Inner Stillness in Predawn Darkness

There is inner stillness in the predawn darkness as

The forest begins to stir around me.

 

They seem to notice my presence

“Someone is among us”, they mummer.

 

As I sit in silence and wait,

The Eastern sky begins to lighten and

 

The earth responds with movement,

Air movement, a stirring, ever so slight and gentle,

 

More sensed than felt.

I continue to sit in silence and wait.

 

At last I can feel them coming closer, one by one.

Not in outer distance but in inner peace.

 

As they circle me I can feel them saying “Welcome,

We were wondering when you would come”.

 

“We are drawing closer to protect you,

We sense your weakness; we give you our collective strength.

 

Take us as we are as we you, you must know by now that

Your heart is not alone here and never has been”.

 

They bring such wisdom in their silence.

Such kindness without motion or audible voice

 

But a voice nonetheless, a voice that is felt with the soul

Not heard with the ears.

 

A voice that is eons old, no, older than that:

A voice that has existed since the beginning of time.

 

Since the time before manifestation.

Their voice speaks to me in the sweet darkness of the woods

 

Telling me a tale of love, acceptance and kindness,

A story of life, of the essences of loss, the pain of suffering

 

The agony of misunderstanding, of mind induced perceptions and

Selfish longings and needs.

 

But there is sympathy and empathy in this voice too because they know the pain,

They have felt the suffering, tasted the tears and watched their own hearts melt with disappointment.

 

The agony of loss is no stranger to their collective heart, so they truly understand my

State of mind today and give me comfort and love in a way only they can.

 

They know how I miss he who passed through the veil, they know him and he them. They are one together and it is his presence they allow me to feel here in this mourning morning softness.

 

The trees are my saviors; they surround me with their gentle strength and hold me in their arms

In the hardest of times, they understand without judgment, they feel my heart beat with theirs

 

As they stand together – silent sentinels of everlasting light and hope in

Noble silence and truth.

 

I am renewed by their strength, honored by their kindness and

Forever grateful for their love.

 

2/1/16

A Celebration of Light and Love

Embrace the feminine,

Rejoin the world of light and shadow.

My sisters await,

I have been gone too long.

But they are patient, their rhythmic drumming continues,

A call for wisdom to those who have come before.

The drums awaken in our souls the

Primal sounds of life.

Listen to the crows cry in morning

Listen to the night sounds resonate with the vibrations of life.

Brook and sky

Flow together in harmony.

My soul reunites with my heart.

My place is remembered and rejoined.

My heart is endless, and knows no time or place,

It retains a place for him.

He who completes the connection,

Body and soul as no other can.

But I have learned, that to desert myself,

To love so completely that I lose myself

Is not what it is meant to be.

My love must complement who I am

Not become who I am.

My love for him is eternal,

It takes up no space and has no limits but

I will not allow it to consume me.

If only he could know, could feel as I do,

Our love would be as it was intended, the connection would be complete.

The space between us would dissolve into vapor and

We would be one in harmony with earth and sky.

Together

And the crows would cry at sunrise

And the night sounds would resonate with the sound of my sisters singing and drumming in celebration of light and love, love as it should be.

2/11/15

MC

I wrote this for him last year, a lovely fantasy, very lovely but equally lonely…

The Light Everlasting

What is it trying to tell me?
Anything?

 

The quote in the window,

The quick car in the night.

 

Is it all in my head?

Probably.

 

But if not, what is trying to break through,

Break into this world through me and why show me if it isn’t real…no, I have to stop thinking…

 

I need to see the moon lit patterns of white and shadow on the snow and hear how they speak to me.

The chimes are calling me again from the silence of my soul to look, listen, observe.

 

I need to hear the hungry owl’s cries in the night, feel its silent wings move swiftly in the darkness,

Too swiftly for its pray and watch with detachment the

 

Swift death, natural and inevitable but made a villain

By my thoughts.

 

I need to leave these thoughts and become

Stillness in the chaos, I need to reenter the silent swiftness of the owl’s wings and moon shadows.

 

For It is the only place to be and

The only place I have ever existed.

 

My being had begun to seep away while I was preoccupied,

Distracted by the other, the unnatural, the evil of my own making.

 

But the owl’s wings are bringing me home now,

My time of regression is waning but it has taken its toll.

 

My heart is weaker, my thoughts harder to read.

There is no regressing without damage to me and the object of the cause.

 

Solitude and stillness, as the getaway to the road back are coming into view…

The road to the place of reclamation of my soul,

 

Back to the essence of bliss, the light everlasting and

The hand in mine.

Curtis Field in Winter (originally posted 2/27/15)

 

Waves of white,

Dunes of snow.

 

A magical expanse

Of openness and light.

 

Wind swirls the

Snow in columns,

 

Leaving patterns of circles

In their wake.

 

The wind howls in eerie

Cries of loneliness and desperation.

 

All life is kept covered

Awaiting the sun,

 

Resting in the silence

And stillness of cold.

