“You know when Robert Johnson said ‘you gotta move’ — I figured that out. It’s like, you’re happily floating through nothing– you know, nothingness.  All of a sudden, a big giant fish, they way I picture it… grabs you and… puts you in a form, and slams you on the face of this veil of tears, and says– You’ve gotta move!"

‘Everything is not enough

Nothing is too much to bear

Where you been is good and gone

All you keep is the getting there.’

rain.  rain and sleep and some kind of cold or just me wanting to hide, to curl the shell of sleep around my tender center, push off from the waking world in my coracle bed away from the shore of a hard restless elsewhere.  ive always undervalued my emotional experience and something isnt letting me anymore.  a lifetime of evasive contortion i begin to stretch away from, the miracle of soul and bone and will illuminating what was forever a shadow troughyard of hungry ghosts.

"My older sister has entire kingdoms inside of her, and some of them are only accessible at certain seasons, in certain kinds of weather. One such melting occurs in summer rain, at midnight, during the vine-green breathing time right before sleep. You have to ask the right question, throw the right rope bridge, to get there—and then bolt across the chasm between you, before the bridge collapses."


while we sleep Mother Nature tats the lace of april leaves and hangs them like fairy lights on the bare branches of trees.  with the rain painting wood a deeper shade the contrast of dark and light is a delight to eyes having subsisted for months on white and grey (despite the sauce of winter sunsets).  everything opens.  the dry seed swells and bursts and tongues of life rise into stronger sunlight, sweeter breeze.  these tiny motes of life in my palm that when exposed to the dark of earth, the wet of rain, the heat of sun, explode from their deceptive chrysalis into fragrant forms bearing food, flowers, fruit.  were it so easy for us to grow into our true natures, to allow with earth and light and water the natural unfolding of our selves.  how thwarted we are in our  growing.  this struggle is a gift, however.  to recognize ourselves as vessels for the journey of our souls, that there is a path, a purpose, an evolution in which to participate, is a blessing and the one for which i am most grateful.

 

"We are all
made of honey and butter and one of us has a yellow
school bus which we board from time to time
for a field trip that involves riding in circles
and falling asleep, which involves
all of us being ponies in a meadow.
The sea and sky are made of grass.
It can’t last. It lasts."

snow this morning.  dragging my skirt through puddles, socks wet at the heels, wind at my cheeks like november.    this incessant sneezing forces me to miss sunsets and the simple act of being in favor of unconsciousness.  maddening.  i feel shallow as a plate and as bare.  the smell of woodsmoke guides me home to tea and dogs the phone rings and im happy to answer it since youre the only one that knows the numbers to press in their secret order from wherever you are across the valley thinking of me.  o mary oliver give me strength.  infuse my very soul with insatiable hunger for lifeforce and revelation.  while i wallow in gruel purgatory waiting for the words to fall through the top of my head like one would wait for daylight.  but this is just a part of the cycle.  neap tide, exhale, aphelion.

ten for today:

1.  Cowboy

2.  Townes

3.  this blog

4.  tea
5. T.
6.  tom tomorrow
7.  dictionaries
8.  sleep
9.  my quiet neighborhood
10.  NPR