Hear and Now

The Game

2007-09-11T16:41:00.000-07:00

What does peace actually look like? Is it round, is it flat? Does it smell like a sea breeze or someone who hasn't bathed in a week? How do we treat each other when we love each other first, ask questions later? What would it be like if we met with open eyes looking for reasons to smile at each other and find all the things we really like in one another? I wonder if we can find so many things we like about each other in the beginning that when we find things we don't like we don't mind so much? We can make a game of it. Okay, I'll go first. I'll tell you something I like about you and you tell me something you like about me. The person who can come up with the most things they like about the other wins! Then, the winner hugs the loser. This game has serious potential. I can see it now. We are coming onto the platform at the train station and we are excitedly looking for someone to play with. Everybody is looking at each other and the conversations ensue, both verbally and not. Our bodies share our comfort with each other by the ease that they move together and apart. Our thoughts, 'oh, she's so pretty' travel and land gently as there just isn't time to formally introduce ourselves to everybody we want to be friends with.

The Wave

2007-09-11T16:24:00.000-07:00

I can see the stress in his eyes. He thinks I cannot, or maybe he wants me to see it, but I don't want to pry. I know it's a difficult time on the inside for him. It's so hard to share this with the outside world because it doesn't show outright. It's mostly in the eyes, in the downward posture, in the slowness of movement that it is revealed. It's just rough seas inside. Too many choice, too many thoughts and feelings, and no control leaves you feeling powerless like a storm coming in and the swells are rising higher and higher and all you can do is hold on to the boat while your stomach turns and you pray for solid ground again. Then you hit solid ground and you can't find your legs. It's harder to get off the boat then to let the sea carry you out again because this storm rages on inside, the inside. How can you explain the weight you feel inside? How can anyone understand? So you stay huddled in your boat and pray for the next storm to take you out again . Eventually, the swells bring comfort and allow you to surrender to the power that is bigger and one day that power fills you up inside again. You are made stronger but you are different. You are not the person you were. You find your voice has changed, your body has changed, your mind has changed. It's time now to get off the boat and see yourself in the eyes of those who love, those who really love you, those who can see you and celebrate the changes, the healing. It 's time to come home to yourself.

Dream Bisquits

2007-09-11T16:11:00.000-07:00

Inside there is magic. Open it up and it's the perfect beginning to a yummy dream coming true. Like all dreams, it needs other things to make it happen. There's the butter and the sugar and the vanilla, oh lots of vanilla, and so on. It may not come out the first time, so I'll have to try again and maybe even again. I ask for help, experiment with the baking powder and stick to it until I have the yummy dream in my hand. It does come with instructions but I find them more helpful as a reference. It's more important that they come out the way I like them. They are my dreams after all.

Symphony of Soul

2007-09-11T15:47:00.001-07:00

It's a good day. The sun was hiding and I could see inside myself better. There is always a question of what is the most important thing to do first, second, or at all. I'm not sure what really matters and I am sure that I think too much. Can I release my long analysis of possibility, of assumed probability, or wonder and doubt and open to the path of my highest potential...just let the wind blow into the sails of my heart and elevate me, move me forward onto the ever winding path in the sea. The changes as steady as the restless currents, criss-crossing, rising and falling. I get the picture early in the morning before the clammer of expectations crowd all around me and threaten to drown out the soft steady voice of my calling. It's a voice only I can hear. It needs to be fed constantly, like a bird feeder in the tree needs to be filled. If I leave it empty, spirit will not visit. If I keep it full, the spirits will gather and perform a never ending symphony with the melody of my soul singing.

The Passage

2007-09-11T15:29:00.000-07:00

The rise of life is in the arms of death. The seeds have been sewn in the decay of the dreams that were not realised to make the soil fertile for the next gardener passing through.

How sacred is the passage from life to death, death to life. Where one begins and one ends becomes blurry like the horizon where the sky and sea meet at sunset. The day sinks in to the night and is over. The night rises and touches the sun as it sets, pulling the darkness over the planet gently like a soft comforter. The night gives birth to visions and aspirations an d nurtures them with quiet and deep darkness.

The day returns with repose and promise. The sun reclaims the sky bringing with it abundant activity as all life forms from flowers to humans join in a dance that reconnects the soul to the earth, to each other...and the life of the night returns.

The Artist

2007-09-11T15:17:00.000-07:00

They are bits of the canvas I will fill in the remaining years of my life. It takes a lot of time to cultivate these places. It's more than flowers. Sometimes I need a tree and that takes a very long time. Sometimes I need a sandbox that I can make sand structures in, take them down and build them again. There is always a hope these places will help someone along someday. I am always reminded how one word, one gesture, one decision can change your life forever. I am ready to change my life forever. I can write about the old life easier that way.