Riding the Light –

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  • Father / mother / god

    Father / mother / god

    I used to think I set off to do Your Will. I understand more now that I do only my interpretation of that. It’s limited, at best, this that I do. My physical strength is puny, my senses limited, my memory worn as a picked-out sponge, missing bits of itself & leaving a spotty clean-up at best.

    Fear still holds some deep pockets in my psyche tho I’ll deny that til the end of days! I still exist as thoYou do not. I am a bargain-basement kind of human; really useful when needed. I’m small, I fit into corner cabinets or shallow drawers.

    But you know, Allness, I don’t stop at one brand name. I do the Carol meme most surely, the synapses trained in Me are most ingrained. But there are so many pieces missing now. I choose the face of self from habit

    I write this from the twilight of awake-not-yet; that time when I’d really like to go back to sleep, too late for that. I see myself as a child, sitting in a stroller, handles curled to either side of my head like ram’s horns. I’m thinking, “Clean me” as everyone bustles about & I am forgotten as I’m quiet.

    I do not know if the phrase is a command, a demand, a remand… it doesn’t really matter as it simply hangs here.

    I feel friends reading this over my shoulders, tapping their lips. They aren’t sure what to think either. Being unable to make assumptions, they surmise, which is worse.

    I thought confidence would increase with aging. That strong song of being reached a pitched harmony, a high note & now gentles into a kind of breathy hum. I’m glad to still hum.

  • What if I said “be happy?” Could you?

    What if I said “be happy?” Could you?

    One by one I check in with friends about my move. I write cheery little notes about change & planning. I tell them about packing the car, securing flapping straps. I mention my Angel Frog – a back pocket companion, a leftover cat toy that crows “rib-it, rib-it, rib-it” with every speed bump or left turn. (Somehow I know it won’t drive me crazy on the trip as I think of it as my cheering section. It’s already fading out, alas.)

    My friend K tells me she is melancholy & cannot shake it. My friend G tells a tale of unexpected & furious disappointment via betrayal of trust. My friend B lists a 3″ text of unexpected diagnoses resulting from a quick physical checkup. My friend L is dying of pulmonary fibrosis, a shuddering-awful passing.

    Each renders me more determined to make this trip West. I move to a town in throes of change after decades of unimprovement & slow fade, of City Commissioners quarreling over their lack of civic money for the long-neglected fixes needed to bring it into the 1960’s, let alone the 21st Century. Each with a Special Interest Drum to beat.

    I’m going there to be happy. It’s the only reason to go anywhere, would you not agree?

    What makes me different … outlook? mindset? presence? a preference for clown clothes? insomnia?

    I just am. How fortunate for me!

    The formula for the life I live works for me. To list things might be considered a brag. I know my worth in realtime, so, no need for any detail.

    I appreciate. I share. I laugh a lot as life is more like Laugh-In than Forensic Files. Little has power enough to affect me for very long. I feel as tho my ‘bad times/sad times’ have just fizzled out from trying to keep up.

    Once I read an exchange:

    “You’re a real Pollyanna!”

    “So? Pollyanna led a very happy life!”

    Sounds like a mantra to me…

  • Slightly to right of midnight

    Slightly to right of midnight

    Well, change happens.

    Sure it does.

    Once upon me again, it hardly draws the cloak closed before tugging me out the door into nether worlds, familiar & daunting both.

    One Tarot card reader says do nothingv-stay where you are. The next says come for sure! You’re losing leaves.

    Being a Libra, I’m all for change. Being a Manifesting Generator, there’s little more familiar than moving along. I have more than one friend who does this: perodically: pulls out the plastic tubs, clears the car & loads up, counts out the coin for gas & food & lodging, ties the rest up in a pocket, tugs down their hat & hits that unfinished road. I have far more who stay thru boredom, so many endings, health crises, Fear, matters of upbringing & cost.

    No sooner did I doubt the plan than I received a note from a dear friend who is dying of pulmonary fibrosis. I thought, “Hey me, get going while you still can breathe!”

    Nothing, however, is safe in the world – this world’s not meant to be so. It’s meant to be the playground in the Universe, the launch pad for all sorts of learning.

