constant

for mom on mother's day 2012

Sometimes you're closer to me
A more comforting proximity
Home is nearby

I carry you in here and
The light space around me
Glows brighter then

Often my shadow
Has drifted far
Down wild roads

I become a shadow self
Of my hopes and dares
When the wild takes

Hummingbirds lead me back
To the feeder out the window
From the dining room table

Where we last sat together
Your grace lit the air
All around us

That thought alone
Keeps me chasing
Butterflies and moonlight

Down wild paths
Courage charge
Me like your glow

Hogan

My new home is round
It's made of stone
A black rubber roof
Makes it hot in sun
Keeps leaks out
Not ants
I'm in the Earth
More than on it
Like I'm an ant
In my hill.

Mesa Sunrise

I'm in the habit of waking up early these days. When I do, I put on the same clothing time and again. Whether it's warm enough for the morning or not, I guess I don't care. If the wind is too strong, or the air too cold, I get up and go out the door, and maybe come right back in, or maybe stay out a while. Either way, I'm out the door.

The door is at 8,000ft on the Mesa Verde, at a place called Far View. The Far View Visitor Center is across the street, and the Far View Terrace around the corner. I have a front-walk view of the mesas and canyons of Mesa Verde country. If you've been here, then you may realize the beauty of which I speak. Even as I write this I can turn to see dark green mesas, or gray, if they were fire-struck, lined with golden sandstone rims. Sometimes I get giddy when I realize where I am.

Sunrise happens here right over the La Plata Mountains, from my house northeast, over the lodge, and it comes around 6:30 right now. It's been a special blessing to wake up here this spring.

A Poem for Janine on her Birthday

Looked into the storm this morning
The white gray and the Infinite
Merged and I got that feeling
It's the same as when I saw
The newborn face of each piece
Of God I've ever held, how
My knees buckled from seeing beauty
So deep like the time I snorkled
Beyond the reef, the only time, And I looked
Into the blue face of unfathomable Love
And I tried to stare, a contest
The blue won, and my memory of it
Is infinite like that child.

Bring the Cookies

Looks
Looks can be deceptive. Looking at this picture, one might think there was this much snow covering the ground in our area. The reality has been different, though, outside of Great Bear Ski Valley, in Sioux Falls, SD. The area has seen many sunny days above 32 F. which has melted most of our snow. But, Great Bear is "the little hill that could" when it comes to snow making, hence enough snow remains for us to play.

You may have noticed that my blog writing has greatly slowed. I see at least one main cause, and it has to do with desire. My desire to write has really dropped off, and it shows. The drop-off has led me to ponder it a bit. What's up with the change?

Ego vs Cookies
It's thinking and ego that get in the way of my creativity and desire, and this blog has gotten pretty "thinky", I admit. So what I try to pass as spirituality, and what I claim as my divine birthright, is really just a lot of thinking. It's ego, and it's stuck-ness that come out. It's happening again.

What I desire is true joy in writing and life. So it's just got to be let go. Whatever it is, it's got to be loosed. Let'r buck. It's not mine, anyway. It's God's to give, not mine to control. That's a relief. It's humbling to think God could flow through these hands, but that's the great thing about it. That's what we're called to as Spirits living out a Human experience - bringing Love to the world.

I've tried to take credit for talents given to me, for creativity that is not mine and it's just not right. Surely I have a part to play, and when it comes to creativity, I need to get out of the way and let Love flow through.

It's like the kid who brings mom's cookies to school for her birthday - she is just bringing the cookies Mom made. She knows very well who to thank. I sure do love Mom's cookies, and I think the world could love them, too.

Mesa Verde's Color

October came right on time, but the colors at Mesa Verde National Park were brilliant and long lasting well into the Fall, when it was time for me to leave.

I was headed home on this day and knew what that meant for me. It was a time of joy and sadness. There was very little sadness, however, because of the appreciation I felt to Life for the time I had spent there this year, which was more than 6 months.  It is never just nature that changes in this amount of time on the mesa.

 

My heart changes, I change, each year. I'm grateful to Life.

Celebrating My Re-Birth

Life has a way of catching
The unsuspecting
Passerby on neighborhood walks
We're all just moving through
Rich, homeless
Poor, pretty
Our days catch us all
Money piled high or
Mounting bales of bills
Measure yourself not by
Monuments of man

You are not your pain
Neither circumstances
Or what you leave behind
When you Pass Homeward
To the Place of Memory

You are a Spark of the Eternal
Powered by the One
Come here to Remember
The Powerful Truth

We get to create this place
As we wish, together.