I am the light.

Sunbeams slant through open sky, slip and seep through fluttering golden leaves, and peek through panes of old glass before settling upon the wide, pine-planked floorboards where I sit in meditation. 

In my soft box of light, I narrate my breathing, In...Out...In...Out... I silently say. Soon I am focusing on the breath rather than observing the breath, and before I can slow it down, it becomes like a runaway sentence, going and going until I am gasping, leaping, tumbling, and landing onto the grassy meadow of my consciousness. 

I let go. I become still. I breathe. Then I pray, Empty me and fill me with light. For several minutes, I pray this plea. Empty me and fill me with light.

Then I hear, within me, 

I am the light. 

As these words pour through me, a sunbeam, sudden and bold, bursts through space to shine upon my face. The sunbeam stays with me for a little while, whispering, 

I am the light. 

The light is within me. I am the light. The light is me. I have everything I need. I am everything I need. 

an offering of song

I've been guided to the dark. I've been guided to the early morning. Perhaps it is the cycle of the seasons, the turning globe returning again to the cold—the winter homecoming. It is a time of resilience and grit. It is a time of soft hiding. It is a time of being alone. It is the time of gathering light, feeling gratitude for the light, and singing to the sun in the slim slips of day. A time of candlelight, bread, soup, and fire in the stove. It is a time of deep evolution. A cocoon from the cold.  A wide, warm womb.  

Come! This dog begs me every morning. Let's go and smell, move, breathe, and be! He wakes me with a language of licking my skin. He is as black as the rocks and trees in the pre-dawn woods. A shadow with shining eyes. A void. A dream. Before the birds and squirrels wake, we walk. It is quiet. My breath, my boots, his paws, and the early morning traffic from the highway down the hill are all I hear. The animals sleep while the earth radiates her essence like a delicate, invisible glow, a song I can't quite hear but know is there. A joyful hum of soul. 

Sometimes songs come to me there, arriving in my belly and rising up and out of me.  Simple songs. Looping ones. There is a song about slowing down and one about the ocean. There is another about my sovereignty. I record them on my phone.  Place them there. Just as I might photograph something so I won't forget it. The act of recording anything tends to imprint an idea, image, or tune deep within me. I suppose these songs are to share. Share with you. Share with myself many years from now.

I place them here as an offering. 

I went out ...

freedom

I went looking in the ocean ...

slow down

Black Madonna

I can stand on my own ...

Go look into the dark; you may find yourself there. 

And if you go there often and for long enough, you may also find a song.