In the lonely canyon of night, the owl makes such a human cry. Who knows what it grieves. Like seeing a stranger break down in the street as we rush by. We each become the owl when something dear is taken. This is how the Greeks defined the Netherworld: that darkness between life and death where we want to be heard but never found. A Question to Walk With: Tell the story of an absence... Read more
Everything in nature erodes gracefully. The tree leans and cracks. The mountain rounds for decades in the wind. The banks of the river bow to where the river wants to But we, so aware of being here, fear the slightest change. My elbow is sore. Your heart is slowing down. And just yesterday, an old friend flew away like a bird with a broken wing. Still, for all I have learned, for all I am learning, I don’t want to... Read more
I dreamt that you gave me a gem hidden in your heart. When I woke, I felt your love move through me the way sun parts a cloud. I have looked for the gem in the folds of the world, and thought I saw it in the young woman helping the old man off the bus, and in the jogger rushing to lift the girl who fell off her bike. I’m certain I felt it in the morning... Read more
Like a meteor hurtling toward the Earth, each of us hurtles through the years being worn of all that doesn’t matter. Like a meteor that shines brighter the more it casts off, each soul shines brighter as the body that carries it is slowly cast off over a lifetime. This is the same process our deepest feelings and understandings are subject to as we try to express them. Each truth shines brighter as the story that carries it is cast... Read more
There is a small corridor of aliveness, unadorned and painfully bare, that weaves life and death. Sometimes, it appears like a halo of consciousness between our heart and what we lose. Sometimes, it shimmers, drawing us through the rain toward all that we love that is still here. There is no choosing between the shimmer and the weight, only to take each other by the hand and enter. The aliveness is there between the appearance of light and the absorbing... Read more
In the bathroom mirror, I saw the snow begin. When I turned, the birds were hovering near the feeder and the world started to soften. I quickly understood why the legendary printmakers tried to capture snow. There’s something about the sudden covering of the earth that makes truth obvious. When I can see through all the mirrors, it starts to snow in my mind. A Question to Walk With: Describe your struggle with the mirrors that follow you and the... Read more
I bowed my head in the sun so it might warm you in the dark. I dipped my heart in your wound so it might soak up your pain. I plunged my hands in the water so it might dissolve our confusion. I inhaled the wisdom of the ages, so its kiss, through me, might lighten what you carry. A Question to Walk With: Describe your experience of feeling another’s pain and how you tried to lighten... Read more
A quiet light was lifting the leaves near the edge of our yard. It reminded us of that moment after your mother died. It was early and she had just passed when the sun slipped through the blinds across her face and all the urgency left the room. It made her glow like an angel with a corona on a Renaissance wall. Her whole life had landed like the cinder of a meteor that was filling us with... Read more
Debris does not stay in one place On a fast-running creek. —Rumi I hold on to my wounds because I think caution will save me when, like a stone tied to a pigeon’s foot, the weight of all that didn’t work will only keep me from building my nest. Yet, I cannot pretend I was not cut or left for dead. I must understand why I let those I loved hurt me. What treasure did I think they... Read more
When the thief died, he came back as a blind dragon and after a life of fire and chaos, the dragon came back as a peony too heavy in its beauty to keep its head up. And having withered, the peony came back as a broken shell washed ashore. Now, after years of being tucked in the sand, the shell comes back as a young woman who struggles her whole life with who to listen to: the thief and the... Read more
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