    Some of what I’ve re-learned lately:

    the business model (such as it ever was) is dustifying & I never saw the blue beam hit.

    boredom is a heady motivator for change. Sitting at the archway of the mousehole watching for the cat, means never enoying the Cheddar somewhere in the room.

    old friends are a totally wonderful renewable resource, forgiving even when they’ve sent you off with a blown kiss & a fond wave. and it’s most wonderful when they open their arms & welcomeyou back!

    dancing never stops when you keep the music playing.

    Sufficient. One can only renew the Splittail Starbucks card so many times. Last week they never even put the spoon of chai in my chaitealatte, so I had steamed milk at the beach. Wah! (Business model, anyone?)

    I have written this poem before & I keep it elastic to allow more growth & change, discovery & despite of nuclear fallout.

    I found a tiny sign that said “the best thing about this job is that my chair spins.” I put it on my desk & only one person took note, out of the many-many who sit there impatiently waiting for the iceberg that is The System to pick up speed just for them.

    When I get cynical, I get cranky. When I’m hungry, I get mean. I’ve been hungry for a long time & I’m not saying this meal will stave off starvation, but it will feed that most elusive stomach of the Soul.

    T or C, here I come again. Back to your dusty streets, your slim food pickin’s, your dry heat wavering from the WPA concrete blocks. I hear you’re torn up. I saw the new street map with the earrings of a rotary to either end.

    But there are those low-growth foothills to wander & the Rio Grande hasn’t changed course much. The red-wing blackbirds still poke out from the reeds with a trill. I hear the lake is now a puddle one can walk upon without the miracle of walking on water. I’m fairly sure the same weedy ways abound. There are memories around every bend.

    There is music to be had & friends to be held, poetry to write, hotbaths for the tenner & a canary-themed room to cheer my green-fed eyes.

    Maybe I’ll get Mary to paint a palm tree on one wall as one last flicker of Florida.

  • Sunday Morning, St. Armand’s [Again]

    Sunday Morning, St. Armand’s [Again]

    Dawn 3/21/22

    There are no shells on the beach this morning.

    The second day of Spring in Sarasota finds me at the water before the sun.

    The flashing wings of gulls just coming visible

    The glint of the offshore dredger

    Winks as the tug drones it by.

    The light rises over my shoulders

    As if to take me unaware

    But I am ready as

    The sun gathers yellow,

    Discovering itself against the most pastel of a pink/blue horizon,

    The Gulf flat enough to walk upon without tripping

    Lifting from silence,

    The shorebirds call each other, “Waken! Seize the day!”

    = = = = =

    I am comforted by beaches, having been raised on an island

    The pulsing of the Atlantic a constant drum, a blue beyond borders,

    A green deep enough to grow its seeds of salt

    There the beach is tan; here the crystal white looks so pristine.

    Here the sky is lifted: there it simply hovers.

    Waves here briefly grin, then lap into sizzle

    There each wave stands to overcome

    Then dissolves in rushing hiss,

    Down the beach, away

    This mild morning, no wind separates flesh & bone

    To peer between the two, discriminate.

    = = = = =

    Now the sun gives buttered light

    As clamdiggers claim the fringe of water

    Walking barefoot while I tug my sweater.

    I anticipated chill, but not the silence.

    Sandpipers whizz by in their commuter’s hurry

    Interrupting the lullabye of crystalline sand.

    = = = = =

    I miss my days of bikini, mercurochrome & baby oil slather,

    Umbrella stands & muscled boys manning them.

    I miss being lifted over the smooth rollers

    The power of the sea against a straw child

    Simply swept up in that moment of the wave’s effortless passing.

    I miss running for the blanket to throw myself upon,

    Turning quickly to catch every sunlit moment

    My body no longer unmarked, smooth & silky.

    My soul traveled with it, onward, into light dreaming itself.

     = = = =

    The eastern shadows move beyond the bodies

    I sit, but am 20’ tall,

    My shadow-head in the surf, rippling

    the middle of me a pointed darkness

    holding this journal open & the pen tallest of all.

