I feel the nugget of the dark calm of winter
Breathing,
Sitting,
Seeding deep within
Not just in me, but within the core of every significant conversation this week
Of which there have been many, oddly
With strangers who are as familiar as intimates and
With intimates who are as close as my own heartbeat
I kept thinking the winter is over now
The holidays are complete and we are restored to normal routines
Except that presence in this moment is anything but ordinary
And plummeting night times in the frigidity of high twenties
Remind me to stay wrapped in the blanket of now
Cozy, safe, unassuming, undemanding
The details still float out there and the demands for solidity,
For security,
For powerfulness,
For justice to be divided into good and evil, the halves remaining polarized
So that somebody can feel the victory in their “rightness:”
All these fall away like the dried up husk, the tarantula’s old skin, the cactus bloom
spent and withered, the echo of sorrow in my dear friend’s voice now
transformed to hope
Ensconced in grace
What I feel in the very marrow of my bones is that if we just
In this instant remember:
The growth,
The potential,
The soft swish of the hand of the wind
And the brush of heat as the sun passes through the narrow pane
And the bright slash of color as the sunrise pierces through clouds, air, our being
If we can hold all these for only the moment in which they greet us
Their imprint of beauty will remind us next time
To surrender to all that is
And in the relief of letting go of the clench of the unknown
And in the unfettered living in the depths of now
We are freed
Faith aside, this is the only opportunity we can be sure we receive
The blessing of a belly that expands with the gentle intake of air
Followed always, by the release of guts, air, lungs and tongue
This is how to sustain life:
To embrace it in whatever shape it comes
Release it when it asks to depart
And to show up as fully and deeply and in the manner by which each “I” is called
It is in this place that life goes on, with its own terms and turns, in circles and cycles
Spirals and flows
And the seed continues to gestate, to germinate
As it breathes within
(Orig. posted in Jan. 2013.)
