Golden Hill

Golden hill,
you sit humbly on my lap,
my lap that is the grassy thigh of the earth,
though my smaller human body
sits here in this blue room,
where i’ve made my table an altar,
where celestite and quartz shine with white sunlight,
i’ve placed two feathers before the window
facing you.

I’ve collected rocks from an
old ancient hill that once spoke
to me of heaven on Earth,
and i’ve placed them on this altar.

I have sage and a green candle,
and a string of seashells that belonged to my mother.
She had these before I dreamed myself into her womb.

My favorite deep blue scarf is
the carpet to the altar.
As i sit here writing,
i am placing all
these objects against the
backdrop of the deep blue sky.
Every white dot of the scarf
is a star staring back at me.

Am i writing traces against the night?
Am i a letter writer to the cosmos?
Are the stars reading what I write?

Looking up out the window,
the celestial clouds and blueness
have been painted by angels of light.
How else could I describe it?
I’ve created this altar for you,
golden hill before me,
resting against the gates of heaven.

I’ve created this altar
for the leaves at the end of their life,
for the brave orangeness of the mountains
how the whiteness of frost kisses cosmic bodies above.

I hope my act of writing is sacred enough,
to be here,
facing you.

I write like I do prayer.
I am here with my pen,
and I am in ceremony.

Rivers of luminescent awe
pour through the top of my head,
I’m bathed in these droplets.
I feel wings sprout from my shoulder-blades,
and they rest against my back,

I feel more like myself like this,
staring out-
my mind is empty for you.

What do my wings mean?
Are they white, copper or gold to you?
They might look white to the clouds,
and gold to you, dear hill.

I wonder if these wings make me an angel,
or even more of a human,
I wonder if there even is a difference,

or am I speaking of the same life form?

My wings spread open.

I try to grasp for new words
with my feathers,
new ways to be in devotion
new ways of prayer through pen,
i am wordless,
yet i think myself a poet.

Maybe I am more of
an ecstatic devotee of you,
life.
Life in a hill before me.

I see all of life in the rocky,
sweet autumn hill before me.

The candle wavers,
and everything else remains
still in my body.

I want to be so silent

I want to be so silent that I can hear every footprint of my heart’s breath.
I want to be so silent that I can feel the subtle change in the dilation of my veins.
I want to be so silent that I can hear my loved one’s breaths from across oceans.
I want to be so silent that I could feel the last burning star at the edge of the night.
I want to be so silent that I can hear the hissing of two atoms entangling light years away from me.
I want to be so silent that black and white no longer feel separate.
I want to be so silent that everything else falls away.
I want to be so silent that I fall in awe with every being I see.
I want to be so silent that I dissolve into a glow.
In this silence, I rest to find nothing more to be,
nothing more to change.
I am everywhere.

So in this silence i sink and I sink deeper, I sink down to the bottom of the ocean, I merge with the inviting sand and we exchange hymns unspoken. In this silence I find the subtle glowing of my heart. I find the subtle magic. I find the mystic aliveness that makes my blood. I taste magic on my tongue. I taste freckled stars on my tongue. I taste a joy of living that requires nothing more than my presence. I need nothing more. I need not accomplish or strive, to prove worth or value. I need not improve or move faster. I am resting, yet my whole Earth body is moving and birthing every moment. I am dynamic. I am still. At this point, in the middle, I dwell. In the space between, is the vastness of my heart. It is silent. It is without logic. It is beyond expectation. It is exquisite in its expression, unimitable. Its own unique dance. However, my voices must quiet and I must hum the tune of silence for its dance to become visible.

I no longer hurry. I no longer breathe heavy. I no longer force. Then suddenly I know, it becomes so clear to me, where my heart is taking me.

Buddha

Half-lit cave, wide open, watery
stalactite eyes,
half-lidded
semi-darkness
soft blutterlamp
glow, the flames exchange
glances like goddesses of
water,
flowing between each
crack of the cave.

A figure sits,
breathing barely,
porous,
as the yellow flickering
light enters the
monk,
and he exhales a
breeze of serenity.
His head dipped in the
lake of stillness.

A secret warmth at
his heart,
keeps the lights lit.
Drip, drip, breathe, drip,
drop, exhale.
His being is one
with the being of the
cave.
As his chest expands,
as if pulled by invisible strings,
so does the cave expand.

He knows he is dwelling
in the ultimate space,
his own mind.
The solidity of hard rocks,
the tender mudras of his
hands,
the golden, half-lit buddha
eyes before him,
the stalagmites dripping,
the echo of his
exhale bouncing off the
wall and returning back to him,
are all his mind.

There is space
and the space does not need
to move,
for it envelopes
all beings and all their hearts.
Sitting right there,
the monk knows this.
Knows that sitting in that
small, cavernous,
hollow space,
he sits on the
warm lap of buddha.

He is united with the
spreading, fluxing net of beings.

