Opening

With Nature primed, we wait for the outpouring of Life, for Summer to ratify our dreams of development, for the choices we have made to be proven wisdom or folly. A new little green fruit am I, fresh hope clinging thinly yet powerrfully as the rind around my juvenille core. The little lessons of life, the delicate leaves smiling with their freshness of green, soon to be replaced by stoic and resplendant tones. All is close to hardening-off, all have left the fear of terminating frost behind, all straighten up rejoicing in soft rain, soft breezes and soft sunlight.

I ask myself if I continue in good faith the path I set out on; the path I chose willingly as one who dedicates her life to God. Do I keep the way? In all things, living and breathing, do I earn the blessings of life? My fellow men I focus on; I see kindness so easily dolled out, and selfless service given. Untiring it can seem to me, who so often seeks an independent solitude, and seeks not to trouble others. In the balancing game of taking and giving, do I starve myself of air through this desire not to be a bother?

Now finally, I seek to take responsibility for my life in a new way. Beyond what is fulfilled through material means, beyond accepting what is graciously given by those around me, I want to bring into being those images of happiness and beauty I carry within. For another season we are granted life, we are granted the chance to develop, we are granted the strength to go forth.

The leaving and taking of Home

The newest of crescents hanging overhead like a spangled earring from the edge of the sky. A quivering in my chin won’t let me go; I’ve come face to face with plenty of personality hitches last weekend, and I’m a bit shaken up by them. I see myself again, the me I left home with eight years ago, the me when I loved living so dearly that I forgot to notice the spinning amalgamation of a human being beneath my skin.

I see how I can hold people hostage; under the gun of a dramatic reaction, of a black mood, of a knowing that another person is unhappy in their company. Strong, yet unknowable rules built to shelter a fragile existence, one that needs peace so badly it can sacrifice all connection to its fellow men. Peace and a home of my own; a real home, perhaps, and finally, now that home as the physical place I grew up in has all but disintegrated. My sister and I wonder, where is it? Its here, beneath the trees that are growing, on the grass that renews itself each year, amongst the wildflowers that whither indoors. We surface, two strongly alike and vastly different people, riders on the same disoriented bus, sculptors of the same unbalanced work, still wet, still in progress. We feel a guilt we can't express, a resentment also that seeps into the relationships we surround ourselves in to feel trusted and loved. Standing knee deep in the yet rippling water, we hold fistfuls of love; sometimes crushed under the pressure of our grip, sometime wriggling free despite ourselves, but ever ready to be dispensed, ever seeking its home and its place to do good.

My sister and I have a sort of home in each other. In our solemn and ridiculous, unspoken and gushing way, we cannot help but strum a tender and well-worn cord whenever we meet. In this cord is trust, which I realize I do not dispense easily, and which does not need to be dispensed with her, because it simply is, whether I will it or not. The things I forget to notice come ever dearer to me now, for I am slowly discovering that they form the greater part of me, that they make the better part of me.

Alone, together, beyond

Gemini on the rise, and I’m longing to travel. I follow deer paths into the woods to be lost in the greening. Today the land was friendly with me, and I felt blessed. Calling out to the dearest of the trees, resplendent now in delicate green, just the whisper of the pride that will come with Summer foliage. How different the trees look when clothed; full of life the expand outward to meet my gaze, secrets replaced with expression, impression with radiation. Who is this shadow in front of me, walking jaggedly between emerging grass? The hair I recognize, the twining fingers and slouchy gate. Beyond this I need know nothing more when immersed in greenness; just that I exist is plenty, just that everything around me exists is plenty more.

I feel like there’s a dam in my heart. What put it there, I don’t know, but it’s quite possibly me. Somehow I haven’t let it all out, yet. Somehow I’m tied back from letting the back flood of emotion flow forward and out, flow to some, and away from the pool gathering ominously around my being. Some days it breeds unhappy things, some days it’s calm and peaceful, but ever am I carrying something gathered behind a clamped valve.

