Prayer Beads

[image from google]

Small baby clouds
scattered across the heavens,
golden, smiling Buddha-sun
climbing up over the mountain -
even the traffic has fallen silent,
the better to appreciate
the loveliness of the morning,
as summer slowly tiptoes away.

I put on this day
like a prayer shawl,
and count my beads
of gratitude.

So Beautiful, Then

[for the Real Toads prompt: Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt]

From the moment

I moved there,

till the moment

I left,

every moment,

every hour,

every day,

in every weather,

everywhere I looked,

everything was beautiful,

and nothing hurt.

Winter Beach~Solstice

Here is my beloved Chestermans Beach, in snow. That is Lone Cone in the background, on Meares Island, right across the harbour from the village centre. The winter I lived on the beach, my wooden cabin was just to the right, behind the dunes.

I stepped out every morning onto a beach which changed, in color, in sand formations sculpted by the tide, and in mood, so that no two times on the beach were ever the same. Beautiful always, and always something new to see.

I would look up and down the beach. Sometimes I would turn slooooooowly in a circle, viewing beauty for 360 degrees, with a smile of total joy and sustained disbelief that I was actually, finally, there. For ten years, I felt that joy, every single day. It never got old. I never took it for granted. It amazed me, hourly, and daily, until the day I left.

Snow was a rarity there, then. It would sometimes sprinkle down and stay for a few hours, then melt away.The climate was so mild, Tofino was often the "hot spot" of Canada on the evening news. Some days the rains lashed the cabin walls wildly. When forced to be out in it, rain slickers and rubber boots were absolutely vital; we walked bent over against the wind and rain, stamped into the Common Loaf bake shop, all heads looking up to see who entered, half a dozen smiles to greet you.

But some days were mild and warm.  I remember especially one sunny New Year's Day, my first one there, when I took my camera and wandered the beaches at Wickanninish and South Beach, dressed only in a sweatshirt and jeans, and more than warm enough.

Another time, at South Beach, I was there in storm, the waves roaring in sounding like jet planes, crashing against the huge standing rocks, and breaking over them with white froth.

Now everyone's climates are changing, everywhere. This is a colder winter than we are used to on the Island, but still a very far cry from the temperatures of the Prairies or the East, who are really getting hammered this year. I am grateful the ocean keeps our temperatures more moderate.

It was a spectacularly beautiful place. The village itself drew creative and alternative folk, so I was among my people there - painters, sculptors, writers, environmentalists, activists, photographers, musicians. First Nations and mumuklees (white people) shared the area amicably, in friendship. When you live right in nature like that, you truly feel as one with the universe and all of its creatures and components, the huge eco-system that sustains everything.

I remember one Winter Solstice, my first, attending a gathering where we faced the Four Directions and people spoke beautifully poetic prayers to the elements, and to the North, East, South and West Winds. Then a fire was lit and people jumped across the flames, to cross over. I was too shy, too afraid and likely too un-limber to jump. But I loved being there.

That Spring Solstice, I was one of a handful who gathered before dawn on Frank's Island, across the sandbar from my cabin. One fellow was putting the finishing touches on drawing a labyrinth in the sand for us to follow. A friend of mine came across the beach with her small son, carrying a paper torch, lit and glowing through the pre-dawn darkness. As we completed walking the labyrinth, as dawn was slowly filtering light across the sky, the tide was coming up and across our feet. We had to hurry before the water rose too high. We just made it across.

Sigh. The word "Solstice" takes me back to Tofino as that is what everyone observed there. It was out of the mainstream, away from the commercial frenzy of city Decembers. There, folks would gather some time around Christmas, and have a potluck. At some point, someone might bring in a branch of evergreen for the scent and, some hours later, take it back outside.

I so loved living there. My soul was absolutely in synch with that place. It was a beautiful ten years.

Beautiful Beyond Words

[photo by Gregory Colbert]

Kids, this morning my friend Ninotaziz over at http://poemsbyninotaziz.blogspot.com/
sent me a link to the most beautiful art work I have ever seen in my life, Gregory Colbert's Ashes and Snow, a series of film clips of dancers dancing with elephants, with a manatee and with leopards.

