The thousand yellow points of light, and all connected

Beltane and the reclamation. A re-adjusting, reviving and exhausting weekend. I’m a bit battered about but better for the shaking. Having glimpsed parts of myself in the mirror of others, pushing further on my path and watching those close to me push further on their own, I feel in common with the appearance of cherries; green through and through, but pollinated and real. Nature is celebrating noble motherhood and fatherhood all around me, and I am surprised to feel the rejuvenation of being in the company of family, to feel the strengthening power of the current of homogeneity and love. The thought used to repulse me, that family would be there as my best support as time went on. I wanted so much to break away from everything that seemed familiar and stifling, that represented all that I found false in living. But now I'm beginning to see that such grace is laid upon us through our parents. They are maddening, unknowable people, but they are uplifting, understandable people, too. Birds, and people are parents in some of their bravest moments; they squawk, sing and dart headlong with all speed. The swallows are dancing just above our dirt-bound activity, laughing gaily at their freedom, then landing with all seriousness upon the tiny thresholds of their homes, delivering precious goods to the theater of motherhood inside.

I’ve also had a little time to be with myself, and rediscover who that is. Many changes have been a foot, and in little ways, I’m not the person I was two weeks ago, and yet I feel more honest with myself than before. I feel weaker and stronger - the greater stabler pieces of myself having had quietude enough to solidify, while my little faults having been rattled thoroughly. I come back to the same few scenes, the same hand of cards dealt. New meaning and newer contexts make the stage on which the familiar actors play different; new experiences and understandings re-shape their lines into carpets of richer, denser meaning. Act One: Dying of thirst by the well, in anguished moments I cannot recognized my own free hands or abundance of nourishment for growth. Act Two: More willing to die for the Truth, than to live for it, I tenuously train a wild-eyed samurai to lower her weapons and just live here on Earth, for all it’s worth. Act Three: Always seeking the end, the ultimate, the conclusion, like a dashing greyhound, eyes fixed, entire history of genetic development thrusting, urging it along I tear towards a stuffed rabbit lure, toward a bait I can easily grasp though it be worthless at the conclusion of the chase. The curtain falls, I wear myself out, I crash, I cry, but written everywhere in Nature, whispered by that intuitive part of me is “Everything’s going to be alright”, or “It’s all as it should be, all that it can be, just be here with it”. Being a friend to myself seems to be one of the hardest things to do, but I'm learning.