giving thanks

Sometimes I feel I have lost contact with that voice that was rising, 

active in words

Or with that feeling that was rising,

active in color.

I hear other’s voices saying what I am saying

I read passages of wisdom and remember the views I held to be so true.

The expressive nature of the creative has a rhythm.

Rather than doubting its presence,

Now I move with it.

I wake early these days.

I saw the light appear in the dark sky this morning

soon the sun shining on the far mountains, through the trees,

and I was so surprised,

delighted,

to be awake to this day’s beginning.

There are practical things that need to be done

Each move toward them ensures a completion of the task.

I can be practical, too.

I remember walking into a day 

months ago

Feeling the unknown

as formidable. 

Feeling the ever so slight fear of life

And stepping into that day,

Like a doorway it was,

And knowing I had felt courage, too.

There were moments before that, 

Feelings of a shattering of a sort,

The weight of not knowing,

Before it was known as freedom,

of dying while being reborn.

I planted a garden 

And tended it

Slowly at first

Realizing how deeply nourishing that was

To putter in the dirt, to weed,

Just to be there,

Seeing what could be done.

I returned day after day.

the garden grew 

and I tasted freshness again.

I asked myself 

in 2006

…...like yesterday 

it always feels just like yesterday…..

I asked myself

When did being here now begin?

So many fine and awkward movements have spilled me deeper into this life current.

A slight movement 

In any direction

And it’s as if I was always here.

revelation wave

ok, let's ride this wave further
where it takes us is always here
but the way changes.

someone else makes my morning coffee now
he's gotten it right, his way
mine was unpredictable
his way is made for me.

there is no deserving love.
deserving is an impossibility,
a misconception,
a lie.

who could have caused this by doing?
the mirror has simply been cleaned,
and well polished.

just look,
you
revealed
reveling
you are a revelation of love in every form.

yes, i can hear

yes, I can hear
love was known and passed down along
in so many ways

i'd been in the oak tree,
hidden away
unbelieving
waiting
at times frantic in the silence.

what a mystery
to be called and to hear
to be peeled away from the noise
to be held closer than close
in this quiet glory
this problemlessness.

i feel like leaping
as a fire's flame out of the oven
every moment this is possible
every moment there is more levo ! lvoe! love!
issuing from this point of me
of you.

where did i go to let this glory be?

body is glad for the leave taking
it can breathe now
undulate, spin, wiggle, stomp
embraced by quiet glory, 

the body smiles
and continues to express

Like a mountain
like a woman
like an eternal flame
someone's devotional gesture is who i am now.

photo credit: towardtheone.tumblr artist Anahata Katkin's (of PAPAYA) 

cold frame

Something new is occurring here

It is calling me into daylight and fresh air

A call to be as near as is possible, 

with all my attention, 

to what is 

here

now.

There is a man in my life

Outside my window

Building a cold frame for our winter salads

In the sun

In the fall wind

Far from what I fear or doubt

I’m called from inside to meet outside

inside is outside

This is the new world

The gold purse is mine.

The sound of the saw is piercing the air.

There is honey in a man moving in the morning sun.

we move in her

He sets mouse traps and takes them away if they work.

He brought me a shovel for my garden, long handled with a small sharp blade.

He does our dishes.

Watching him make my morning coffee endears me to his attentiveness and care.

On the shifting scale of a moments vast embrace

We play

in love 

in life 

and in dying.

The air cools as fall arrives.

In my heart was the key 

to see 

it’s here.

I wanted everything.

World without end.

On the shifting scale of a moments vast embrace

We play

in love 

in life 

and in dying.

The air cools as fall arrives.

I tell the truth 

again and again.

even when I can't make sense of what it is,

he listens.

we carry the seeds for everything that is wanted.

she She me you You

beloved Beloved

sister. brother.

precious life.

we move in Her.

for giving we receive

in forgiving, I receive.
in wanting more than what is,
I feel empty.

when forgiving occurs
by grace,
I receive.
there are no words for what is received.

I feel the hollow hallowed reed space of this body,
being breathed
into the song of myself.




dear Walt, these last words came naturally out of myself which is also you.

So U Write

Love is the proof
The litmus test.

I didn’t remember its feel.
I looked out there,
Searching to touch it.

According to the map that I carried
nothing matched,
the location couldn’t be found or fixed.

She caught me in her dark embrace
And held me till I could see the light
to trust 
not outside, not wavering
But through and through
From the center point of myself.

All roads lead to and issue from here, now.

the silver lining

Her mind dropped to the floor
Like an old pair of too tight jeans.

Her mouth quiet
Her body opened
Cellular memory uncapped her skull.
The sky streamed in
On ancient meridian highways
and she drank her own deep.

Stars made love to the Virgin
Full moon
Bright celebrants
Darkness and light.

All through the body of one night
She was danced
Moved from deep within
Every cell
Head to toe
In love, in response.
Her lunar body rotated around the sun of her heart.

