly surround of Nature,when we humans become lost and outnumbered by its lively greatness. The elder buds are unfolding like healing hands raised in praise for their Creator. The bugs appear; flocks of choosy young bees forage almost bewildered amongst the sudden bounty of blooming bulbs. Cats are routinely trapped in the coldframe - caught unawares in their afternoon nap when the hydraulic arm of the entrance closes with the slackening temperature.

At the end of the day I’m sad again, and wanting something, some sort of recognition this time, some sort of wanting to be wanted. I seem to be in the throws of a battle with caked emotion. My face is changing even, my eyes, the way my nose is set off, the curve of neck against cheek. It’s as if layers of mud had accumulated in the angular places of my body, guarding against bumps, depositing like silt in the able crevices. Emotion seems to want to run away with me, stir me up into an unrecognizable whipped mass and take me out on misadventures. Beneath the heaving swells, though, the real part of me continues to whisper quietly: you never really have to worry about the things that obsess you now, you always just have to be yourself, to the truest manifestation you were capable of. Each leaf uncurling in an ordered step, and each moment and phase of growth succinct, willing to be what it is, willing to be only half-way, a quarter-way to where we humans expect legitimacy to take hold. Living is so much bigger than we allow ourselves to conceive, so much grander and diverse, delicate and noble. So much more forgiving, really, much more forgiving towards me than myself, much more kind. And I think I’m looking for kindness, pure simple kindness I can understand.

The garden has sprouted, and little files of grassy spinach toes the line like soldiers departing on a campaign to bring happiness. The forces of Wind, Water, Sun, and Earth are all colliding headlong into the ancient Season of Beltane; the point of no return, Spring has come, and Summer shall soon begin, and Winter has been thoroughly banished by the happiness of regeneration and growth. My own personal Beltane approaches, tentatively, yet irrevocably, and like the tiny garden seeds, I’m happy to grow.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

An old Sundown

Music has become a lucid experience as of late. Listening to the semi-pop drone of the art supply store, I was suddenly and viscerally transported back to a scene of heartbreak, and my poor heart nearly cried out again amidst the cheap glass vases and unpainted pine. The sunset looming overhead of us was real again, a detail I had forgotten, really. Emotion welled into the upper palate, hinged against the pit of my throat, and I grasped at it, so taken aback was I at the sudden re-experiencing. Driving home I remembered crying in the arms of my friend, who, in that moment, proved himself dearer to me than I had ever been able to conceive. I must have cried for hours, and he let me. When all tears had been expelled, a sadness yet remained that could no longer find expression by shear exhaustion. This day, that grouping of days, shaped and modeled me, effected me in a way that I tried to immediately dismiss. I wanted so badly to put into practice everything I had learned about forgiveness, detachment, and compassion. All the teachings rushed to the surface in the moment, begging to applied to this crisis, and I obeyed, out of love for what I could conceive of the Truth, out of love for him who had just turned my world upside down. But to him it was right side up again, finally after many long months. What sadness I caused him I will never know.

I watched the sun go down this night. A smooth, unbroken shield of red to orange pierced forcefully through the cracks in kitchen curtains, and I felt the heaviness of it’s burning decent. It was a long working day besides my brush with vivid emotion, and I was happy bouncing along, steering the little tracker precariously into the pine woods, tending the garden and frying eggs. I’m just about ready for something, to come to terms with something, to look something in the eyes plainly. It remains the unnameable something for now, the unknowably beautiful sunset, the unreal lucidness of living.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Transform into the second phase

Suddenly I catch myself looking at the world from a different perspective, and thereby feeling more indigenously rooted in my own self. Maybe the struggle to adopt the right way for life is succumbing to a much messier, dirtier, experiential path, where the wagon ruts are my own making. Splashing mud upon my nervously clean visage, and learning to put away the shaky, gloved regard for living, I'm feeling at once more beaten up and more resilient. This is the season, too, when dreams of Spring begin to take former hold on reality, and the potential of seed evolves into the fragile yet plainly material earthly sprout. They shine out of the rough and battered ground unabashedly in their gentle happiness, lifting tiny faces toward the Sun while plummeting roots into the mashed tangle of living soil. So much of what I have encountered in life seems to be mostly example and suggestion, with the living Truth waiting to be approached and experienced.

