rejoice

magnolia

"If the sight of blue skies fills you with joy,

if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you,

if the simple things in nature have a message you understand,

Rejoice, for your soul is alive."

Eleanora Duse

I am alive.

coming down

trout lily

i am waiting, still, for the spark to return. i am used to a project, a cause, a lurch toward something. But all things within and without remain quiet.

there are so many layers to this coming down and coming down from pointed focus and casualty.

i carry on.

i am seen.

but i am not the same and i have yet to discover all the ways in which that is true.

i do find i am able to see my habits and defenses more clearly in all this quiet. my tactics for self-preservation make me laugh and wince.

in this ongoing beginning disguised as an end, i am coming to know myself better. in that knowing, more choices present themselves. even if i feel smaller than ever before, a promise of great renewal has infused itself in the layers of coming down.

in the soft light of spring, the only important question is how well do i mother myself.

the sensitive soul

brooklyn botanical gardens

sakura

an ode to the sensitive soul~ stop watching the news. especially during disastrous times. the over-played images of fear and loss will coat you like a thin slime. this slime, invisible, will draw unwanted people into your wakefulness rendering you unable to sleep. it will set the stage for small difficulties repeating themselves endlessly or so it will seem. you will unwittingly focus on what is wrong and have difficulty seeing what is right.

turn away from the agitation and despair.

seek, instead, the bounty of the season. roll in its succulence. lift ear and eye to the sky.

nature is the cleanse and the cure for the troubles of sensitive souls.

Fluent

Unexpectedly, in the month of April, the trees froze. There was no sunlight to glint off the water-encased branches, but still, under stone grey skies, the affect of rows and clusters and miles of glass trees was one of an uneasy wonderland.

Then, the wind came, less than softly, and a new language was born. The trees, at the mercy of everything, spoke to each other through the rustle and clink of their frozen fingers. It was a sound I had never heard before, a sound that could vaguely be described as plastic bags being crinkled.

I wondered if the trees were using the portal of unexpected climatic convergence to tell secrets in earnest to each other. To rise quickly to the occasion of muteness reprieved to comfort each other, to whisper hello, to wave, to warn, to say to their neighbors 2 streets away, "I stand with you."

I have noticed in unexpected circumstances, new languages beg to rise and become known.

I have noticed and I have lived, am living, the subtle nuances of openness coupled with boundaries. The particular dialect of letting go and letting go again. The foundation and certainty of a Universal energy, ancient and ever new, that vibrates to the heartbeat of a mouse, the silent, circulating rivers of my blood, and speaks of truth and only truth.

It is all the language and layers of love.

It will take more than one lifetime to become fluent.

a gift of feathers

He was alive the first time we met, early this morning. He was sitting, stunned, on the side of the road. I swung my car around to have a closer look.

He did not resist being lifted.
I was momentarily hopeful.
There was no blood, no crushed wing.

But when I put him safely at the base of a tree in a vacant yard, he was already tipping towards another world. I stroked his silky grey feathers and told him he was beautiful and loved. I asked for him to be taken care of.

9 hours later, I went to find out if he was still by the tree. He was. And his eyes were now vacant. I picked him up again and we drove home to the dignity of final rest in the ivy patch.

On the ride home, because I believe such things, I asked that his red-breasted soul be sent as a gift to my mother from me. She always loved the season of spring.