    = = = = =

    A crow conquers yesterday’s sand castle,

    Tearing down a turret, cawing

    Batting wings like some dragon of old

    Digging treasure,

    His sanded voice owning it all.

     = = = =

  • 1-Liners

    1-Liners

    Identify as a Jack Russell for the Ascension. Never be ignored again.

    When the women go off the pill, the men go on.

    My best construction skill is hovering.

    For the finer things in life, there’s glasses.

    The role I dressed for isn’t even in this play.

    Before we just wanted to light your fire; now we want to blow up your phone.

    For me, a wedgie means angling sideways on the steps to avoid the cat.

  • This One’s for Alice

    Monthly Archives: April 2015 

    “Purpose” Unity of Rehoboth Beach – April 26, 2015 

    April 30, 2015 9:15 PM / Leave a comment 

    First I want to share with you how I came up with this topic. When I figured out that I had two talks to give in a row here, I came up with one immediate topic, but that’s the one for next week. The talk today came about because I was stumped. And when I’m stumped, I go to the bowl where I keep my angel cards, I take a deep breath, reach in & choose a card. When the card read “purpose,” I thought aha! Perfect! Then came the time to write the talk & I was stumped once again. I couldn’t say for certain I’ve lived my life “on purpose” for about ¾ of it. But here I am & here we are, so here we go… 

    Let me ask the $64,000 question first: just what is your purpose for being alive on this planet today? Do you have an idea? Any ideas? If you had to finish the sentence: “The purpose of MY life is…” what would your next words be? It’s an easy question with a difficult answer. 

    The next source I checked for help was the dictionary. Purpose is both a noun & a verb. This doesn’t amaze me, my NAME is also a noun & a verb, after all. 

    The Noun: 
    “the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists. (As in the purpose of a hammer is to nail.) 

    The verb Purpose tells me: 
    “To have as one’s intention or objective.” 

    (As in “I purpose to tell you about this word this morning.”) Boy, that sounds awkward, doesn’t it? I think we use this word as a noun because of that. But what if you turned it into a verb? What would you purpose to do with the rest of your day? Take it out a little farther: what would you purpose to do with your very life? 

    Let’s look at what this means to you. When you woke this morning, what was your first purpose? I mean after the usual routine of putting yourself together to enjoy the day. I’m glad you purposed to come to Unity of Rehoboth Beach! But what else? 

    We all need an “overall purpose” for living. Hopefully, we get to take that beyond making enough money to care for our basic needs. Hopefully we can extend our purpose to include God. And since we all have that God-spark within us, it will become important at one moment to search for that spark, interview (inner-view) its PURPOSE and express that outwardly with & in our lives. 

    Living “on purpose” isn’t easy. It means not being reactive to a lot of what is going on out there and in here. It means not deceiving yourself about your motives & this kind of honesty might be like taking an emery board to file you’re your conscience. 

    Having a purpose would seem to make it a lot easier to live. We have probably all been rootless at times in life, sitting on our hands, driven neither to improvement OR failure in the same moment! At these times I say to myself, “I really want to do this, but I don’t feel like doing anything.” There was a time when, if the question came up of what to do when I didn’t feel like doing, I just turned on the TV to avoid it. Things got strange for me when my ex took the TV we had & I figured that was the last thing I wanted to spend money on. I will say that was when I started really paying attention to my life. Up until then I hadn’t realized how much the programs were programming ME. 

    I’ve sat more than once & asked God to take these hands & put them in service, Without sounding holier-than-thou, what worked for me was to ask how I could best serve God. I figured it was safe to do that. Who’d know better what I was to do with them? 

    When we make a conscious decision to serve, Life can go many ways. We serve ourselves with lively consumerism, filling in time with various pursuits and hobbies. We serve our families and friends with good cheer in very many ways, directly with support and advice, or indirectly through just being in their energy field. If you’re like me, you have many people you’ve touched or who have touched you with whom you no longer are in touch. But the experience of sharing time & laughter has not been forgotten. It can rise in the mind like a smell of the beach thru an open window, evocative and holy. We experience again the richness of those moments with friends & family. 

