Oh, how we need community!

I bring my dying grandmother a muffin on Mother's Day. 

Oh, what a silly thing to do! 

I give her a bracelet and her mother's painting of wildflowers, too. 

Some of us flutter around sorrow like a hummingbird tapping and touching and taking, while others root down like Catalpa trees, swaying in the breeze of emotional energy. Some of us chat about job and house and stuff, while others gently dig into the gardens of their loved ones, pulling weeds, pressing seeds, and watering brittle soil. Some of us sob. Others belly laugh. Some of us drink. Others eat. Some of us run. Some of us hide. Some of us fight. Some of us freeze. Some of us stand silent and still, waiting for sun and rain and sleep. Some of us gather. Some of us are gathered. All of us grow. Some of us feel torn and frayed and afraid, while others carry thread and needles and yards of cotton cloth for mending and making patches, bandages, blankets, and jackets. Some of us hunger, while others forage and feed and feast. Some of us are joyful and fulfilled and free, while others toil with regret, ruts, and uncertainty.

Oh, how we need community! 

Grandma knew this. She fed us. She gathered us. She stitched hats, blankets, and sweaters for us. She planted flowers, lettuce, and tomatoes. She tended and foraged and feasted. She rested. We remember her floating behind boats in a dark blue bathing suit. We remember her with books, photographs, and music. We remember her clam chowder and letters. We remember her prayers. Eventually, in her eighties, her hands hurt from all her stitching, knitting, writing, gardening, and gathering. And so, she was gathered. She was fed. She rested. Perhaps this is why I brought her food and flowers. 

Family is a patchwork quilt. It is a three-sisters garden. It is an ecosystem. It is healthy when it is diverse - diverse in experience, diverse in opinions, diverse in ages, diverse in need, and diverse in abundance. Community is holy. It connects us like a dewy web, like forest roots, like a hive. It connects us with light and shadow. It connects us with stories. It connects us with love. 

One Wednesday in June, we stand together in her church. We kneel in the pews. We sit side-by-side and sing her beloved songs. Later, we stand beneath a yellow-and-white-striped canopy while a colony of honey bees swirls above us, dancing and communing before leaving together in a spirited sweep.  

Now Grandma can be a colony of bees. She can be the spider or the fern or the tree. She can be the smell of fresh bread or the salt sea breeze. She can be lines of light. She can be a song. She can be a story. She can be butterflies, ladybugs, and blue jays. She can be memory and emotion and energy. She can be a golden thread in the hem of everything.  

The Wild Mother

She misses me - 

misses my toes on her moss 

misses my legs in her salt sea 

misses my bottom on her stone

misses my belly in her breeze 

misses my heart on her mountaintop   

misses my face in her ferns and flowers.

She misses me, the Wild Mother,

misses my wild being. 

She isn't broken or bleeding.

She isn't angry or threatening.

She simply wants my quiet company.

Gaia

I am the witch at the edge of the woods

I am the woods 

I am the owl in her hand

I am the roots of her bones 

I am the seed of her egg 

I am the sun of her womb 

I am the wolf at her feet 

I am the rose quartz in her eyes

I am the feathers on her fingers 

I am the infinite slips of snake skin 

I am the elephant wrinkles 

I am the hive 

I am the nest

I am the prophecy

I am the song of the whale 

I am the quills of her spine 

I am the trill of the sparrow 

I am the air in her mouth 

I am the fire in her heart

I am the river carving stone 

I am the pine

I am the herd

I am the flock 

I am the tribe 

I am the child 

I am the witch at the edge of the woods

She is the witch at the edge of the woods

She is the woods 

She is the owl in our hand

She is the roots of our bones 

She is the seed of our egg 

She is the sun of our womb 

She is the wolf at our feet 

She is the rose quartz in our eyes

She is the feathers on our fingers 

She is the infinite slips of snake skin 

She is the elephant wrinkles 

She is the hive 

She is the nest

She is the prophecy

She is the song of the whale 

She is the quills of our spine 

She is the trill of the sparrow 

She is the air in our mouth 

She is the fire in our heart

She is the river carving stone 

She is the pine

She is the herd

She is the flock 

She is the tribe 

She is the child 

She is the witch at the edge of the woods

What if I let it all in?

In the cafe, I am the junkie, drinking bowls of bean caffeine. 

I am addicted to happiness. It is my safe place. I am afraid of sadness. I am afraid of melancholia, boredom, and sorrow. I fear the heavy. 