The visions are mesmerizing and literally stop your breath, with what is possible in this world. I had not heard of Gregory Colbert until now, and then suddenly I have come across him a few times. He was born in Toronto in 1960. Ashes and Snow is his exploration of the relationship possible between man and animals. It is breathtaking.

This morning's gift is beyond words - so much beauty, the senses are overwhelmed. I was left feeling filled with beauty and light. There is hope for mankind after all, when we can create so much beauty in place of all the darkness. The beasts know, with their ancient wisdom. They know how to live to the rhythm of the pulse of the Earth Mother. They are waiting for us to join them there, in harmony.

The dance with the elephants made me think of a beautiful little book that made me weep: Elephant Winter by Kim Echlon, about a young pregnant woman who winters in a barn with a herd of elephants, and comes to understand the sounds they make to communicate with each other.

It made me think of the man on the east coast of Vancouver Island, who immerses himself in the ocean and plays a home-made musical instrument that echoes over miles. When he plays, the orcas come, and they sometimes "jam" with him, repeating and even creating riffs on the notes he plays.

I thought of Luna, the orca who befriended the people of Telegraph Cove, up-Island, who visited with folks at the docks. And who died when she was slashed by the blades of a boat motor who must not have seen her in the bay.

If you click on this link, I promise you heart-stopping beauty and inspiration. What a gift this artist has given the world.

http://poemsbyninotaziz.blogspot.com/2010/12/inspirational-gregory-colbert.html

A Day Trip to Kashmir

This is Dal Lake, the "Jewel of Kashmir" ~ image from sankalpindia.net


My thoughts are in Kashmir right now, having newly "discovered" it through a poet friend. I have found some lovely photos on-line. It is described as Paradise on earth, and I can definitely see why. It is also said that Kashmir "sits in the lap of the gods".

I have pored through a few books of translated writings of the Bengali poet RabindrinathTagore, (1861 to 1941), looking for  poems or quotations to accompany these photos. Furthering my mini-education, I read that Tagore, the first non-European to win the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature, was already writing poems at the age of eight, and was published at age sixteen. He was a renaissance man, a musician, artist, novelist, poet, and playwright.

I am enjoying a cup of Bengal spice tea, while we journey, to get in a properly receptive mood. Please do join me in a cup:) Get ready - our boat is about to cast off.  I hope you enjoy our little day-trip of the imagination to another land!

image from sankalpindia.net

The Stars Look On

The day will come

when the sight of this earth will be lost

I will take my leave in silence

as the stars look on

I know the sun will rise again

The hours will still bring pleasure and pain

in heaving waves

When I think of the end, time crumbles

I see by the light of death

that the lowliest existence is rare

and the worst moments are precious

What I longed for will be set aside

The things I pursued in vain -

Let them pass

Let me turn

to things I overlooked

and carelessly threw away

to possess them truly until they are mine

As the stars look on.

image from sankalpindia.net

(Okay, I really want a ride in this boat!!)
Stray Birds 126

Not hammer-strokes, but dance of the water
sings the pebbles into perfection.

image from wanderingeducators.com

Stray Birds 77

Every child comes with the message
that God is not yet discouraged of man.

(Isn't that the truth!)

image from sankalpindia.net

Incarnation

I thought the journey was over

when my powers came to an end.

The path before me was closed,

the provisions were exhausted

and the time had come to take shelter

in some small dark corner.

But your will knows no end in me.

When the old song dies on the tongue,

a new one springs forth from the heart

and where the old tracks have been swept away

a new country is revealed in all its wonder.

Priceless

The coin of life is stamped with death

so that what we buy will be truly precious.

image from sankalpindia.net

Nostalgia

I was homesick today

for one sweet hour

across the sea of time.

Stray Birds 116

The earth hums to me today in the sun,

like a woman at her spinning,

some ballad of the ancient time

in a forgotten tongue.