    Whether you ask or not, God gives us a purpose. God gives us the curiosity to go looking for it. God also gives us the will, heart and mind to discover it, pursue it, make a success of it, reveal it to the many, practice it, and exist in joy while accomplishing it. When we listen to our soul (which is that God-spark I mentioned earlier), we can find out how to accomplish all of the above with grace. Rick Warren, in The Purpose-Driven Life, reminds us that “Even if your parents didn’t plan on you, God did.” 

    My former minister, Cherie, at First Church Unity in Nashville opened many a talk with this quote from Jeremiah: 
    “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb.” 

    I really like that verse: I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. While I was sometimes lost, this implied a meta-knowingness; God knew my name before I got here. It implies I was spoken into being, like the logos of the world, the light, the planets, the creatures and all the materials of this universe. I presume the same knowingness back, except for me, it’s in the possessive tense: I use the name of God to cover a lot of situations. So what does God want of me? And which me? The massage therapist, the mother, the friend? In Isaiah 44:2, we find more or less the same phrasing: “I am your Creator. You were in my care even before you were born.” 

    I think God wants me to live in divinity. I think God wants me to live out divinity. I think God wants me to express that beautiful sparkle of my soul for all to see. God has spent time tuning me in, like a radio dial by directing me from a job to a career to a calling. My purpose for living changed with each relationship, each job, each growth opportunity, if I lingered long enough in the moment to recognize it. 

    Living in divinity is not hard work, it’s heart work. If time is the illusion Einstein & some others say it is, then I’m living in a no-time scenario and it’s taking me one long time to live it out! 

    Step aside from time for a moment. Step into that place where time ceases to exist. If you do it right, you’ll find you’re standing in your heart-space. What’s in there? When I studied Chinese medicine, I learned the heart is the place of long-term memory storage. Once in a guided meditation, I was asked to take a walk to my heart. When I arrived, I was looking at a small building with a Dutch door. Only the top half was open. When I peered in, there was a window facing east overlooking the ocean. And there was a cardboard cutout of my mother sitting in a rocker. In my life, she never sat in a rocking chair. It was in that moment I understood how much work I needed to do to heal my relationships. And since Mom was passed, the only way I could do that was to go into my heart to find her, bring her back into life, forgive her, and, most significantly, ask her to forgive me. It always works both ways. 

    How will you discover your purpose? In an inspired moment, I once wrote, “My ship may not have come in, but there’s a whole lotta rowboats bobbing at the pier.” 

    How many chances for change have you been offered in your life? What have you accomplished with them? What will you accomplish with the next offering? This is a good time to think about being on purpose, when so much of the world seems to be random, haphazard and frenetic as it unfolds. Again, I urge you to take some moments to look into your heart. What is it telling you to do? 

    You may have to dial down some other organs to hear it – like a hungry stomach, or a restless brain wanting to check for new text message…I’m here to tell you it will be worth it. 

    Discovering your purpose serves all you do. Trusting the power you find in following that uplevels your life enormously. That “do what you love, the money will follow” really works. What is it you love? What gives you energy instead of taking it? 

    Start where you are. Really, where else is there? There’s always going to be something speaking up in a whine that simply translates down to you can’t get there from here. Yes, you can. You can’t fail if you’re moving forward. You can get lost in discovering what you want most to find, and live there happily ever after. Real life is where the learning is. When you infuse your life with what you believe to be God’s purpose for you, you’ve blended all the right ingredients for satisfaction. 

    Tama Kieves, author of This Time I Dance and Inspired And Unstoppable says: “We are not ridiculous or fragile for believing in love, strength and exhilarating possibilities. It’s not crazy to dedicate ourselves to a life that feels true, empowering, and exciting. It’s just plain crazy not to.” 

    Look deep within for your purpose. Search out the places where it might be hiding. Maybe leave some food near where it lives to coax it into the light. Ask for God’s help. Ask for God’s plan to be made plain to you. And then stay open to the thought that this is just how easy it can be accomplished. Sometimes the tried and true holds nothing new. What you need is that which lights the God-spark up and makes you glow with anticipation, what moves you from the inside, even in a small way because, think about it, just one match can light the fireworks display. 

