Wednesday Night Poetry

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be
your womb tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in.

Give up on all other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness
and the sweet confinement of
your aloneness to learn,

anything or anyone

that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.


By, David Whyte
from: House of Belonging

Resistance

To resist is to suffer. Mentally, emotionally or physically. To resist whatever is going on right here, right now, is to guarantee discomfort. Whatever we resist will persist. The traffic, the waiting, the unconscious habits of other people. The illness, the debt, the thorn in the side. We make ourselves sad, angry, afraid, annoyed, impatient or downright miserable when we insist that what is happening in this very moment is not what we had in mind. Is not on our agenda. Is not what our egos would have invited to join our personal parade. We resist not being in total control of our over-inflated lives. As if we knew in every moment what was best for us.

Shit happens. Drama happens. Death happens. Suffering is optional in all of it. Resistance is a choice, however seemingly unconscious it appears to be. Resistance is a lack of trust in the Universe, in God Itself, that what is happening in this moment will spoil our good, deny our rights and keep our happiness at bay. None of this is possible. None of this is true. In every moment of our lives our good, our rights and our happiness are being served. Our all-important inner growth is given constant opportunity for evolution.

We cause problems for ourselves when we resist our opportunities. When we judge instead pardon. Blame instead of forgive. Stagnate instead of flow. Our purpose for incarnating on this plane of existence is to learn love, compassion, mercy and peace. Our moment to moment happenings are designed by a Wiser Mind than ours to ensure we have ample opportunity to attain that lofty goal.

The key to end suffering and attain that goal is acceptance. It is the sweet opposite of resistance. Acceptance knows the shockingly long grocery line will not altar our highest good or truly delay our plans. Acceptance knows the illness ravaging our body is possibly the only way to bring us to our knees and surrender the lifestyle that could otherwise kill us. Acceptance of everything that happens, moment to moment, is complete trust in God that we are foremost in Its mind and heart. That we are loved and cared for and never alone. To resist nothing and accept what is, grants us love, compassion, mercy and the keys to the Peaceable Kingdom.

Creative Explosion

October finally arrived in Buffalo. At the end of November. The Old-Guys-Harley-Gang fired up their bikes across the street and rumbled off to soak up the sunshine and warm breezes. I stayed closer to home and fired up my creativity. In a flurry not seen since God-knows-when, I whipped up all my outdoor holiday decor from limbs of storm-damaged trees. I cut and pasted and painted 2 collages. And I obeyed the biggest urge of all, to go trekking through the trees with my digital camera.

The creative explosion felt so damn good, I almost need a cigarette now that it's done. I'm glistening, satisfied and ready for more. At the end of November, it feels more like springtime in my soul. It feels like I've passed through another doorway. It feels like the energy of love has parked the bulldozer it drove through my life for the last 2 months and is shining up the gondola. I begin accepting applications for a handsome Gondolier first thing in the morning.

The Long Conversation

We've been conversing, you and me, for some time and no time. It feels like years, it has been years, yet our conversations are always timeless. Limitless. Effortless. There is always so much to say, so much to share. Your whispers are like waves caressing the shores of my being. Your energy presses against me in the silence.

Clear twilight with a Cheshire-cat moon and spoonfuls of stars bring us closer. We walk together among trees and sit peacefully by waterfalls, catching droplets that swim through the air. We read the ripe, romantic words of Pablo Neruda. We linger over Earl Grey and its bergamot perfume. We take refuge in shades of blue. Cerulean for me, sapphire for you. We wake in the sweet stillness of the night, having dreamt of each other.

Always,always, there is the conversation, the murmuring of love sonnets, the calling attention to beauty. Always there is the reassurance that one moment in time, one moment in no time, our eyes and souls will meet. At that moment, the flames of our twin hearts will melt away the years and the long conversation will begin again.