I must be light. I must. 

And so I drink a cup of coffee. And then, I drink another. I try to hold to my allotted 12 ounces, but before I know it, I am at the pot once more, pouring. 

In the bar, a room I rarely reside, I sip wet glasses of golden wheat. The dizz, the buzz, the bubbly. I want the night to be light. It must be light. It must. Even if the floor feels like a slight hill. Even if the walls appear blurry. I want the night to be light. I want to feel happy. And so I sit and sip.

It is a fear of feeling deeply: - feeling the fullness, feeling the uncomfortableness, feeling the emptiness, and, yes, feeling the abundance. To be in the seemingly boring, silent stillness. To hide in the cupboard, in the car, at the counter. And in the moments of ecstasy, of feeling too light, and trying to tether my energy to something heavy in my belly. 

What if I let it all in? 

What if I throw open the door between my body and soul? 

What if I sat in the bowl of the moment? 

The worry is that I'll drown, or that I'll float away. The worry is that I won't be quick enough, interesting enough, fun enough. I will be a boring, sober human being. I will be an odd one. I will not be whole. I will not be happy. I will be tired, hungry, and grumpy.   

And yet, what of my liver? And yet, what of my sleep? What of my cells? What of my blood, bones, gut, and brain? What of my glands and my skin? 

I hope this body thrives now...

... and for a long, long time. 

And what of my soul? 

It is calling me to sing the pure, true song.

I want to quit.

Quit caffeine. 

Quit alcohol. 

Quit eating animals. 

I want to quit all unconscious consumption.

And it's not to prove anything to anyone else, but to choose and welcome the home of my wholeness in its full, unfiltered essence. To stimulate it not with cups of drink, but with acceptance and experience. 

And yes, it feels like a lot of no. So let's turn it over and look at the cover. 

Yes, drinking clean water.

Yes, eating nourishing foods. 

Yes to presence. 

Yes to being and body.

Yes to standing in my authentic center, acknowledging my truth. I want to flee the feelings within me. I don't want to notice or name them. I don't want to feel them. I want to skip right to freeing them and feeling free of them. And so with my coffee, I dance away my anxiety, and I run to release my rage, and I walk in the woods to boot away worry.

And so here is to allowing it all, to letting it all live. I will notice and then express. I will walk, run, and dance. I will remember my brilliant resilience. And I will remember my deep reverence for the divinity within me. 

A Vibrant Stitch

It is a vibrant stitch - a hem between the heavens and me. 

Sometimes the cloth here is as crude as burlap. The needle pierces the skin, and the thread snags and tangles. And the more I whine and weep about it, the deeper into the misery I drop, and the further I am from the other side. 

The other side is one of surrender, light, and mystery. Always, the fabric from the blessed source of all LOVE is warm, inviting, and vibrating. The needle soars and swims and slips with ease and reverence and joy. It is a tapestry woven with lines of rainbow light. This place is spacious. It is thin, as forgiving as linen, as fine as cotton, as sheer as song and color and fog. The more I lift my attention to the Infinite and invisible, the ethereal!, the longer and wiser and more luminous my threadline, the hem within me, the hem between me and the heavenly!

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... Soon, I am focusing on the breath rather than observing the breath, and before I can slow it down, it becomes like a runaway, run-on 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. Empty me and fill me with light. Empty me and fill me with light. Empty me and fill me with light. Empty me and fill me with light...

Eventually, within me, I hear, 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 the warm words, I am the light.  I am the light. I am the light. I smile. Yes, the light is within me. The light is me. I have everything I need. I am everything I need. I am the light.

Offering of Song

I have been guided to the dark, to the early morning. Perhaps it is the cycle of the seasons, the turning and returning to the cold—the winter homecoming. Winter is a time of soft hiding, a time of being alone, and a time of gathering light and singing to the slim slips of sun every day. It is a time of candlelight, bread, soup, and stove. It is a time of evolution. A cocoon from the cold.  A wide, warm womb.  

Come! This dog begs me every morning. Let's go and smell and move and breathe and be! He wakes me with a language of licking. He is as black as the land and trees in the pre-dawn woods - a shadow with shining eyes. A void. A dream. Before the squirrels squirm and the birds sing, we walk. It is quiet. My breath, my boots, his pant, 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, soulful hum. 

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 it becomes something I can hold. The act of recording anything tends to imprint it (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
• 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.