    When you ask the questions, life will give you the answers. I want to leave now you with a poem by Mark Nepo called “The Appointment” 

    What if, on the first sunny day, / On your way to work, a colorful bird / Sweeps in front of you down a / Street you’ve never heard of. 
    You might pause and smile, / A sweet beginning to your day. 
    Or you might step into that street / And realize there are many ways to work. 
    You might sense the bird knows some / Thing you don’t and wander after. 
    You might hesitate when the bird turns down an alley. / For now there is a tension: is what the bird knows worth being late? 
    You might go another block or two / thinking you can have it both ways. / But soon you arrive at the edge/ of all your plans. 
    The bird circles back for you / and you must decide which / appointment you were / born to keep. 

  • THE BLUE MORNING

    THE BLUE MORNING

    BLUE MORNING

    The rocks will speak should I ask them

    Their voices are decayed & brittle

    Yet will I hear them with my liver.

    Secrets will be exposed

    I shall be the Truth-Bearer

    Only once fooled, & then by a Liar.

    I will uphold the words

    & roll them into a starlit glyphs.

    I will put them on rings all will wear to the wedding,

    Blue for hope: black for knowing.

    And each shall have their own.

    THE TALL-MASTER AT ANCHOR

    Scribes a slow, lazy compass circle

    As  a wake forms at the bow

    While the sun sets up behind the horizon.

    Its light music is humming acceptance.

    I wonder how many times I’ve heard the words

    “If something should happen”
    yet, hasn’t it already?

    Have not the stargates opened

    In hunger, breathing wetly. Haven’t they claimed their last?

    THERE IS A CRONE ON A BEACH CHAIR

    Of green thrift-store canvas with one wonky leg.

    She smells of patchouli & crackling dreams.

    Her eyes unopened, she sees with other senses.

    Does she wait? Then for how long?

    Was she once arrayed in sweet spearmint gossamer

    With sleeves like angel wings

    Lounging,

    Legs slightly apart

    With promise of enclosure?

    Did she sit for so long the whole world

    Grew up around her

    Saplings to trees

    Trees to asphalt

    To ruin

    To grass?

    Did she call her cave into being

    A shelter never needed

    For she could not leave life alone one second.

    I have watched her for decades

    Growing up in the tenement across the park

    My own cycles now ending,

    The time coming soon, to find a thrift & buy a chair.

    THE PERMISSION SLIP

    I remember the consent form

    I signed before coming here.

    I never read the clauses, nor asked for my glasses.

    There was a whole page about encounters

    And other words beginning in “e” for

    entrances, exits, efforts, extrapolates

    Experiences, extortions, extractions …

    Paragraphs fluid & binding

    Words unapologetic, grounded & flying.

    There was a chapter on true love I skipped.

    I signed with a shadow pen, winging in

    On a scream I heard as a prayer.

    THERE’S ALWAYS ONE

    When someone says, “I don’t like poetry.”

    My eyes gleam, my nails sharpen

    For I know I can render their world apart with one word.

    A laugh starts in my belly

    And I must look away

    For I Am Poet from

    Underneath my toes to the last golden glow of my head.

    I pick up my tools & retreat into shadow

    To write them into smoke.

  • An Afternoon of Lifetimes

    An Afternoon of Lifetimes

    I await the Changed World  –

    Where there’s only one road from Here to There

    Where snakes & scorpions line the curbstones

    In teeming array…

    My patience thins, then thickens

    Images adjust to fit that scale

    Crushing endless expanses with

    Scenes from seashore jalousie windows.

    = = = = = =

    Starving Poets

    Are not hungry of growling appetites

    But ravenous for that sigh from another,

    Famishing for a secret smile

    As a poem hooks into that waiting Receptor Cell

    Which did not know a space to be there.

    Oh yes, we feast on saucy words,

    On salted verbs & spiced adjectives,

    But all these come together in the stew:

    An imaginary aroma of what could be rising

    To a thought sprinkled on the simmering pan.

    So all my poems on foodstuffs

    Are cries for only attention

    “Come hear this,” I say,

    “It is nothing you have perceived before

    In this exact & specific manner!”

