In the Sky of Heart

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Next week, Sounds True will publish a new, expanded edition of Inside the Miracle: Enduring Suffering, Approaching Wholeness, which gathers twenty-eight years of my writing and teaching about suffering, healing, and wholeness, including thirty-nine new poems and prose pieces not yet published. One of the great transforming passages in my life was having cancer in my mid-thirties. This experience unraveled the way I see the world and made me a student of all spiritual paths. With a steadfast belief in our aliveness, I hope what’s in this book will help you meet the transformation that waits in however you’re being forged. The following piece is an excerpt from the book.

IN THE SKY OF HEART

It’s late in the afternoon and I’m

backed up in traffic, aching for my

father and our dog, both gone, when

the sun comes through, and there, above

us, a shelf of clouds shaped like an island

edged by a waterfall. So real, I can al-

most hear the rush of water falling

into eternity. This mythic island in

the sky stands by itself, beckoning.

And I understand why early people

overwhelmed with survival might

look up and believe that gods live

in the sky. I am no different, as I

outwait the clouds of our trouble.

Someone is honking. But something

stirs within and I want to put the car

in park and walk into the sky, to sit

by the waterfall of time falling into

everything. I think it’s where we all

go when the light turns green and

the tires turn to wings and the steer-

ing wheels open into flowers. I think

I hear my father throwing sticks to

our dog at the bottom of the water-

fall. Someone else is honking.

It’s hard to go anywhere.

A Question to Walk With: In conversation with a friend or loved one, describe the impact and presence of someone you have lost.