 

A ring of trees keeps watch

And defines the space.

 

I sit in the snow and sing.

My song resonates in the emptiness changing forever the space within.

 

This place fills me

And I am empty no more.

 

 

Dissolving

I sit, candlelight flickering

Through my eyelids.

 

The skylight reflects the candlelight back to me,

And the new moon back to the moon.

 

The night landscape is dark,

Cold and endless.

 

I am cold and endless as I rise above the candle.

The wind blows my hair and chills my bones.

 

My eyes scan the dark earth.

Fields lie in wait, trees sleep.

 

Hills role on to hills,

And night sky meets night wood.

 

My body and gaze rise above

The wood to the sky.

 

Dark joining dark,

Points of light joining points of light.

 

In the darkness there is no separation of earth and sky.

In my darkness there is no separation.

 

The flicker of candlelight

Through the skylight fades with distance.

 

The quiet and dark become who I am,

All encompassing, all inclusive, comforting

All dissolving into one.

In Honor of Small Things

“The Great arises out of small things that are honored and cared for” Eckhart Tolle  A New Earth

 

Such wisdom in so few words.

But what is the Great if not a compilation of the small.

 

Nothing is too small to be part of the one,

The Great unmainfested, is manifested in everything, including the small, especially the small.

 

It is through the ordinary manifestation of the One that it’s true

Heart and meaning is able to shine through.

 

Honor all “things” as part of the creator

Made touchable, reachable, real.

 

Ceremonies and traditions, ways of honoring the small things, act

As symbols and representations of caring for the One, the One all pervasive energy, the Creator.

 

Everywhere I look I see evidence of that truth.

When I open my eyes each morning, I acknowledge and honor the new day.

 

A new beginning with each sunrise, with each chime of the cuckoo clock

As the fresh born light angles across my bed and bedroom walls.

 

My breakfast food of sweet potatoes and spinach

Lies in splendor on the golden yellow dish,

 

The lightly colored beautiful orange sweet potatoes shine

In stark contrast to the dark green warmth of the spinach.

 

They are contrasts in wholeness, beautiful small things to be honored and appreciated.

As is the tea steaming in my tea mug which shares the mug’s space and honors its useful emptiness, tea honoring mug honoring tea.

 

The shower water’s warmth and the soap’s scent of softness and peace

Honor my body and I honor their usefulness and dedication to service without selfishness.

 

And with each step and in each and every place I go throughout the day

I try to take the time, maybe only a second or two, to notice and honor the small things.

 

After all, I am a small thing too.

Star Soul

Star shine drips from the night sky and runs along the naked winter tree branches like syrup

Leaving iridescent trails of silver to wrap around the rough barked trunks.

 

The sliver shine lights my way

As it spills star souls on the forest floor and

 

While I follow the star trails, eons pass in an instant and eternity sleeps

In the soft warm glow of acceptance and starlight.

 

The cold surrounds my soul and heart in these winter depths and

Dense air adds clarity to my vision as I walk the trials of the stars.

 

These star trails take me to a different place, a place at once new and ancient,

A place to observe all in silence while cloaked in the winter wood.

 

I see mosses hold their breath in the glow of the star-flow and hear them whispering their secrets to a silent waiting cosmos while holding tightly to the trunks of the trees.

 

Late geese fly across the moon, their cries urgent in the night sky

Confused by the uncommon shimmering silver ground below.

 

I am not alone in this realm of silver winter as

The forest is full of the souls and spirits of summer’s love.

 

I feel them all around me, darting in and out of tree shadows,

Stopping to watch me from behind drifts of truth and light.

 

The discarded autumn leaves warm the soil beneath the drifts

And life waits in patient stillness.

 

My mind becomes as still as the waiting life as I travel the empty space between the stars reflected in snow’s white depth.

 

There is no urgency in me or in this place

Only the beauty and silence of peace and star light.

 

The winter forest is a secret,

A complete world in and of itself hiding in plain sight.

 

Its silence a decoy to protect its love lying safe and secure underground.

Go to the forest; breathe in the silent dripping starshine,

 

Follow the starlight as it traces the outline your soul.

Blend with the magic of the forest as

 

It is only there under the canopy of eternity that you can become as silent and still

As the dense crisp air surrounding you and once again, as in the beginning,

 

Go home to that place within that holds you in the soft silver glow of now and

Within  that silent place returns you to wholeness.

 

The soul of the winter forest knows and understands you.

She waits for your return.

 

 

Come My Love and Take My Hand

This poem is a re-post from a happier time,  a time when my illusion of love and trust was still in tact….

 

Come my love and take my hand, lead me

Through the simmering summer heat

 

To the dark softness of the

Shaded forest.

 

Ferns erupt from the

Moss covered earth

 

And the fragrance of dark soil

Pervades and surrounds my senses

 

As you surround my heart.

Take me through the woods

 

Through time and space

to a softer place.