Stray Birds 272

I came to your shore a stranger,

I lived in your house as a guest,

I leave your door as a friend, my earth.

Giving

Life is given to us

then we earn it

by giving it back.

Blossom

Tears are no shame.

It is the tears of the earth

that keep her flowers blooming.

Hari Parbat at night image from koausa.org


If you weep because the sun has gone out
Your tears may blind you to the stars.

Stray Birds 10

Sorrow is hushed into peace in my heart
like the evening among the silent trees.

No trip to Kashmir would be complete without visiting a few of its temples:

This is Avantipur Temple ~ image from koausa.org


What Will You Give?

What will you give
when death knocks at your door?

The fullness of my life -
the sweet wine of autumn days
and summer nights,
my little hoard
gleaned through the years,
and hours rich with living.

These will be my gift
when death knocks at my door.

Immortality

The stars are not afraid
to flicker out like fireflies.
And you?

Konark Temple ~ image from wikipedia.org


Troubadour

My songs did it all.
They made me seek you
from door to door
and with them I felt my way
searching and touching
this world.

They taught me
all the lessons I ever learned
They showed me secret paths
and faint stars on the horizon
of my heart.

Every day they took me
into the mysteries
of pleasure and pain
until they got me here
in the evening of my journey
to the gates of the unknown palace.

Pandrethan Temple ~ image from indianetzone.com


Gift

Whatever gifts are
in my power to give you,
be they flowers,
be they gems for your neck,
how can they please you
if in time they must surely wither,
crack,
lose lustre?
All that my hands
can place in yours
will slip through your fingers
and fall forgotten to the dust
to turn into dust.

Rather, when you have leisure,
wander idly through my garden
in spring
and let an unknown
hidden flower's scent startle you
into sudden wondering -
Let that displaced moment
be my gift.
Or if, as you peer your way
down a shady avenue,
suddenly, spilled
from the thick gathered tresses
of evening
a single shivering fleck
of sunset-light stops you,
turns your daydreams to gold,
let that light be an innocent
Gift.

Truest treasure is fleeting;
it sparkles for a moment, then goes.
It does not tell its name; its tune
stops us in our tracks,
its dance disappears
at the toss of an anklet.
I know no way to it -
no hand, nor word can reach it.
Friend, whatever you take of it,
on your own
without asking, without knowing, 
let that
be yours.
Anything I can
give you is trifling-
be it a flower, or a song.

Okay, kids, time to hop out of the boat and return to Boring Old Home, wherever it may be! Sigh. But wasn't it a lovely day?

Warrior Hearts

image from emoda.com

She was born
with a gentle nature
and a tenacious spirit,
which would
come in handy
down the road.

She and her mother
were born
of the Celtic mist,
the turbulent tide
and the
hope of the
morning star.
They came,
blood and bone,
from a long line
of Irish crones.

Stoicism
was bred
in their marrow.
This, too,
would prove
helpful.

They shared
hearts full of dreams,
lives of disappointment
and, fortunately,
a wicked cackle.

When she was
fourteen,
the worst thing
that can happen
to a girl-child
happened.

There followed
bad and
painful times,
and despair.
Somehow,
she hung on.

With the force
of her will,
her mother
kept her
tethered
to the planet,
and
would not
let go.

When she was
barely seventeen,
she had a girl-child,
one more elfin
Celtic woman-
in-the-making.
And for this child
she turned her life
towards hope.

More pain
would follow,
for more pain
always follows.

Like her mother's,
her marriage
was oppressive.
Like her mother,
her spirit 
rose from
that oppression
and cast
those bindings
definitively 
Off.

Oh, how
her spirit rose!
Like the sunrise
over a peaceful 
inlet mountain,
fiery red
and glowing,
so bright it hurt
one's eyes,
did it arise.

But life
as a single mother
is no picnic.
She had watched
her mother
do it.
She had lived it
as a child.
Now here
it was again,
all pain and struggle
and trying
so hard to
keep on
keeping on.