Sitting there,
he is feeling all joy,
and all celebrations of all beings
and all their doubts and
confusion.

The space holds all of it,
in a space before
any of it is born.
The space watches
this body age and grow
ill.
None of it must be
changed.

So in that cave,
the monk,
seemingly here,
is actually everywhere.
Seemingly still,
is actually all
movement in the
whole cosmos.
Seemingly dwelling
in nirvana, eternal peace,
is also holding
samsara and confusion
in the palm of his hand.

The monk is not
a monk.

Just a point,
a moment born,
a spark of recognition.
Nothing yet.

Then he opens his
eyes,
the stalactites around
him cry a tear
of compassion.
So does he.

One hand touches the
moist ground.
Earth has witnessed him.
He has witnessed earth.

Shared Breath

The breath is not mine, it is the breath of all beings in past present and future.
Dwelling in pristine awareness, one is never alone because it is the same pristine awareness that animates all beings and things, crystallized in different forms. Dissolving back into pristine awareness, you remember you are actually all beings, permeating through all beings.
The past and future and present are an appearance. What is the present except for a conceptualization from the past? All experience is a conceptualization.

The Hand of creation

This ode is to my hands,
grown from my mother and father,
knuckles like ridges of a faraway
desert, the curves of my top lip,
or the fluxing waves of an ocean,
rising and falling,
like my breath.

My hands are soft,
inscribing change
into the tablet of life.
They turn white paper into
intricate black inkling symbols
teeming with lives’ stories.

My fingers are bridges
into the worlds beyond,
realms living inside my mind.
where a tear drop is a magnifying glass:
a portal to our shared
whispered wishes,
hiding fantasies,
loud ecstasy,
and transparent fears…
quietly dripping down into
our shared well,
the waters of our humanity.

From these channels,
creation germinates out of fertile soil,
whistling over canvas,
leaving her fingerprints,
traces of color
permeating our life.

The lines in the palm of my hand
intersect, meet and split off
like the infinite paths of this life.

My hands are a soft pillow,
they breathe in your joys,
your stories, and little habits,
and gently weaving them into bundles of
writing or painting.

My hands are alchemizers
that turn the sweet entropy
into orderly chaos,
into a frozen image of impermanence,
a scripture,
a canvas,
a dance.

These hands are offerings,
tinkering with mind
to create new ways we can
share this fleeting life
by refracting its own reflections
in the mirror of awareness.

The Eternal Mother

The mother is the
eternal role,
the eternal carer.

She arrives,
because she never left.
She sits before you,
glowing, green like a sun kissed
meadow,
warm like the refuge of
a bonfire in a winter night,
a guiding light in the dark,
like the bright full moon.

Before you, she sits,
and you know that you have
found refuge from everything,
from the pain of being alive,
your tired muscles can stop running.
You have arrived to destination.
Life doesn’t need to be lived in exhaust.

You do not need to do anything,
or be anything,
to prove worthy of her love.
You simply are here,
and she is too,
and that is enough.

You are safe.

She is the air all around you.
You breathe the mother in,
she knows your airways,
she knows what to fill with forgiveness,
where to whisper, “It’s okay,
My darling,” she will say,
again and again.

She braids your hair
because she loves the feeling
of your silk against her fingertips,
and not because you asked so.
Nothing is taken or given
or exchanged.
Love just exists.
The way you just exist.
The way she just exists.
All is a naturally arising occurrence.

Surrender.

We are Storytellers

We’re perched on a big slanted rock,
like two sitting ravens
resting after a long flight.
The river before us
does her river-ing,
as a gentle water maiden.
Wearing her soft hair
into cascade braids.
We share the bread of
our sorrows,
it feels good to voice it out
and have ourselves be witnessed that way,
to know our wings are
embracing each other’s bodies.

We trace the skin of our
lives and try connecting
veins to moles,
finding roadmaps and routes
that will somehow tell us
what the pains and joys
have been worth, in this life so far.

In the silences where
I press my scarf closer to
my body,
I know the answer can’t be
found in the symbols or words
that somehow in this moment
sitting next to my friend,
there is a vast peace
and union that is here
and that is all,
and that we can’t say a thing about,
because it is a vastness
beyond mind, a peace beyond mind,
a joy the body does not create,
a love that doesn’t come about in the spaces
in between.

And it is, but it is not.

We twirl around it
and in it:
a cosmic soup,
where all materials that
make us up are ours and not ours,
we are exchanging bodies and cells and air and water
every moment,
we are one same stuff.

And our lives are so deeply personal,
yet not,
so completely impersonal and open
to read on the storybook
of the Cosmos.

So we are left wondering,
chirping about our
indeterminate purpose and destiny
just because,
there is comfort in shared
storytelling of our sacred journey.

So that’s what we do,
perched on this big rock,
we storytell,
and the world listens avidly.

Stretching Moments

Moments stretch
these days.
I untangle the joints
of my body.
they pop & float into
separate individual bubbles
into the fragile space around me.