Add to that that there's no going back, only moving forward into the next phase of development. The same simple questions are with me, but they have changed as I have changed, their subtlety or coarseness reflects my own and what I am able to comprehend at any given moment. With the fluidity of life at hand, I'm grateful for the earthiness I'm beginning to adopt - little roots for when the rain blows rivulets of experiencing here and there. How sad I am still, and still confused, but more at home now in my own being, more willing just to live.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Reflections on an Easter weekend

Winter seems so deep here, and Summer so furious, hot, buggy, then gone. The Spring crops are planted since 10 days ago, and they have been wise enough not to raise tiny fragile faces to the bluster of a virulent North wind. I picture them hiding under the prescribed thickness of earth, little life curled into fetal position, their tender unclothed backs just sensing the cold creeping in. With energy and timing the seeds were set, and now we all wait. They with undoubtedly more patience and faith than I. The orchard buds know the score, for they too only expose enough of their noses to reassure us of life, and wait for the wind to die down. My garden bed is here in my upstairs room, where I can feel the actual heat of the strengthening sun protected from the gales which slam intermittently against the crack I've left in the North window. I feel my own intention, energy, and timing sunk into the soil, and I too am waiting the moment to sprout, too see the quality of seed I have sown.

It's been a rough weekend, to put it simply. It began really late Thursday night, when I chose to sit down in the new shower, stretch my legs across the still dusty space and cry. Sobs more boulders and rocks than shakes, they came almost dry, as painful unwilling births. The thunderstorm of conflicting thoughts thrashed and crashed under steadily cooling water, and the valiant little water heater next to me clicked on and rumbled. I feel tortured by two minds, or rather, two consciousnesses. One seems to have already decided its fate, the other knows the answer it has proposed is fruitless. I drum up knowledge learned to do battle with the first. But knowledge learned, and not fully experienced and absorbed can do little against that which is so determined, that which has reached the end of its line and can see no other choice. I prayed, and in prayer found myself to be full of fear. Wondering at this, I saw the sadness and anger as mere peevish creepers, thriving in this fertile ground. Afraid, and anguished, frightened to a sort of hysteria, begging the world to stop for fear, and tired, very tired from the panic. In the morning I stayed in bed until 9, and with the support of cats and sunshine, I began a day. Weaker, I moved about tentatively, worked quietly, ate little and frequently. By lunch my breathing was shallow again, and my heart beating too fast. Electricity charged my nerve endings, and walking quickly threatened a faint. I had blown a gasket, the broken heart I allowed to express itself in the shower became the broken heart in my chest. I went back to bed, missed the Memorial for Jesus, I stayed away from dinner with guest. Saturday was more of the same, but better, so that this morning I awoke, dressed, and attended the Easter Worship with almost complete ease.

And pausing before taking the brief and windy walk down to the Hall, I wondered why my thoughts had turned from God to myself these past weeks, and whether that, after all, was the start of the trouble. Ichi go, ichi e, one meeting, one chance is what someone performing the tea ceremony will say to you as you are handed your bowl. Today the saying gained new meaning for me: one meeting with Grace, one chance to grasp onto it before It silently passes by. The holiness and beauty of simplicity can be found in each moment we care to look for it, and in those moments I feel fulfilled. In those moments I move beyond the four walls I have enclosed my consciousness in, and gently peer out the window toward an ancient, perfectly tended garden, and a swift sunrise, and feel joy.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

The Loom

The Sun is spilling down her great mantle over the opposite side of the valley, covering our little farm in velvet softness. The trees disappear into their commune with the rest of the forest and will wait to be awoken into stark contrast with the rising of tonight's full Moon. The great Wheel of Nature is spinning and clicking its innumerable cogs all around me; light and dark, birdsong and rising wind, growing grass and skittering clouds. Today I felt with daring clarity the weight of choice. I, the human being, in contrast to the harmonious working of the Earth, sense the pull of my own free volition as if it were the ebb and flow of waves against stationary ankles. I have chosen many things - some irrespective of gentle urgings I can only begin to recognize in retrospect. A picture of clouds, and I am transported back to a key decision I didn't know I was making at the time. Here, in front of me and around me, is built the physical earthly consequences of that choice and many others.

I'm beginning to be comfortable with not always choosing correctly, with just choosing what I can in each moment. This is a major step, I feel, in accepting that my existence bridges many diverse states of being; from this Earth, to the beyond, back to Earth, all along a long winding path toward home. Winding, repeating, weaving. Each decision reinforcing or destabilizing the pattern of the road before my feet, the road I weave just moments before I walk it. Responsibility. They are my own two feet, and no doubt they will register the quality of the path my choices have formed. Nature and Creation the steadfast loom, the perfect instrument we are granted to use, the constancy of which to measure our craft against. Day to night, night to day, and choice to choice.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Whistling wind and growing buds

The wind has settled on howling. Blasting from the north, it pipes obtusely through the not-quite-clasped windows of my bedroom and begs for attention. I'm still as shaky as the unleafed trees, hiding their tender chances of budding against the contrary forces of April wind. Little fruit spurs are swelling their tender chests, showing bold forecasts of the flowered hearts to come. My heart is quivering, beating too fast for my restive state, keeping me awake and feeling as night speeds away. My little flowered heart is waiting for other such bellowing tempests to calm into passagable winds, waiting for me to accept the change about to happen, and carry on with it to some shore it trust more readily than I do.