Times of despair,
of hopelessness,
the too-much-ness
of every single thing,
trying to find
a storybook ending,
finding instead
the Rocky Horror Show
of Real Life.

And then
this girl
got on
the healing path.

Courageously,
she went to
the scariest place:
within.
She peeled away
the layers
of muck and shame,
as her forebears
once dug
in the earth
to find the
potatoes
that kept
their souls alive
through
years
of famine.

In that deep earth,
she found treasures
that had lain
buried within
for decades,
gone all unnoticed.

She strung them out,
in wonder,
all pretty and twinkling
and feeling
just right
in the hand:
her heart's jewels,
her own worth,
the worth that was
always there,
belatedly discovered.

After so much pain,
it takes forty years,
give or take,
to finally believe.

Now she believes.

She has claimed
her voice
and uses it
to state her truths
respectfully.

She takes no shit
from any single body.
This is her time now.

She has arisen,
and, baby,
you better
keep your
sunglasses on,
that's just
how bright
things are
about
to get!

Instead of the
scarcity
in her
fridge
and wallet,
she chooses
to see
the abundance
of the All That Is.

She is grateful
to be alive
and on the planet.

She stopped
dreaming
of those misleading
fairy tales
and started living
her very own
Reality TV Show For One,
and what a show!

Her life is
far from easy,
but her
radiance
is dazzling.

Her mother
has watched
all this
with pride,
her daughter's
warrior heart
coming into
the light of day
and claiming
its passage.

This fellow warrior
was walking
in her footsteps,
following markers
she had herself
laid down
to point
the way.

They exchange nods
of deep respect
and recognition.
They are both
Warrior Women
on the path.

Now the girl
flings
a long scarf
round her neck
jauntily,
and pulls her
combat boots on.
She is heading
out the door,
looking for
the day's
fine adventure.

Her beauty
turns heads
wherever she goes.
But what stays
with you
is her kindness,
her respectful manner,
her compassionate heart
for the most broken
among us,
her seeing of
the downtrodden,
the bypassed,
and their worth
as human beings.
It is her
inner light
-that she has
always had-
that truly
shines.

BECAUSE I BELIEVE IN LIFE

Wickanninish Beach, Vancouver Island

[posted for the Poetry Pantry

at Poets United]

written August 22, 1998

Yesterday my sister

called me up
to say they were

dropping bombs

on Afghanistan:
peasants bombarded

under a morning sky
another slice of

toxic political pie

Instead of turning

on the news
I walked the beach -
dogs frolicked in the waves

with loopy grins,
as another radiant

west coast day begins
All we can do is send out

love and light,
no limit to how far
our love can reach

A young woman,

huddled under quilts,
says her life "sucks"
while outside

her bedroom door
a little miracle
with jam on his face
needs to know

the world's
a happy place
A child of hope
striving to survive
his mother's pain
living childhood days

of fleeting grace
that will never

come again,
waits for her

to look outward and see
we are all part

of the glorious mystery
life unfolding
when we stop withholding

This morning I read

a polar ice cap
the size of Connecticut

is slowly breaking
and when it does,
whether three years

or five hundred

in the making,
the sea will rise up

in a single night
sweeping the coast away
that's what they say

But all we ever have
is this one day
to be grateful

for each moon
each morning star,
each song that opens doors
to who we are -
we all travel so far
to find that place

of love within
where we finally begin
to know we're not alone
and let love guide

our footsteps
on the journey home

My friend is dreaming

of babies
a little soul is asking

to come through -
she wonders

how can she bring a child
all sweet and new
into a world

so helter-skelter,
so askew

Because I believe in life
and life believes in life
I say -
we open our eyes

to miracles
every day,
are only asked

to give back

what we can
along the way

This afternoon
a young couple

playing music
in the summer sun
set all our toes

a-tapping to the beat -
gracefully, two women

started dancing
on the village street
We all were smiling
because life is fun
These are the moments
when we most feel
as one
each bringing gift's

to the universe's table
as we are able

We all want life
our souls all long
to fly
we bring our babies
into a world
of starshine
and blue sky
of song and wonder
rainbows
love and laughter
and they will thank us after
for giving them the chance
to love and live
to share the joys we know,
give our souls
the chance to grow
while teaching us how much
we have
to give

