Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Breathe




Souls dance blue whispers through the night
Sea, Moon, Earth, Sky
Lighting their rhyme in the twilight of heaven’s most delicate beauty
Still some dream to know
We too are stardust
   - Christa Rowan


It's funny how places can pull on us.  The desert is calling me lately- jackrabbits and roadrunners, coyotes and sunsets, sage and chollas.  I find myself flashing back to hiking paths and cactus gardens, relentless sunshine and wide open spaces.  Spaces where I could meditate on who and what I was, who and what I'd come here to be.  Spaces where I could dig my bare feet into red gravel dust to feel the energy of the earth and breathe it in.

My grandmother called me a gypsy, always on the move.  Wanderlust is how I used to think of it. It's a beautiful, romantic word but it haunts me with its wistful, bittersweet quality.  It makes me feel as if there is something in me that cannot rest, that I can't be satisfied in a single location.  

I am coming to realize with age that it's not my body that needs to wander, it's my soul. It knows to journey to what feeds it, to what soothes it, to what allows the rest of me the space and ability to breathe.  Sometimes it calls for the colors and breadth of an Arizona desert, others for the rhythmic lapping of gentle waves on Kauai, or, in the greener parts of Delaware the grounding endless roots of a majestic pine tree.  And it's not that it can't be satisfied, it's that its needs are ever-changing as I learn and grow.  

Life is the soul's ultimate change of location.  All the people we've known are inside us. All the places we've been are inside of us.  And often that means that we feel pulled in various directions, faced with endless decisions, crowded with desires, ambitions, obligations, intentions, always wondering what our next move should be. What I am finally realizing is that often the next right move is none it all. Often what we need is just to breathe.

And so when Phoenix or Kauai or Boston are calling I know my soul is pulling on me to access something that I have felt in those places. "Stop" it says, "be still, hear me and breathe".  And I don't have to buy plane tickets, I don't have to relocate again.  

All the places I've been are inside of me, some of which I can't tell you how to get to. Even a scientist who doesn't consider the existence of souls, or how they travel, can tell you that you're made of stardust.  And where on earth do you really need to run to if you consider that you carry stars inside you?  What more could you possibly need to be.

So, breathe, just breathe.

Monday, January 2, 2017

"There's No Use Crying About It"



The castle is in sight -
Weathered and dark but no less a sanctuary.
Bold and strong I take to the path
Old fear trailing behind me like a cape to be untied and cast aside.
I drop it on the forest floor aware that it will slink behind me,
Let it, I think as I forge ahead.
For a while I elude it as I focus on the spires,
Then I trip.
No matter, I'm still moving forward.
But delighting in my misstep the cape glides faster, gaining speed,
Winding around my ankles like a snake it takes me down.
My heart races
"I'll crawl if I have to" I whisper, through deliberate concentrated breaths,
Though I hear it laughing as it looms over me  - 
It's covered my face like a veil before I can rip it away.
Gasping for the cool fresh air near the ground I take it down with me.
Angrily I ball it up and hurl it off the path.
I sit on the ground watching hot tears fall on the gravel -
I'm tired
The path is too long 
I'm tired 
The cape a relentless albatross 
I'm tired
I can lie here and not have to fight anymore 
So. tired.
A voice flying through the night air calls "Momma!"
The princess waiting at the castle.
I pick up my head to look at it,
Beaten and battered and standing tall,
Dark but no less a sanctuary.
Ignoring the tears I stand,
Let them fall,
They bounce off a metal object glowing in moonlight -
Tarnished and dented but no less a crown.
I place it on my head.
Brushing off dirt and gravel I take a step,
Then another
Straight towards the castle.
Weathered and beaten it beckons me.
I'll reach it scarred and battle weary,
Cape at my feet,
But no less a queen.


- Christa Rowan
(With a nod to Halsey)