Anchoring

I get swept up in my own life like dust in a pail- and when I sit in the future this way all my spirits are silent.

They are patient and silent as statues, waiting for my mind to come back, waiting for me to let go, snuffed out like a candle by my need to plan, to predict, to perform.

I come back to the daily choices. Recalling the things that reconnect me to spirit:

Licking my soil covered fingertips

Letting my body flow through familiar movements

Watching birds gather in their favorite dead tree.

Some things are constant: here I can anchor without having the think:

The cat leaves every morning and comes home every night.

Some plants will poison me. Some will gift me sweet medicine.

The clouds will contract and then spread wide again as they swim overhead.

The squirrels steal bites out of the garden squash every fall.

There will always be something new to learn- there will always be old knowledge to come back to.

So I re remember. My mind flies away. And I anchor it back to my body, to the earth. Over and over again.

I am a conduit

I let the wildflowers paint my eyes,

And anoint my face with moss and river water.

I know there are things happening around me, inside me, always,

Whether invisible or seen.

The universe has given us a sing a along to do together,

And I spread my fingers apart to hold loose my humility,

Letting it go as I open my palms in a stream of water,

And the water reads each wrinkle and line of my fingertips.

The river, the rocks, the otter, the strings of algae all know that I am here, that I am finally claiming my place.

My service is to be a conduit. A live wire.

A string of energy that runs from the deepest chasm to the highest star.

So that the earth may speak to itself through me.

So that the earth may speak to the sky.

Have you ever felt divine fingers pulling your skin apart to feel what is inside?

Have you ever felt the stroke of resonating strings covering against your spine like the piercing note of a violin?

I have felt the sand and stone orgasm when the rainfall splash against it in autumn.

I have heard it moan as it soaks up each drop of wetness.

I am a herd animal

The restless herd animal inside me is always seeking the next pasture. The next mountain range. The next spring.

I tell my hurried brain to soften: there is nothing but now. Nothing but rocks and worms and clouds and sun.

But my nerves buzz incessantly: what else- what else- what else. The answers come only in the form of soil shifting, of gravel and pebbles, of worms and rot.

November clouds. February sun. The seasons keep cycling no matter what.

Calm feels like a crime, but the busy days devastate me.

I want the wide sky stretching out ahead. I yearn for water, for rolling hills, for tree lines opening into unexpected meadows.

What could I be, if I spent my days doing nothing but living? I would watch the trees. Dig my fingers into dirt. Cook my food. Clean my pan. See the wind moving. Feel the temperature shift over the day.

There is nothing more I want. There is nothing more I need. But my mind always turns to something else. The next thing. Tomorrow.

So again I pull myself back. To the rocks. To the worms. To the clouds. To the procession of bees in summer and the dark birds in winter.

Alone

Alone sitting in the cafe- high on a steep trail- swept along in a crowd.

It’s like everyone else has become just a little more. Distant. Than they were before.

The world has gone quiet. The edges have softened.

I am lonely. But I am peaceful.

I watch people move around me like I’m seeing a movie from the back row. Not sure if I even still belong here. But knowing there is no where else to go.

There are the signs of it everywhere: they all point to how I did it: how I broke the cycle of my old lives.

And I have emerged enlightened. But lost.

My soul walks unfamiliar ground.

I’m teaching myself again how to be human. How to find my place here again.

I’m teaching myself how to bow low, how to stand tall, how to be humble, how to be proud, how to reach out, how to clasp close, how to love another.

Relearning it all again.

But I feel no distress at my ignorance. I have no doubts.

Each piece of my time here unfolds into the next in a way that takes no work but a deep discipline.

And the lessons come flowing into me like big gulps of water.

Diligence

I am tired of everything the universe asks of me

I am tired of patience, or diligence, of seeing the higher purpose

Of opening my arms to catch the bricks of every falling tower

Only to have them crumble in my hands and return to the earth, covering my toes in dust

I am spread across the ground like this leftover rubble

Dirty with regret

My best years are gone

And my future is hidden behind giant clouds and lightning

Yet the universe asks for more patience. More gratitude. More discipline.

I have nothing left and there is another leap to take. So I must tumble myself into the next phase.

I am told: this is greater than the individual course of your fate. But there is so much I don’t understand.

How do I know what to do next if I have never lived this before?

And over and over the answer comes:

Patience. Diligence. You must wait. You must continue.

The last brick falls. The earth swallows every last crumbling stone.

I stand in a bare field, and the universe asks me for faith. She asks me for trust.

I am as angry as a bare root. I am as hardy as a seedling. I am as grieved as a stump. I am as small as a twig.

But in the emptiness I plant my feet

And root

My New Life

This is how it feels to come back to myself

Finally

A valley away from where I started out

And I have found home within myself

At last

My soul flickered tenuously, life time to life time

Uncomfortable in my body, carrying a deep knowing of what was to come

Living was like walking a terrible tightrope

But when I finally fell

Somehow I landed on my hands and feet

Hips square to the ground, my nose to the dirt

And I found my place in it all

No more circling

No more agonizing

No more waiting to hear the terrible ending

The only way out of this cycle was through

How in this lifetime did I finally learn discipline and surrender?

How did all the lessons line up this way?

The way my feet press down into the ground is different now

The pattern has ended

I can return to myself

It is over

At last

The rebuilding

Now I begin to rebuild

Slowly

Starting from the bones

Starting from the roots

New tendrils spreading out under rocks

Veins curling around organs delicate and white, like lace

The winding spirals of mitochondria

My circulatory system pulsing outward through networks of fungus and soil

Intimately mingling with the moistening tissues

To recharge my life, starting from the deepest places

It will take eternity to heal

It will encompass my entire soul

Now it begins with the smallest budding stems

And a handful of moist earth

Growing upwards, pushing outwards,

Tendril after tendril unfolding, reaching for the sky

Finding Myself Again

Is this the place I can find myself again?

No. This is the place where everything I know has crumbled.

And I prayed for it. I pushed open the heavy door of my own transformation. I sought it out myself, against the pull of fate. And I keep each piece of my evolution clamped tight in my fists.

But there is no end to it. Like when I climb long hills in wet forests, waiting for the tree line to open on a high windy crest-

But the trail just keeps unfolding under me. The path goes on endlessly.

In the bay below me a thousand year old fish laughs. His knowledge is effortless.

Everything here is waiting. Waiting for the shift. Holding its breath before the next change.

Everywhere I go I see Gods. But they stand frozen. They do not speak to me.

Everything I find is another message: the white heron in the marsh, the barred owl on the road, the young buck mottled white.

I see them but there no words, no explanations.

Just a quiet challenge. Just a methodical pull towards something deeper.

Every moment, tile by tile, the walls of my ego are stripped bare.

Take away everything I know to be true. Perhaps if I keep letting go, I will finally find where I am meant to be.

Finding My Vibration

When I find my own vibration it feels like I am sliding into silky water-

It feels like the crunching deep earth crystals beneath my feet.

In my vibration I glow emerald. The color pulses alive in my chest.

My vibration feels like a silty coat of electricity all over my body. It leaves my skin buzzing.

My frequency. My home vibration. My deepest essence.

This is a place I must return to always. Drifting back to these pools of emerald, to the grey rock that grounds my feet down.

The edges of my heart shine forward and up. I unfold from the core.

My home frequency. My deepest vibration. The wavelength of my spirit. This is the sensation that makes up me.