No matter what

is happening
everywhere
life holds
a million gifts
we still
can share
as simple
as the sun warm

on our faces,
as profound as love
found in

the most unlikely places -
love enough
to plunge our souls in,
fill ourselves right up
with plenty spilling over
to fill our children's cup

Oh how they teach us,
as we share each day,
that the love

that makes us happiest
is the love we give away
In them is our re-birth -
we send them forth
with love too deep to say
trusting that

the beauty of the earth
will carry them
the rest of the way

God's Paintbrush

The middle of the Rocky Mountains - Jon Merk photo

This could be a painting

by Cezanne:

the layers of light,

the colors of the sky,

clouds painted on the water

by a heavenly Artist's

hand;

Or a landscape by Monet,

images softening and blurring

in the corner of the eye:

a perfection of beauty

lighting up

the land.

The light is something

out of

Dali's dreams.

And if you rounded

the soft lines enough,

where the mountain's edge

is rough and clear,

it seems

Van Gogh himself

might even

feel welcome

here.

I am no artist

but when I view

the shape and color

of this

sky,

see the clouds

swimming in the lake,

the mountain

reaching high,

there is

so much beauty

ablaze that

even I

can surmise

what God

must have felt,

feel all

He must have

wished,

the day He

put down His

paintbrush,

after painting

this.

OBELISK MOON

Obelisk moon,
suspended in the sky
like a seven-months
pregnant woman
gliding by,
four times I sailed
proud and serene,
like you,
small voyagers
aswim in a sea of dreams
all safe within.
I tacked and drifted
set the mainsail fast
those sunny days
we thought would
for forever last

How I dreamed
such simple dreams
of happiness:
the future such
a whole and shining thing
life's songs
all waiting there
for them to sing
joyously
like laughing lovers
in the sun
and be happier than I
when I was young

Now one son laughs
and lives his life
and one son weeps
in a maze from which
he cannot find his way
One daughter struggles
but goes on,
one daughter sweeps
from depth to wave-peak
in a single day
four small precarious passengers
hanging on
without the chance to choose
to a mother
they are so afraid
to lose

And I?
My heart still sails
through seas sublime
my compass pointed firmly
towards a hope
that I would keep
but all the time
a nightwatchman
lives on board
who never sleeps
and I wait
for that call
that knock in the night
to sound again
that is my world
come crashing down
in pain

My heart lives now
four other hearts inside,
their journeys become
my journey
and it is a bumpy ride

32 mother's days
sailing by so fast
on this sea of hope
where nothing ever lasts
days of unbearable beauty
unbearable sorrow
the best gift:
my children,
all alive
tomorrow.

MANDARIN MOON

I awake in the deep dark

of the night

to see

a huge round

full-faced moon

staring in

at me

as if it had zoomed close

with my eyes closed,

I catching it

unawares

before it rose.

There she sat,

perched in the bowl

of my old tree,

like an over-sized

Christmas ornament

thus adorning

just for me

the starkly bare

and brittle branches and,

much more,

allowing me to see

its beauty

closer

than I ever have

before.

I stare back:

eternal purveyor

of myth and mystery,

as if it holds the secret

of whatever is to be

and has ventured thus

to urge me forth

from out

my purple bed,

to find a path

where all my

broken dreams

can be

much better fed.

This radiant

so-close moon

and I agree:

surrender to no man,

and yet,

in giving

I'm most free.

This silvery ambassador

is urging me

to find a way

to give

all that I can -

Mandarin Midnight Moon

that sailed here

last night

from Japan.

