Unrushable, unbefuddled

Tears almost came today, like little crocuses almost in bloom, their gaily colored heads a sound premonition to what follows. I felt again that knot of confusion, that club foot that prevents dancing and singing in all earnestness. I saw the line over which I have not yet leaped, the line I draw around myself like a self-constricting spell circle. Silly and confused, not too sure as to where to put my energies, worried, and therefore sad. The line stretches out directly from little moments of unsureness, little questions as to how long happiness will last, as to when elation will burst and recklessly spent emotion implode. I'm remembering Moses, wandering with a mass of worried people behind him.

I'm longing for life in which we laugh will our entire belly, cry easily for joy and awe, eat delicious food with relish until just hunger is satisfied, sleep with abandon and yet without relinquishing consciousness, sing frequently, and most of all, not worry about what's to come, how we'll fare and what we're doing with our lives. Nature does all these things, and the songbirds and peeping frog attest to it all day and night as Spring unfolds itself. And it does so ever so slowly, without the tremendous bang we expect of it after Winter. It takes time to utilize every moment for what part it plays, like my cats who can never understand the haste I employ in walking from point to point. They would rather experience their time on earth as one great existing, and not draw funny lines around what seems necessary or not. Life without confusion, without self-censure, just dignity. I pray for it, and I'll gladly work toward it, waiting for the time and place for my unripened crocus tears.

Freshly tilled

Yesterday came the first real Spring rain, and with it the first intoxicating scent of growing and living. The sun rose today in delightful mysteriousness, invoking the wonder of a Creation we cannot fully comprehend. Walking home tonight, dirt still rattling inside my shoes, I heard the first sounding of peeping frogs, away down in the distant wooded valley.

We moved earth today; in fertile carpets it peeled away from root and stone, in churning, foaming waves it piled softly as cream into new fields. I took pauses to visit animals, accepted affection, and played feet-first in cool, clearing dirt. Hard work makes me happy. This sort of work, outside, real, where progress can be witnessed and the solitude is accompanied by a gentle hum of growing. Many pitfalls and trappings fall away delightfully, as if they were waiting to be forgotten, and the self is lost against the great rumbling roar of a patient Mother Earth, teaming with gifts. Sun and Moon make things easier for me, Earth rejuvenates, green remembers to me with unfailing constancy the natural strength I possess.

I'm happiest when I feel like I belong, when I feel quiet and solitary yet not alone, when I have good and helpful things to do. It seems simple enough, a recipe even for nearly any human being. It's the living that's the hard part. Living it day in and day out, living it in spite of hardship, bruised emotions, unexpected circumstances and perceptions gone wrong. Living and allowing myself to be flawed, for others to be imperfect, too. Allowing myself to imagine a better future, a better world, without building Towers of Babel from thickly mortared emotive fantasy. The energy of life is nearly breath-taking. Strong enough to spin me out of control, quiet and patient enough to leave me languishing in helpless sadness if I choose not to look up in time to see it disappear. I feel sometimes like a little ship at Sea, tossed here and there, now sailing briskly with the wind, now becalmed and breathless. Except I'm only at the mercy of my own volition, thoughts and deeds, not a pitiless Ocean. Though I be sad, I'm willing to see it through, willing to play my part in moulding a better person out of this raw material, this empty tousled garden bed.

Passage through

On days like this depression seems to be an incurable sickness, as pestilential and agonizing as viruses come. The only cure to this one is to walk away yourself, to decide to recover, a factor which shames me into battling on against feelings I sense I can rid myself of unlike those who must suffer under pains they know will overwhelm them. I'm coughing and sneezing, thirsty, with a knotted stomach, clenched teeth, and a deep down fatigue, ponderously and questioningly asking for love in every glance, unable to cry, crumpled in my joints and sluggish in my movements. But I'm turning the tourniquet myself, and most days I can drop this instrument while others find me submerged in sickening feelings. The aspect of my nature that opens itself to sensitivity and absorption breaks down the restraints and a flood of cruel feeling swallows normal living. This happens, and I'm willing to accept that factor along my path for now, even more so if my peskering brain could understand to what purpose. But somehow my spirit knows why, or has an inkling to the lawfulness of it, and really is not afraid at all, is not sad, really, just waiting. Then the best remedy is so often sleep. To shut down the central computer buzzing away between my ears and wait for that tender moment of waking when the spirit can whisper audibly the reality it knows. Trust can re-enter the equation then, along with it connectedness and peace. And it is strange how quickly the torment goes away, once my grasp on it is loosened. I must frequently forget what it's like to be so sad because the experience isn't real enough to lend a lasting impression on my core, the real part of me. Perhaps that part sees the experience like passengers who alight from a plane into a noisy terminal - a goal is so steadily in front of them, it just takes walking to it, and the noise is something they've heard many times before, and can't be bothered with. I'm grateful for what's really me, and grateful for the chance to develop it, trust it, love it.