Silence
is a hand that
bends time into a
circle,
then into spirals
that feed into each
other.

if in this
empty room
I were to speak,
the walls would imitate my
voice, bounce back
clockwise,
feet tap-dancing in
triplets.
I may only
hear my own breath
and see my own limbs
sitting cross-legged.

But if I look outside,
I know
the sun tomorrow morning
will erupt into my room,
and it will be the same sun that
washes over every other
beating heart.

The same way
we all share the same
breath,
animating all our
bodies.
We all may keep loving
and writing of love,
for such substance
escapes the loop
of distance
like the breeze
of the stars’ gaze
settling
between
the cracks of dawn
a hidden, soft,
invisible power.
Today we may not be
moving anywhere,
but were we ever?
Aren’t we always here and
running back here?
Returning always to this?

Our shared bodies
are grass blades sprouting
from one ground.
Our roots all
return to
and emerge from
the same womb.
So in this beautiful
erasure of sound and
movement,
I sink deeper into
our nature,
I polish my glasses,
listen to my heart
thump and cry
for my attention so I
hold it,
listen to it.
the way a mother
holds her baby,
the way she may offer
anything
to keep her warm from the
cold outside.

the invisible heartstrings that
tie us together form
a prism that
refracts and dances before me,
its light,
enveloping
all beings,
and I am in it,
you are in it.
all movement in the ecosystem
the organic cosmos,
the sacred narrative.

so sitting here,
I remember I am sitting
with all of humanity,
juggling the 3 wheels of time.
past
present
future.
it does not matter
because
we can’t help but
all experience the
same moment,
always,
together,
right now.
and right now
and right now.

So I look at the
palm of my hand,
the lines inscribed from birth,
and see the strength in time.
Time cannot help
but dance and carry
all of us on her back,
and her gentle humming
voice is a sweet
lullaby of surrender.
Surrender to where she might
take us.
Surrender to whether we sleep
tonight or not,
whether we cry our hearts out
or hold grief,
despair,
hopelessness,
surrender to times where we
are pure joy, celebration, sharing too.
Surrender to the gentle throbbing
of our longing,
to our not knowing,
to how we arrive
at this moment,
just as we are.

So you hold time
in the palm of your hand now.
You may wish to alchemize it,
transform it into anything…
Anything you surrender to,
may be transformed.

Have Patience

Have patience,
let the laundry dry.

If it rains while
the clothes are out, that meant
they needed a second washing.

If you thought
you had more eggs to give, but your head
hits the rugged bottom
of your empty basket:
it’s okay
to step back,
to return to that sweet cave of yours.

To take off
your socks after a long day,
to feed wood
to the dying fire,
to place warm cloth
over your forehead
and soft mint
over your eyes,
to submerge your whole
earth body
into a bath of elderflowers.

Rest your head
unto the petals of a sunflower,
let the golden satin
whisper you
the secret path of healing.

In the waters of warmth,
let your tender fingers trace
the dotted lines over your heart,
the stitches of salt and wounds.

Listen to the songs
of forgiveness
written on your skin
since birthless birth.

Reclaim your gentleness.

Look at a tree,
as it gives itself up
to the blowing earth.

Look at the daisy,
as it gives itself up
to the bee’s kiss.

Look at the soil,
as it gives itself up
to the rain.

Look at the sun as it gives itself up
to the moon’s dew.

Look at the seagulls as they
give themselves up
to the sea’s cries and hiccups.
And remember
that you are to do the same.

If only, my dear,
you would stop
your exhaust engine,
look after your
skin burns and scabs.
You forget you’re bleeding
while you try to be a
doctor to others.

So, dear,
stop.
Tend an ear
to your breathing body,
and feel every crevice
that seeks your love.
Understand what it has to tell you,
tend to it.

The moment is a star, can you catch it?

You arrive
to each moment
but you’re always late
for it.

You see it,
what you see are solely
its remains,
like the dust after the
death of a star,
traces of a lover gone in
early morning,
echoes dispersed like
dandelion fur,
the spark of each moment
is an explosive birth
and the eye-mind
can only trace the outline
of the explosion
like coffee stains on a letter,
and thus we decode
the moment, through the shadow
it has left us,
with our lumpy, slumpy
mind.

But,
if one for once,
shoots off from
beneath the blanket of thoughts,
abandoning the mind rocket,
now naked floating
in space, prickly skin from
atmospheric ice of the undefined,
unaltered.
Swim in stripped-naked
pure awareness.
Drift
and you may land on
each moment,
firmly
with both bare feet,
clear vision and all,
no clunky mind armor.

Just you,
breathing,
without papers of the past
or packed luggage future,
just you,
slightly shivering,
here,
and for the first time,
you may witness the moment
as you dwell in the
center of the star
before it explodes
into bits of the past,
and then, light as you are,
you may hop on to the
next one.

Fully present,
engulfed at center,
no longer begging
for the remains of
a dead star.