Garden Meditation, August 8, 2009

[For John, and All of Creation. May the Microcosm and the Macrocosm Be One.]

Unfold me
Like a delicate flower,
Opening to sunshine
And moonshine,
Shadow
and Rain.

Let me
Feel grounded
In our love,
And trust
No harm
will Be done.

Awaken the breeze
And the rustle of leaves,
Delicate chimes
And hummingbird song.
Journey with me
to the Center of the earth.

Patience
As we walk the path
And turn the corner,
And maybe Sink,
Let go,
and Fall together.

Oh Best Beloved,
I pray
To be worthy of your grace,
And offer my own softness,
Privileged to witness
the Unfoldment of your light.

Together we glow
With all the forces of nature,
Colliding,
Radiating,
Coming together,
Altering perception
and Altering reality.

With gratitude,
May I express these gifts of love
with Amplified love.


Aho, Mataquiesen.
(I Celebrate, and for All My Connections.)

The Chicken and the Buffalo (excerpt)

She stood still, mildly horrified, as the bird - a chicken with a long graceful neck like an egret - came near her, a slight malice in its eye. She stood still, and she was small, a child. The bird came right up to her, at a fast wobble, awkward the way chickens are, and she put out her hand to shield her face. The thing pecked at her hand, leaving a mildly deep and bloody wound. She looked at her hand and felt fear, and then felt really, really angry.

She grabbed its neck, and at first just squeezed, but then she twisted at its scrawny muscles, until she felt a definitive snapping, and she let it on the ground, blood spilling neatly from the break, the body lifeless. She was a curious mix of elation and shame, and she ran from the spot, around a corner and down a sandy hill, a sand dune with no living thing on it but her.

She fell to the bottom and she covered herself to hide because there was a buffalo at the top of the hill, and she felt it looking for her and she was afraid. She was afraid, and she certainly couldn't strangle a buffalo like she could strangle a chicken. So she covered herself with sand, burrowing under, scooping the sand from above her over her body, and she lay still.

The buffalo moved on and two little girls, sisters, came down the hill looking for her. She remained hidden, because she wasn't sure where the buffalo was or why they wanted her. One of the girls saw just a bit of Child of the Desert, and was just a little frightened at first because she wasn't sure what was under the sand. So she raised her right hand up out of the sand and waved at the girl, like a secret handshake, and the girl laughed and they all got up and went back to the village.

Faced with an elder, she tried to explain what happened. He looked at her with kind eyes, wrinkles crinkling in his face, the sun behind him. He looked at her with compassion, and said nothing, only listened to her story.

Walking in a Good Way (excerpt)

After the first sweat lodge, Child of the Desert went to Grandfather in tears.

"Grandfather, was I ... was I paying attention? I felt the same in sweat lodge, in ceremony, as I did before. Was I not paying attention, or ... am I walking in ceremony all the time?"

He looked up at her and smiled, his brown eyes soft, his voice low. "You did impeccable work on your medicine journey." He emphasized each word, and each word rang in the her head.

"I'm very proud of you."

She cried all the more.

"Then I've been walking in ceremony this whole time?" she asked, her eyes wide and voice trembling.

"I can't imagine now not being in ceremony."

He nodded.

Rain Magnet (notes)

She lay on her back looking at the sky, relaxed and concentrating, melting into the earth and feeling everything everything in it. Overhead the clouds came from every direction, slowly at first, collecting in great puffy masses, condensing as their numbers increased, whirling together in mottled expectation. They sky faded to gray, and darkened further as the atmosphere blotted out the sun. Beginning with a few blessed drops, the rain struck the dust of the desert, created ripples on the surface of the parched earth. Finally the rain came down in torrents, soaking her hair and her face and her clothes.

But it wasn't imperious, this coming together, this gathering. It wasn't controlling. It was simply what was; it was natural. And so tiring, to be a magnet for the rain! But invigorating. And not hiding, but not broadcasting either, because people are afraid of what they don't understand, and that wasn't the point, to make them afraid. Or to be revered for some strange power, because it wasn't strange: it was only what was.

It wasn't like gathering the clouds in her arms: How could anyone gather clouds that didn't want to be together? But it was rather like creating a space in herself, letting herself open to attract the clouds with the intensity, like a magnet. Trusting.

Hall of Records (poetry)

My hall of records
is a library of compositions
in leather-bound volumes.
An old man curates the collection,
recording the cyclical scenes of connections
that fill my mind.

Unreality dusts the pages.

Compassion for my sanity
dictates the preservation of
observations clouded in ego -
but if I were true to my intentions,
I would burn the books
and emerge from the ashes of time as nothing.

As it stands,
the best I can do is furiously re-write
the vast identity with an alien hand,
and try to dust the fresh ink
with what is real.

Laundry (poetry)

Air the damp folds of my heart.

Musty secrets lie in mildewed
passageways -
Let winds race through every sinew.

Hang.

Stretch.

Begin again,

Fresh.

Ode to the Peace Eagle (poetry)

Smiling at the stench of carrion
Great vultures tear great dead life
Sustain heavy beaked frames
Reaping life from non-life
putrid flesh thrown aside.

Purify what is rotten excess
Digest what no longer interacts with the world
Clear the ground for winter's turn.
The near-dead grasp at everything, feel nothing, wall themselves away.
Preparing for flight - the dead weight must be left behind.

I can smile at the stench of carrion
for I know it will be devoured by
ravenous buzzards who prey on my dead weight
and leave me free to fly.