Goodnight

On a night as beautiful as this, who could feel alone? A circle of friends are the stars, shining down with earnest remembrance of my better qualities. The howling wind is only playing; Winter is gone now with his encompassing dark and can't be summoned again from the long dream he has embarked on. Spring clings gallantly to the self-assured figure of an Ares ram, and the earth peers wistfully at Libra, sighing in beautiful flowers. Work has set things in motion again; I feel a rush almost at the openness and release activity will bring.

I'll feel sadness again, there are things left undone, litter that needs collecting and composting. The newness of it all is frightening and exciting, and this moment of respite is well worth the struggle to embrace it all.

Vulnerable Spring

The dull taste of fatigue is in my mouth today, and life feels as ungraspable as sand through my fingers. The sun courses deceptively warm tracks across the bedroom floor, while outside a Wintry air is biting down on the pleasant scenes of work. I'm tumbling and rolling things around inside me, like an ill-balanced washer digesting pairs of sneakers, and I'm frustrated with myself, which adds unnecessary virulence to the process. I started out on a path to come to terms with an ill-fitted brick in an otherwise happy existence, and I find myself diverted down an all-too-familiar by-way: imaginative fantasy laced strongly with emotion. So in barrels frustration, bouncing along in tandem wiggles the facade of the completely natural, and the original issue becomes submerged under questions, regrets, and the sudden gush of an end-of-Winter emotional sap run.

Nature is never sarcastic, and I wonder how humanity developed the taste for it, myself included. Maybe we know that something deep is not right, but we can't conceive of how to adapt to the harmonious path the world around us flows in unceasingly. Maybe we almost want to stop trying, but can't. Can't for love of a life we don't fully understand.

Piece by piece it all gets worked out, and I'll learn to allow myself to take what I need. And slowly, the coarse of my existence will right the wrongs I have taken into myself; this one, and the next, and the next...

Collecting the Mist

A misty morning awoke today, with drifting clouds clinging to the east side of the valley, passing gently over trees still bare from Winter. Rain droplets clung to the darkened branches of birch trees, like old tears that remembered themselves after the spell of dry weather. Plenty of things are happening today, plenty of busyness, worry, organization and fear. The birds don't seem to mind, though; they greeted the Sun under her blanket of gray coolness with an eruption of song and giddy celebration. I feel like the birch trees today, brought into high contrast under invisible wetness, forgotten tears clinging to my outer reaches of perception. I find it amazing how much I can forget, and how silly a receptive device the brain can be. It seems to thrive on detailed memory, yet eagerly relinquishes its prize for the sake of crisis or happiness. I begin to feel as though I've just raised myself to standing from a hospital wheelchair, still dressed in ridiculous soft blue. I can believe in the procedure I've undergone, as a cancer patient can believe in the removal of a tumor, and can imbibe the future ahead with thoughts of wary recovery and deep gratitude. Yet I must begin to walk once more, remember the reality that was abandoned by most serious necessity. Continue to live, changed. The birches relinquish their hold on life as soon as the forest no longer needs them, as soon as stronger, more durable trees break the canopy into light. I've struggled with an all-too-willingness to do this myself, an eager readiness to die for what I believe, rather than to live for what I believe. I feel like the birch trees today, brought into vivid colors, gathering and letting go the mist in tearful droplets, allowing themselves to live another cycle further.

Middle March

When moments of peace find me, I come back, again and again to the simple reality that life is unspeakably beautiful. Now that lusty March has turned its median, Nature seems to return to the same reality. All is so clear, strong, and bright; a first clear call from light and air to begin the upbuilding, to shake off the thin veil of inactivity and sleepy deadness. Buds are full to near bursting, like anxious children waiting for the appearance of their dear friend the grass to join them in an eruption of play. The human part of my landscape suddenly looks pale and a little dizzy - skin unaccustomed to the Sun, and bodies charged waveringly with new energy, we wake up from our Winter dreaming, feel once more the pressure of Time against our actions, and gather ourselves for work. I'm shaky still from the experinces around my birthday, and I'm still only just tasting the flavor of what's to come - like the maple trees, whose sap only suggests the sweetness that will take time and effort to condense. I hold on to what sensation I have, turn to Sun, open myself to growth, and thank the Creator for all such possibility.