 

A place to share love, trust and life.

Lay me down among the arms of the stream

 

Where it welcomes our heated bodies

With its cool, smooth water.

 

Lie with me and kiss the water from my eyes

As it runs in rivulets over my shoulders and across my body.

 

Your hands are warm on my body

In contrast to my water-cooled skin.

 

As we become one from two we

Blend into the flow of the stream

 

As inseparable as the individual drops

Are from the ripples our bodies make in the water.

 

Our union of joy becomes as integral a part of nature as the blue sky above

And the gold speckled stream bed beneath us.

 

The nakedness of our bodies becomes

The nakedness of our souls, nothing hidden, nothing false.

 

Our hands stay linked together as our passion

Warms the air around us.

 

Steam rises from our skin as the sun’s rays

Dry our water sprinkled bodies.

 

The contrast of light and dark plays out between us

And mimics the light of the sky and dark of the shaded forest around us.

 

Both are beautiful in their simplicity and

Are the complement of one another.

 

Our passion is unending and all-inclusive

Perfect in its symmetry and balance.

 

Man and woman,  two sides of the same equation

A world in balance – perfect.

 

 

 

 

 

Winter Forest

The essence of the winter forest

Is human and divine.

 

Its emptiness is overwhelming

In its fullness.

 

Its love is sweetened by sorrow

And its sorrow is purified by love.

 

Its silence is deafening

With voices muted by cold but

 

The trees are full of love and patience and can

Heal our hearts from hurt and loss if only we will ask.

 

Yet, most perceive only what they want to see and miss the beauty of the winter forest,

Lift the veil and see the truth,

 

Can’t  you hear it calling?

 

A 4 a.m. awakening – a burst of light in the darkness, finally…

I have not been mistaken,

It is the real him that I see,

 

The one behind the addiction.

The addiction is not who he is.

 

I love the real man and there in is were this intense pain and sadness is coming from.

I thought my pain had been for myself, my disappointment in him and me, how could I, the real me, have loved someone so dishonest, so capable of such deception.

 

What was wrong with me?   Now I realize my sadness and pain is because the man I love does exist beneath the addiction and my tears are for that man, the one trapped in his own sorrow.

 

I see what is behind all of this, maybe more than he sees himself

And that is why I cry,

 

It is when my mind is most still that my tears flow the most freely.

They bubble to the surface with ease when my mind is free and calm, the truth shines through, not to be ignored or mistaken for what it is not.

 

That is why the pain and sadness are so strong; they come from the stillness within me, from the depths of my soul, the place of wordlessness, the place of no mind, the very essence of my Being.

 

The intensity of this emptiness was overwhelming but now it is filled with love, complete and whole, compassion for self and others and a connection to everything. It is the same connection I have always felt but now it is set to the music of the universal consciousness.

 

A 4 a.m. awakening – a burst of light in the darkness, finally…

 

I can’t deny these emotions; to do so would be to bury them in an unhealthy way. They are real; my body says it is so.

 

They have a right to a place in me, in my being. They are what make me human but not what make me me.

 

The first step to dealing with them is to know and see

From where they come.

 

The tide of sorrow flows thorough me, from my head to my toes and oscillates between low and high continuously much like the natural rhythms of the tides and seasons.

 

My mind’s perception of this flow causes my suffering. Pain in life is inevitable; suffering with it is up to me.

 

A shift to no thought makes all the difference, my love for him is not a bad thing, something to get rid of, to fight with, to kill off, no, it is a part of me, a valuable part.

 

My ability to love in spite of all this deception is a strength, not a weakness. I have been consumed with this drowning sadness because my mind viewed this love as a failure, as an obstacle to overcome, as something I was doing wrong, as my fault for trusting, loving, but this love was not and is not a mistake.

 

Instead it is a testament to the real me, beyond my mind, beneath my mind, deeper than anything my mind can throw at me. My mind cannot deceive me any longer. I will not allow it to. I am the watcher, the observer of this madness.

 

To love is always good; truly loving not with the mind but with the soul is the essence of goodness and light.

 

He is a prisoner of himself.

What his soul seeks his mind confounds and that I feel is the essence of my sadness and heartache for him.

 

I have been confused by why this pain and sorrow is so deep and has such a grip on my soul, but now I understand. While my understanding doesn’t lessen the intensity of the emotion, it does give it a frame and boundary and by my awakening, my mind’s control is removed.

 

The why is no longer important, the endless scenarios of the past can stop torturing me, the prophecies of a sad and dismal further can be put to rest. The love is not gone, it never will be because it is soul deep and now it has found its place to rest within my heart and my peace has been restored.

 

I don’t have to stop loving him, I never will, this love is held close to my heart and will be forever.   Whether this truth matters to him or not, I may never know.

 

But as much as my mind would like to know and would like to be with him, the watcher knows better and will hold and comfort my being with a love greater than my mind can ever understand,

 

And that will make all the difference.