This Living Planet

Sproat Lake in February ~Lori Kerr photo

[Tonight a haze has covered half of the province, from the forest fires burning in Lillooet. Sunset will be a red fiery orb again, seen through the sm0ky haze. Everywhere, creatures are panting in the heat. Astoundingly, in this same province, trees are still coming down, as fast as mechanically possible, the lungs of our planet rolling out in logging trucks. The tundra is melting, the ocean is hotting up, glaciers are crashing into the sea. The Talking Heads may order a few new "studies" about What To Do; that should buy some more time. Argh.]


Mother Earth,
I hear what you're trying
to tell us.
So quietly, and with a mother's pain,
you watch as we make our foolish choices,
knowing we will do what we will do
until we come to a place of knowing
and begin to understand
the dream you wish
that we already
knew.

We take from you endlessly,
like human children from a human mother,
only rarely acknowledging
the precious gifts you give,
that we treat so heedlessly.
And what do we give back?
Your bare hillsides
weeping giant tears,
as we render plain
the proud beauty you once knew.
What is left is honesty and pain
and scars from the lances
with which we pierced you
through.

Under the crest of a wave
just breaking
a whale is diving deep, deep.
It is chasing memories of freedom
and its dive is wild and joyous
even while its soul is
aching.

The eagle's eyes pierce us through
with half-remembered truths
that we once knew;
from our half-sleep
of half-knowing
what is true,
we need only open
our weary eyes
to waken.
Mother,
the biggest truths
are always the simple ones:
we are one family
and this living planet
is our home.
I feel your pain
as you watch your children
stumbling
carelessly scattering
gifts so rare
that we wont share.
On the wind,
I hear you breathe
a mother's prayer.
It, too, is simple. Just
"Take care. Take care."

SONG OF THE FROGS

Port Albion, 1999

Song of the frogs
in the fading light
soft fade the hills
in the falling night
God touching earth
with a gentle might
and all is beauty
within my sight

soft falls the light
on garden walls
a rose-hued mountain
as day's curtain falls
a froggy symphony
serenades the night sky
and grateful, grateful, grateful
I.

A SENSE OF WONDER

Me on the Tall Tree Trail in my glory days :)

The blue sky has gotten me through a lot of hard times in my life. I remember my mother asking how I could handle it, right after Stephanie's father burned down my store on the ocean, taking off once he found out there was no insurance money. ("I took you for everything you had," he told me, departing.) "You've just lost everything you had in the world," Mom said. And I replied, "But we're still all alive, and there's still sunshine and trees and blue sky. All the things that mean the most to me are free."

I have started over from scratch many times in my life. It almost feels like each decade was a completely separate lifetime. Except for the sense of wonder that accompanied me through each decade.

I remember sitting with my grandmother at the end of her life, when she was mourning all that was no longer in her life. Looking up at the dark trees, breathing in the scent of the forest, I felt a grateful connection with earth and sky. Grandma watched me wistfully, then said, "You have great joy in being alive, dont you?"

It is with a sense of wonder that I have walked through my life, and this has been one of life's great gifts to me: that even in the most painful moments, my heart has still lifted at the sight of trees poking through wisps of fog on mountainsides, at the way clouds look against a backdrop of blue sky.

It all seems such an incredible gift, that the earth should be so beautiful. That there are canyons of red clay, towering blue peaks topped with white, forests full of magical peace, and always the murmuring sursurration of the sea.

It was to the shore I went the night my son was diagnosed with schizophrenia. (More about him soon. He is the one now battling cancer - life is not very fair.) The rhythmic sound of the waves calmed me, reminded me of trust, spoke to me of his and my connection to something much greater than our little lives, reminding me that, even in times of difficulty, just being alive is a gift. In the tidepools at my feet, in small universes full of life, tiny critters were as intent upon fulfilling their destinies as I was mine.

Life brings us pain, but it also teaches us that whatever life sends us, we can handle. (Do we have any choice? Only in how we respond to challenges.) Especially if we believe something larger than what seems to be happening is really going on. "There is a larger landscape than the one we see." (author unknown). Along with the pain, life brings us so many moments of wonder, so many minor miracles.