There is stardust in her silver hair for a reason
And it is not a sign of old age.

Who she always and already is
Gets bigger with every true and naked meeting.

lalita devi

the night before sadhana
and all through the house

of myself
is still

of my home
is beautiful

of my heart
is swept clean

to greet Her.

i feel like a young girl
preparing the space of her unknown woman to be lit
by the Devi.

persephone called to me

Persephone called to me

I’m going down
Voluntarily

Not into the basement
But under the basement
Deeper than the ground
All the way to the origin of source.

There I will be able to hear my own voice,
There I will remember,
bodily,
The silence of my existence.

I searched for a common shared language
And found none other than the silence of the heart

Springtime has not yet sprung
I’m going under the snow
To gather the origin of all beginning in my arms
and bring it back to the surface.

Why not?
This is why the spirit of imagination has been given to us.
I know this terrain well.

Persephone called me to visit her
To feel in my own belly
In the center of the earth,
The origin of spring’s energy.

She said it is so cool
That I will want to experience it
Again and again!

Yes, quickly, I am going under into the dark.
I’ll return again with the crocus and tulips.

Fresh Pressed

Fresh Pressed

the light of hidden flowers
shines in me
like fresh pressed juice.

I see me, as a lover would.

I move in the kitchen
agitated, drinking coffee,
alone.

I see me move out to feed the birds
glad for the job their hunger gave me.

I love me this way
carrying a hidden light
I can see me when I'm still enough.



prompted by lines from Neruda
this poem grew deeper roots in process.
i'm drinking it in, simplified all the way from a marketplace in Peru, through a woman's moonlit heart, a most touching shared prayer to my own fresh pressed light body.

vanilla

it's amazing.

i can eat a bowl of ice cream.

and stop.

i can feel full.

i'm amazed

and thankful.

winter spring

i woke up again
this morning
and damn if it doesn't feel like spring
in my heart.


1.18.15

Attention to Detail

God is in the details, they say.

The details come down to the relationship of one thing to another.

Tonight I listened to Ahmed Moustafa give a talk on Arabic Penmanship- the Key to the Cosmos.

The clarity of spirit in numbers,
beauty.

Happy Mother's Day - Whose child are you?

Do we dare to be a child of the Mystery?
Do we dare to take our hand and hold it to the end of the chatter, even beyond a daily meditation practice?

I am daring something new today.
To ask these questions knowing they are my own.

I have started to notice how people sometimes introduce themselves through the identity of someone else.
Or through the ideas of someone else.
Or through a thing, a job, or a place.
We introduce ourselves so often as anything other than this Mystery we live so intimately with.

Two mysteries meeting. Wow. What could be more exciting!

I notice this because for so long I used to think I wasn't enough just as I am, and I proved it too, in some wild ways.

I had to be identified with someone or something bigger and better than just me, or of course anything more interesting than me, a place or an experience. 

I remember when my identity as a painter began to disappear, the experience had become an invitation to something so mysterious, I couldn't take credit for the paintings.

And my identity as a mother. 
And my identity as a wife.
And as a lover.
And as a friend.

A journey sister calls the cause of this experience "the benevolent thief."


 Fear, of course, is to be avoided at all costs. And the cost is a great one. Our mind works overtime to help us steer clear of the abyss of no self.

I noticed today how this makes me feel nervous to meet someone through the identity of another. 
I understand this from my long impersonal quest to be someone else.

I become a little seasick, unmoored as I am in the other's sea...they become my own medicine to find my feet, be this changeling that I am. To feel this intimacy with the unknown, the unspeakable, and the joy of this freedom inherent in being so related to the Mystery. 

The Mystery is our Mother.
The well spring of Creativity.



It is a kind of insanity, to have so many other voices speaking as me. Or so many other people that I would present myself through.

One teacher of mine could feel this need in me so strongly before I myself was even aware of it, and told me, "Barbara, be yourself."

on being encompassed by nothing more or less

written while sittin'

there is no one who waits.

the one who waited
never was
content to assent
to what is.

nothing more than this exists

it is pro found
and humorous
kind.

no argument for or against rises,
the wave tosses the driftwood.

12.15.2014

no resistance

nothing
I say
can encompass
everything

but the smile
curving my lips
can't resist
taking form.

oh, the visible

oh, the invisible.
oh, the barely visible.
oh, the visible.

peony

oh peony
shivashakti

my feet were bare
the clover was dew soaked.

when we met
everything became like silk.

you got me good.

blessed fruit

in that place again, 
of not knowing.

the awe I feel to be so near this open space
calls in the guardians 
like bees to flowers.

the more true it is,
the more this fruit is tasted
the more astounded and soft body feels
and oh, so vulnerable.

and the trust
(oh, Uli)
the trust
becomes the path

my feet run
like the gazelle
on the vast plains


what really knows this taste of honeyed fruit?
what ever it is
it will carry this body home.