    I awaken their hungers with stirring mine, so that

    When I reach for the salt

    They swoon to the table.

    = = = = = =

    A Scotswoman

    I will be Scottish my next life,

    Wrapped in Shetland wool.

    A fire will burn in my hearth at all times.

    I will read the runes on boulders, a language

    Known to few: but I will know.

    I will walk the edges afield when I call the sheep to me

    Coming eager to my ululant cries,

    Singing names, we join in bleating harmony.

    I will revel in bald-cold starlight, feeling the chill on my ears & neck

    Re-entering the hut for simmering stew

    Held for heat before sipping from the rim.

    My feet will be knobbed & salted,

    My face rouged with lanolin,

    I would be wrapped to shapeless, but clean beneath the cloth.

    I would wear the aurora borealis for a boa

    The colors awash over worn-gray grey.

    A Queen by Default, ruling

    An island studding the sea.

    = = = = = =

    I am a writer, I tell you!

    Tamped down by folded dollar bills which take no ink

    But much effort to earn!

    My works pickle inside, prickle until out

    Ideas sown in a breath & a glance & watered

    By an appetite profound to remember it all

    By writing it down in my own language.

    I live on words, like bread risen with morning,

    Wrapt in a coarse linen towel, slightly sweated with salt

    To be baked in live fire.

    I am a root vegetable, gnarling beneath the surface

    Longing for the black northern sky

    A gnarled hand pulling me into it

    Laying me down to ply a potion.

  • January Left-Overs

    January Left-Overs

    THEY TELL ME I CHOSE THIS, BUT
    When ministers are malignant narcissists
    The church doors close gently
    Trapping some inside, some out.
    There is proof to me I am not right-minded
    Only left-brained
    With a certainty of being inside out, all seams poorly stitched
    Tags showing content: 100% salt – sweat & tears.
    Force is fashionable now: talk over anyone speaking!
    Wave off impending doom with flickering annoyance!
    Ignorance is for someone younger who thinks the Pow in Power
    Is righteous when delivered to the face.
    I fumble for my paper prayers – a handwrit’ life dodging AI algos…
    In a landscape laced with sorrow, the horizon waits, limned in light
    My God says “there, there, I see only what is love,”
    “Put all this down: I have a new world to give you now!”

    READY, AIM, FIRE
    Never a gunsmith, just a weapons-master of words
    Belief is all I’ve backpacked out of this wilderness.
    Risen from the thorn-bed,
    Tended by midwives
    Packed away in cottonwool & fiberglass
    One breath away from being Sent Back In
    Finding life where I left it last…
    Born behind the barricades of politics & war
    I rise up, bloodied & unbowed.
    I take my fight to the Masters of War
    Hiding all of humanity behind me.
    Every time.

    THE JANUARY CALENDAR

    The January birthdays are no more,

    My sisters gone, my brother too, before his time.

    My mother’s chores forever un-done

    My dad a cipher in the family photos.

    The aunts all dead, the uncles no longer slipping

    This wide-eyed girl a dollar for ice cream.

    I still know so little of Life

    The circle becoming spiral

    Down & down I go.

    Mornings rekindle, afternoons fleet

    The dark lasts forever

    As I dream myself awake

    In its deepest center,

    Finally free of expectations,

    Debt & doubt,

    And calendars.

  • P.S. in Real Time

    P.S. in Real Time

    Today: one more day before last day … 27 of 28.

    Last night’s poetry under the banyan

    by the bay

    against an orange sunset

    murmurs breathed in like fine alterations of ordinary mind

    accepted as a writer so well that this morning’s let-down sent me back to bed

    breakfast in a new place

    with onions in the scramble & peppers

    coffee dark enough to curl my short, straight hair

    so much to savor: shaken awake from early stupor

    watching:

    skinny girls with water bottles tall as their torsos

    the undulant unhoused cycling by, laden like camels, stocking caps pulled over their ears

    listening:

    the conversation of strangers behind me comparing eateries

    all tourists, for the natives keep silent, having heard it all before

    Finishing:

    I glance at the watch I no longer wear

    then at the light outside

    I pick myself up & I go.