The Seed Moon will rise on Thursday, what do I wish to sow? The soil of my being feels as if it has been tilled over, twice, raked, forked, manured, and raked again. We always get to decide - that's such a grand part of our business here on earth, to decide for good, make conscious a choice for what is better simply because it is better. Now weigh the seeds. Heavy, hearty fodder; passive climbing, delicate flowers; straight, springy, snappy young trees; quiet, secret healing shrubs; patiently searching, hidden tubers. Choices. I see so many different ways to be before me, and realize my best decisions have been made without considered planning, without a mind fixated upon a palpable goal. This gives new meaning to song lyrics I used to take in such a specific, idealized way: "...going where the wind goes, blooming like a red rose, breathing more freely...", and gives ever more weight to the admonishment to live in the present. Live in the present, and let go of what you think you are, to make room for what you can be.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Joy in being

The peepers sounding night songs mysteriously in the distant valley remind me of something, some comfort sent afar. Daffodils have set themselves up in defiance of a predicted cold snap - one peeks straightforwardly from a crack in my bedroom curtain, which billows gently in the night air. The forceful and vigorous awakening of Nature astounds me, who seems to lag behind the upswing with thoughts of sadness and feelings of despair clinging like moss to my shoulders. As a last stop on a strange tour of emotion, I have landed feet-first in a place of bodily self-disgust. As soon as puberty set in, I decidedly felt a stranger in my skin, like I was constantly being betrayed by a strange garment. But maybe it is me, and not my body that has done the betraying. My body is a valiant little heart, dear kidneys, vigorous liver, resilient skin, careful gentle feet, all permeated with the unquenchable drive to live, grow, and regenerate. While it is myself who harbours the angry, sad feelings that desire explosion, ending, giving up.
I can’t seem to understand the origin of this desire to explode life. It seems to haunt my steps, to hang about my mouth ready to start stability quivering. It feels like I’m losing hold on life, then tossing the rest away in angry defiance of how sensitively I perceive the beauty and agony of living.

Today I began to sense a coming reconciliation with change. What I once did so eagerly to the point of blind mad reaction, I’m now feeling at odds with. I wonder as to what degree change is a necessary part of living and experiencing ourselves. Do I threaten the trueness of my existence with changing winds, like a ship bound for port diverted by a swelling gale? It’s my fears I tend to perceive first, that I tend to dream first, the worst capable in a situation, the quickly divergent path down brambled crevices. Last night’s dream was one of these, and I gladly awoke from its throws this morning. A Titan's grip I tend to hold myself fast in, squeezing until gasping tears or brilliant Nature break the hold. Butterflies are crushed more easily, and in this Season of great upheaval, I pray I can find the right balance of hold and release before young beautiful ideas emerge from their patient slumbers. Daring as robins and freshly bloomed daffodils, steady as rising sap and emerging buds, remarkably beautiful as the green triumph of grass. Grant me such trueness, I pray, such joy in being.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

April after all

The blast of wind after today’s bitter rain seemed to laugh in goldening sunlight, as if to say “it was only an April rain, after all”. I believed it for a moment, and breathed in the sun. Still, I felt as though in a spiral, the essence of me disturbed and confused, a mucky mess, an indefinable blob as raw as the dark garden soil awaiting growth. Daffodils have joined the crocus choir on the South bank, and at the end of today, I finally feel the opening relief.

Through rain-lashed windows I saw the water bead and sheet into images of turbulent past. So much was set aside, and very quickly. As parts of me realize the lost they sound a twang of regret, or a pitiful cry of "Unfair!". We often don't remember Winter till it's done, then think back to the stark, bare beauty, the dreaming of long nights, the crisp emptiness of days, and pull away in thought from the raw power surge of Spring. Spring has begun though, and life can only go forward, never back, so why do I linger? I come to feel that we do not fully understand the impact we have on our fellow beings; how our presence and attention change the people and circumstances around us. Does love freely given, to what is now revealed to be a misconception still return in the reaping as genuine love? Can I ever pin down an understanding of that which is true goodness in myself, that which is truly meaningful and valuable to others? The little secrets of genuineness flutter passed me like sleepy yet uncapturable cabbage moths. Life being more mutable, faceted, and within our power to change than we ever thought possible rests sweetly and heavily upon me.

I'm sore, but the hard freeze cracked. The revolution of Nature is just beginning: from the ground up green boldly and undeniably over-comes the frail veil of colorlessness. The wavering will stop, and Winter will dare not disturb the smiling gaze of so many delicate blossoms. It is won with patience, it is won with love, hope, and joy. Life is reclaimed through effort and vigilance, through trust and faithfulness. We make a place for life in our own hearts, and guard the tender green until it has strength enough to fill us up whole.