Somewhere......

El Camino de Santiago - image by frescotours.com

Somewhere
on a grassy field
kissed golden

by the falling light
my friends are
still dancing
to the beat
of Mullingar

at sunset.

We are all

sun-kissed,

and joyous-

and as young

as we

will ever be.

This time

I'm dancing too.

Somewhere a peasant

with warm eyes

steps and steps

around the

ancient mountain.

The prayer wheels turn

and all is timeless.

One breath, one breath.

I follow him

in search of

the snow leopard.

Next lifetime,

in Dharamsala!

Somewhere

in a parallel

reality,

a Buddhist

does tai chi

against the

setting sun

one early

summer evening.

We follow him,

in trance,

we follow him.

This time I move

with grace.

Somewhere

it is high

on a hilltop

on Easter morning

and five friends

are meditating

the sunrise up.

Above us,

on the mountain,

there is singing,

like an angel choir.

I lift off.

I see the planet

below

from space.

The veils

between the worlds

lift

long enough

for one

little peek.

And somewhere

-since I'm dreaming now-

my familiar

walks the

sacred pathways of

El Camino de Santiago,

sleeps on stone slabs

and completes

the pilgrimage

in my stead.

We're not done yet.

Now we're floating

across the wide brown plains

of the Serengeti

at sunrise

in a hot air balloon.

Soul journeys?

Dreams? Remembrance

of lifetimes

past or those to come?

Sometimes it is

enough

simply

to dream.

Being of Earth, Being of Sky

Wow - this almost never happens. I was going through some papers and found a poem of mine I dont remember writing and had forgotten all about. I wrote it for my writers' group. Here it is:

January 15, 2007

I am the plodding matriarch,
bowed down under the weight
of my decades,
the weight
of those who need me to carry
burdens they are not up to carrying.

I am the vast and unrestricted being of light,
born in a thousand galaxies,
made up of particles of stardust,
strong with the wisdom of the ages,
and able to bear all burdens.

I am tired with the accumulation
of decades
of unremitting effort
gone largely unnoticed.
My body falters on unsteady legs that collapse under me
when I walk too far.
I need a cane, some days and, some days
could use a scooter :)
I refuse both.
Determinedly, I keep on walking.

I am alive with the energy of the sun,
fanned by the wings of a thousand fairies.
In the light of the morning, I rise and traverse the heavens
like an orb, like a daytime moon,
like a trajectory of shimmering radiance,
a prism refracting
incandescence through the everness of time.

I climb into bed each night grateful for rest.
I climb out each morning
alive with the possibilities of the day.
I keep breathing.
Each breath, each new morning, is a gift
for which
I stay immensely grateful.
The burdens are not the journey,
just the accessories
to the journey.
The journey is the
Keeping On.
The journey is the
Staying Grateful.
The journey is
Being Alive.

The body houses the spirit.
The spirit fuels the body.
The body walks;
the spirit Flies Above.
It flies Beyond.
Spirit knows
where we are going.
Nothing earthbound
can stop its flight
except our refusal
to fly.