It’s been seven years since I set out on my own; the seven years of living. I took my first step into a Philadelphia row house on a heroin-dealing cross street with four roommates. There was a goth band in the basement, gender-bending partner swapping, drugs, and schizophrenic delusions. I broke out to live out of my car with my boyfriend. We traveled up and down the east coast for a month, following our favorite band. We lived off animal crackers, peanut butter and jelly, the charity of strangers, and our sense escapist fantasy. All that remains from then is my cat, Bean. I had taken a big leap into the deep end; feet first, and arms flaying, I waited for the bottom to reach up and take me home, as it always had done before. Instead, I started on a path that lead me here; recovering, and finally learning to let go of the feeling that something must be inherently wrong with me. Let go of this, and life seems livable, lastingly livable, like I’m at home here after all.

I feel the bond between my partner and I, one that runs deeper than emotion, deeper than circumstance. Though places change we are together, paired as we ought to be by threads of tender beauty. He loves me, and part of me reaches out to pity him, but is halted by the greater part that loves him, too. He cannot hide it, nor should he, it gurgles irreproachable against the surface, like surging water hiding under the faintest of reflections. We share a common movement, and when it’s time for anime we both agree, tentatively at first so as not to burden the other, then with all clear gusto as we realize a new experience to be had together. Even if I were to try to ruin it with thoughts, I cannot deny the life we have to lead together, the help we are meant to give to one another, the earthly work, the inner deepening. Where would I be if not his wife? Out in the world, searching for what he can give me, taking it in pieces from Nature, friends, family and my own heart. A gift is marriage, and an undeniable fact, a reason for living, a chance to become something that would not otherwise be.

The Cusp

The birds sing for midday, for morning and the start of night. I sing for freedom, for redemption, and the end of fear. Summer kissed my forehead today, and rested gently on my shoulder, as a long-forgotten friend. After all that has happened, I still feel as though something is not quite right. I feel a little left behind with the progressing season, a little out of place. The inner change that exploded and settled is not present in the outer; something that I know I must manifest myself. I'm searching now for the courage to do so, the courage to keep my head above waves of self-pity.

Maybe I'll always be a little uncomfortable with exposing the deep-running rivelts of my feelings. Like silver veined mountains, I reach in to dig and ever remove more ore than element, ever reveil much less than what strems in thick purity beneith the surface. For fear, as usual, plays a leading role in living, and tightens doubts around my throat before it finds the notes to sing.

Like a long-forgotten friend, I fish through pages of meaning in search of myself. Was I there, have I been here, did happiness really exist, was it really all that sorrowful? I broke a key off in my heart a long time ago, and I'm trying anew to move beyond the circumstances of this life to define who I am, and of what value I can be. This feels like the first Summer in a long time, a very long time.

Newness and time

I see the importance of being around those who bring out the good in you. Who, simply by their existing inspire and allow that which is uplifting for you, that which helps you evolve. I can see no concrete material reasoning behind these deep and permeating connections, save those that are found between family, and I am again astounded by the Grace inherent on our earthlives. Blinded so we fall and begin again like jolly children, we enjoy the well-worn tenderness between each other without the burden of in-depth history, toil, and heartbreak. What a gift is Earth, perfectly tended yet malleable, a mirror for our collective inner state, forgiving yet just, simple and beautiful.

And that night I went to sleep, heart beating, mind whirling, soul uncorked, and grateful for life. I remember myself like an old friend, and I like me, the real me, the freed me. As fear peals away like dirtied clothing from a happily exhausted gardener, I am left with a near uncontrollable love. All I could ask right now is to give back something of value, something furthering, something of myself.

I've set aside a worn out pair of shoes this weekend, and life is different. The path has allowed for a change previously inconceivable, like the first plate of spinach taken from the ground and steaming before me after Winter and new Spring have passed. That life can change so quickly and completely for the better leaves me breathless. When all is said, it is the time we have spent here, what we have chosen to do with it, that will define us; time that can never be repeated, time that can be shared, moments that can be forgiven, feelings that have their best possible time to be expressed. Being bound to this Earth, this body, and this time, aren't so bad after all.

