Arrival

We have arrived in Summer. No longer can a blushing June lend cover to the heat, the lushness of verdant Summer. The first raspberries hint to ripeness, the currants hang heavily on feeble, wispy stems. Amid all the fullness, I feel as juices running dry; a wrinkled raisin me weaving through daily chores between the burst of life. I see how emotion clings to the coattails of perception, haranguing clarity with a centrifugal force of whatever’s in season; be it woundedness, fear, despair, or dizzying elation. Simple thoughts can be easily clouded, clear recognitions sullied by a wash of imagination. Learning to latch on to what is not forgotten, in moments of clear remembering, in moments of prayer. Then so few questions remain, the one outlasting them all: how may I serve thee better, O Lord?

And then I danced again for the first time in years, and was shocked by heaviness vanishing, by swiftness returning, and by the flutter beats of heart and feet. How wonderful it felt to bypass intellect, to learn through play and unlearning, to laugh at the walls a mind builds around the existence it’s used to. Three little points of light in the darkness, as shimmering stars before a night’s journey: Clarity, Naturalness, Simplicity. I found them in the instances of a weekend, now I seek them out in the everyday, like tender seedlings to weed around, to bring furthering light to.

Start first by cleaning the house, by moving into the new kitchen. Remember the deep work that women weave: not just a home on the earth, but a home for the heart, where peace may be found, where the spirit may feel safe to unfold itself, where a beauty that springs from personal experiencing clings to corners like shining ivy. Wanting it so long, and coming to realize how important it is to me, has been the slow steady work of Winter and Spring. No sooner I can hold back the ripening Summer than deny this work before me. The last leg of a turn of the path; may weariness not overtake me, may I remember always the longings which outlast all feeble doubt.