When overwhelmed with grief, one's instinct is to shut down from pain that feels too intense to be borne. But in protecting ourselves from pain, we prevent ourselves from also fully experiencing joy.

It is in opening up to the whole of life: the joy and the pain, the difficulty and the wonder, that we live and grow. I finally learned that, when pain comes, I must push my way through it and out the other side, trusting it is part of the process, part of going forward, meeting life with the best one can muster. My work now is to be as perfectly present as I can be, to open myself to whatever work the universe has yet in store for me. J.C.Lucas, our West Coast First Nations medicine man, once told me, "Your greatest pain is your strongest medicine," and it is true. When we say yes to the whole of life, we begin to see a myriad of miracles strewn along our everyday path.

It seems as deeply as we sometimes sink in sorrow, just as high may we also rise in wonder. When we learn to trust the universe, and ourselves, to know something a lot bigger than ourselves is in charge, to surrender, to let go and to flow, our eyes open to the little gifts: herons picky-toeing along the mudflats, eagles perching regally atop scraggy branches, friendly ancient tree trunks breathing peace through layers of moss, crimson sunrises, and always always the sky like a backdrop, a protective cover, a canvas across which cloud shapes more perfect than paintings roll serenely by. In the midst of pain and struggle, hardship and difficulty, moments of grace lift the heart,connect us with all that is, remind us to raise our perspective to encompass the big picture, and to merge with the whole grand scheme of things, rejoicing that we are alive in this moment in time, able to breathe and fully savor the wonder of opening our eyes one more morning to the beauty of a brand new day.

Life is a journey fraught with many tears, but the reward for it all is wonder: when I stood on Radar Hill one early springtime morning, I could see heartbreaking beauty for 360 degrees around me, the perfect and utter beauty of the natural world. I thought of all that was going on below: humans creating havoc for other humans and for the planet. My heart aches for humankind, even while it lifts at the sight of sunlight consecrating trees, and birds wheely freely over shining waters.

Once I learned to trust, to listen and to really see, life became such a magical journey that I now believe, whatever pain still comes, my solace and support and joy will always be nearby, in the natural world that brings gifts each day to those who know how to receive them, and in connection to the spirit world, that is as equally all around us and within us.

I walk each day in gratitude for the gift of being alive, in acceptance and in peace, because I trust there is something leading me the way I'm supposed to go. My heart is humbly grateful to have reached this part of the journey, so open to the wonder, the incredible beauty and blessings I am surrounded by every day.

I feel my spirit rising to meet life, all of it, the joy and the pain, human frailty and heroism, peoples' hearts reaching out, hungry for simple kindness and goodness. I find myself wanting to applaud the courage of those who keep on striving to find their way, as I did, through the darkness and closer to the light. I want to tell them: "you're almost there - the other side of that coin of pain is incredible joy. It is waiting for you, up ahead."

My prayers are almost all prayers of gratitude now, for having come this far in finding peace. I love the fresh hopefulness of each new day breaking, all fresh-smelling. I cant see over the mountain range that separates me from the wild shores I love, but in my memory I see crimson dawn rising over the inlet, love the sight of windswept sandy beaches which each morning bear different patterns from the waves of the night before. I remember my feet fairly dancing as I stepped out onto them to walk to the rhythm of the waves.

It is enough and more than enough to fill my heart to the brim, riches beyond measure, free for the taking. And I feel myself, not falling, but rising in love.

FLAWLESS MAGICIAN

july 14, 2002

twenty thousand

four hundred and fifty days

upon this earth

have I

gazed up

in unceasing wonder

at the

fascinating

Sky,

each morning opening

my eyes upon

a brand new canvas

lit up by the dawn,

ready for

brush strokes

by a Master Artist's hand,

in hourly transformations

bright and clear

across the land.

I look away, look back

and all has changed.

Unseen, the canvas

has been

rearranged,

like a flawless magician

whose magic is

too pure to understand,

our eyes drink in

the beauty

and applaud

the sleight of hand.

No two canvasses alike,

each one supremely

without flaw,

an ever-changing

masterpiece

created there

by God.