Angels of Mercy

Close your eyes and picture an angel. Flowing robe? Large wings? Halo? Harp? Yes? And no. For your information, angels come in all disguises and manner of dress. Most have wings we cannot see. Many walk the earth. I don't doubt you've met them, but you may not be aware you have. I regularly look for angels. Two nights ago, two of them followed me home.

Knowing my life would change for the better, I willingly let them in. The angels immediately filled my home with kindness. We sat at my kitchen table and had strawberries and tea. I also offered them chocolate, knowing full well that anyone of a heavenly nature would never refuse that divine confection.

As I would have expected, the angels were gracious and filled with loving energy. They sat on either side of me and encouraged me to share my story. My story of things and events I have held back, crushed down and generally do not speak of. They held a safe space in which to purge and cleanse my soul. They listened carefully and withheld judgement. They were kind and caring and merciful. They reminded me I have all knowledge within me. I have all truth within me. I have all the love within me I will ever need.

Just before the angels departed for their next mission of mercy, one groovy, orange-and-yellow drinking glass dropped to the floor and shattered into shards of stars. The bookend to the groovy glass that shattered 2 months earlier. It was a wonderful sign and a welcome parting gift. Things of my past that have held me down are surely falling away. My heart and my mind are becoming more connected and clear.

I opened my door, and with soul-deep gratitude, I watched as the angels drifted into the night. What a blessing they were. What precipitators of forward movement. What bastions of love.

Just so I would know they were real and not figments, I walked back into my home to find downey white feathers marking the spot where each shard of glass, moments before, had foretold my progress, my truth, my knowledge and my love.

Gratitude

To truly move past an issue, event, disruption or heartache, we must become grateful for its presence. We must become grateful for its lessons. Its opportunities. Its exact, right timing in invoking needful inner growth. No matter what the circumstance, we must be grateful it happened. And we must be sincere in our gratitude, or the pain, the anxiety and the victim-mentality will seep into our marrow and discolor the way we interact with the vast beauty of the world.

Gratitude is the golden key that unlocks the prison of the heart and the mind. Gratitude brings us out of denial and into acceptance. It lifts us out of chaos and into order. It removes us from confusion and brings forth clarity. It allows us to see that all we have, right here, right now, is all we truly need. It allows us to see that our lives are enough. That our lives are valuable. That our lives have meaning. No matter what illness we have, no matter what money we have or don't have, no matter who is or isn't in our lives.

Gratitude is also the golden key to moving us into more loving, prosperous circumstances. By helping us to let go of staleness, it ushers in freshness in the form of new people and new opportunities. It allows the previously unimagined to present itself. It allows greater life into life.

Gratitude is the last sentence that allows the painful chapter to be done. If gratitude was the prayer we uttered before beginning anything, our lessons and inner growth would be less painful. Our clarity would not waver. Our value would not be in question. An attitude of gratitude makes sense of our past, invokes peace in our present and paves a love-filled road to our future.

{Thank you, God, for the slow, hard-drive-crashing death of my present computer. No, I cannot add digital photos to my blog posts at present, and I've lost many stored things, but this event has allowed me to think more highly of myself and enter the 21st century. I have ordered a custom built computer, with a sexy, sleek black and silver flat screen. And a boatload of gigabytes to let me post pictures to my heart's content.}

Commitment

Any minute now, the planet Mercury will move out of retrograde. Forward movement will resume. Communication, in all its forms, will cease to be garbled, stunted and misinterpreted. Contracts can be safely signed. Commitments can be made. Unexpected delays will dissolve. Panties can be unbunched.

Early this morning, in anticipation of the blessed Mercurial event, I hung up my pity-party hat, undug my heels from the mud of resistance and allowed the missing mojo to seep back into my brain. Anxiety and turmoil are no longer the words of the day. The new word is commitment. Commitment to my new job and the flower-strewn path it will lead me down. Commitment to my ever-evolving spiritual journey and the inspiring people I'm beginning to bond with. Commitment to invoking romance and beauty whether or not I wake up alone.

