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
We can’t imagine how they did it. Like Francis of Assisi, giving everything away and loving everything. But as the lyrics of a song are lost in its echo, his vow of poverty has been sorely misunderstood. Radically, it was a vow of emptying, of putting aside all that is false and unnecessary. So there is nothing in the way. A Question to Walk With: Describe a pull in you to fill up your life and... Read more
We start out so innocent and then we get hurt. It doesn’t matter how. What makes things worse is that we try to get out of here, to run, to even disappear. Of course, none of that works. Any more than a bird can escape the sky. We might even spend a decade or two hiding in a cloud. But the light will find us and disperse the cloud around our head, around our heart. ... Read more
We run everywhere when it’s only the moments we are stopped that matter. No matter how we are stopped, by pain or beauty, by remembering in the midst of crossing a street in New York who you are and all you’ve done for those you love. No matter if it’s hard to get up. Just stay down a while longer, so you can see all the way through. It’s in the stopped moments that the music hiding... Read more
The days can blur in their cascade of tasks till a pin of light or a grip of pain punctures the relentless noise. Then, the glow under the veil comes through and I remember that I am alive. And in the tremble of tenderness that makes me open like a rose, words like these gratefully fail. All I can do is stop you from whatever you are cleaning or fixing to tell you that life is worth all the heartache.... Read more
Tell me a story, any story. Tell me what happened or what didn’t happen or what you hope will happen. I need signs of life to lift my head. I need some pearl of wind to open my wing. So sing me a song. For yourself, but let me listen. I don’t care if you’re trained or shy or can’t hum a tune. Just sing anything. It will stir my heart. We can do this for each other, can’t we?... Read more
As the winter sun makes every twig shine, I’m leafing through a book of poems gathered from the ages by the poet who recently died. He kept all these voices alive, feeding them ancient fish in a timeless pool. Now, he swims among them. Like any true guide, you leave no trace, the way the sun leaves no trace on the flower about to open. How can I thank you, other than by blooming. A Question to Walk With: Describe... Read more
It was a brief, reflexive moment of nature, gone unnoticed near the beginning, a synapse of respect for other life. A small human hunting on the side of a mountain tripped and fell in a ditch as the herd of rams he was hunting came barreling toward him. But rather than crush him, the rams leapt over the fallen man. On his back in the ditch, he watched their white bellies glide over him. He heard the clomp of their... Read more
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