Help in being

I felt today that the understanding between people is a gift during our stay on earth, so that we might not feel so alone trapped inside our heads, so that we might experience here a bit of the connectedness that streams through all Creation, so that here in this life we might understand that our world extends far beyond the reach of our thinking and doing. These people are friends of the heart, they are family, they are the beloved who has found you on just the right point of the path.

When I turn to see my time on earth as just the smallest event in my existence, I also see with greater clarity, with greater kindness and freedom, the better way to relate to people. The ruddy circumstances of this life aside, what is it about the person before me that I cherish? What would endure the passage of time and space, and remain undimmed and waiting to be cultivated? Pieces of home, I could list them on open fingers, the ones who have helped by simply existing alongside, nearby, or far from me. Tentitively, I reach for the space between two people, the space which has changed to something independant of its participants, the space that would not have been otherwise formed, and which enriches life like swirls of dense flavor streaked through piled rice. My hundred threads upward were so completely and simply twirled into a steady rope by my dear friend that I embraced his proposal and became his wife. How easy it is to be furthered by those you trust, when suddenly you remember to trust them.

What has been shed

Our faces now primed a beginners tan, the leaves mercifully make their push to unfold, and suddenly the landscape takes its leave of all that has been familiar for the past six months. A pivot point has been reached, in myself, in the world around me, and now the heady preparation phase before all is sealed, fulfilled, and rejuvenated at the end of May. What tiny leaves who have somehow proved themselves unworthy in their short life are now being cast aside in the strengthening weather; they gather around my doorway, their headlong progress halted by the door mat, still vibrant green and tender.

After a few years of troubled denial, I'm now having to admit something about myself, now, because finally I feel alright about it. My own little seemingly innocent young leaves have blown away, new strength does not nourish them, I may go on with living. Ever again life has proven to be cyclical yet ever progressing upwards or downwards; an indescribable balance between vertical and horizontal, moving through the same dear seasons yet never in total repetition. A cask of wine: from soil comes a cluster of grapes, an arrangement of virtues and challenges which are pressed by karma and experiencing into some liquid. Choosing the right housing and context for this product makes all the difference, and the oaken cast of my limited understanding of life holds true for many seasons. Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring are the same, even the juice inside is essentially the same liquid that first entered, but it becomes always more complex, always changeable, until decanting, and vinegar or wine is the result.

I grateful for the release, grateful for the acceptance, and grateful for Summer, just over the horizon.

Within, without

Today, the unofficial transition from tender to unbridled, the dandelions were cut. My fingers twisted rhythmically in the years first serious weeding, plying a rain-softened earth to relinquish her bounty of growth to the monogamy of a few select species. I'm reflecting on relationships, on the manner in which I have related to others, and how this has changed. I under went a startling change, a full right-angle turn, and now I'm comparing the two, the weft and weal of either strain, like a carpenter examining the cross-grandness of a wood destined to serve some major purpose to his livelihood.

I have a genius of a cat. He approaches people with a shy love, a longing to express this, a light touch upon the ground with which to carry him happily away at first mention of needlessness. He waits, and his feeling does not change, and he pours out love with chivalrous largess when the moment is right and he is noticed. Patience without resentment, feeling that is steadfast because it is rooted in genuine love, and giddy happiness without fantasy, wrapped in orange fur and smiling.

I have a little embryonic me inside, a tumbled stone with variant colors, reflectively smooth and nearly shapeless, but there, and trying. It shifts through the actions of a denser me, a one who grasps at outward forms and puts on the elaborate performances of a baroque theater. It judges and weighs, it reminds me, ever so faintly, of the path of goodness, the path that does not test or trial, and bids me take it. Dreams stud the firmament of my inner life like radiant dandelions, like pools of wonderful reflection on smooth stones. But in a way they're all an aside, a brief moment of existence, as ephemeral as the shaggy green that must be mowed today. Restriction cannot be the antidote to dreaminess and wildness, he answer must surely be the growing of a stronger tree, a sapling to forge ahead skyward and take the force away from the argument of antithesis.

I have but a brief moment with the dandelions, with the genius cat, with the developing me, and I hope to learn all I can from them.

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.