To be committed to something~ a person, place or thing~ requires restriction and loss on some level. It requires giving up something that was previously deemed valuable. But without commitment, the fullness of life can never truly be tasted. The depths of a person, place or thing can never be experienced, savored and realized. Without commitment, one remains at the surface. Safe. Clean. Unscathed. And empty. Without commitment, talent remains shrouded. Health deteriorates. Love is squandered.

Commitment, when surrendered to, reveals newer, more meaningful values. Restriction and loss lead to previously unimagined freedom. Every commitment to a person, place or thing is, at its core, a commitment to the self. The self that is connected to God. The self that honors God. The self that is God.

The Quest For Balance

The other day, I saw a snippet of an interview with Tiger Woods. He was asked, after winning 8 PGA tournaments this year, what was the best aspect of his life? Without hesitation Tiger answered, "The balance I have between my personal life and my professional life. I work hard every day to keep that balance". Before he uttered those profound and timely words, I was not-so-secretly in love with My Tiger. Now, I'm simply done-for regarding that man. Handsome, hardworking, committed and now, way-shower. But, since I wouldn't want to disrupt his balance and his wife is annoyingly gorgeous, I'll keep my fantasy life in check and instead, follow his example as best I can.

My quest is for balance. In all areas of my life. This takes monumental, sustained effort. This takes patience. I have come to realize lately, I need to take it a step beyond Tiger's example. I need a balance between my personal, professional and spiritual life. I need a Trinity.

Coincidentally, my Trinity is in turmoil. As my new spiritual friend, Lowell, wisely advised me, the bowl of my life has been shaken and stirred by the energy of love. Nothing is where it previously was. Balance is currently impossible. But love is working its magic beneath the anxiety and turmoil. The contents of my personal Trinity are settling. Some things are falling away. Some things will be newly revealed. Balance will come. And so will the blooming.

Lowell reminded me I'm on the exact right path and soon I will see, feel, taste, touch and know the upheavel was purposeful. Love is like a bulldozer at times. A merciful pruner of dead weight. An Undertaker.

The key to my quest for balance lies in my willingness to receive love, not just give it. As I muster up the courage and daring to receive love, I will attract into my life the people and circumstances that will sweetly and serenely balance my Trinity. I will then stand in the center and know my life is Holy.

{As part of the realignment and balancing of my professional life, my floral design skills are being called to the forefront again. Pictured above is an autumn centerpiece I recently created for a public event.}

The Gift of Patience

It is here, on the edge of the dark moon phase of my astrological chart, the eve of my personal new year, I stand with arms held out and palms facing up. Energy has been confused and chaotic. Clarity has been elusive. But now, in my open left hand, rests a copy of the English Patient. A recent, lucky find. Its words and phrases have gently woken the sleeping, poetic rivers of my blood. Inlets have begun flowing in my veins and pooling around the flood gates of my heart. The ebb has waned. The flow is arriving. Gifts are washing up at my feet.

The most welcome gift to suddenly arrive is the gift of patience. It is a many-layered gift. With it comes sanity. Inner peace. Warm solitude. Love. It is the gift I've prayed for and longed for and struggled for. Like the blanket of a lover's body, patience has calmed me and comforted me and fortified me to carry on. It has grounded me and given the inlets terrain to begin their flow. It is the foundation on which my love and my life can build.

Patience allows foibles. It allows fears to come up and move on. It allows each inner season to manifest fully in its own God-directed time. It allows sweet memories of tomatoes and passion to be enough until the time is ripe for more.

Patience cannot be forced. It must be surrendered to. It comes when the struggle is too much to bear and shoulders finally relax. It comes when instincts are acknowledged and heeded. When trust of the self is given. When control is released and Life is placed back in the hands of the Creator Of All Things.

Here on the edge and the eve of my new year, I am gifted with contentment, warmth and patience. With a passionate book and a bowl of grape tomatoes.