Warm Winter's Light

Sunshine and warmth in winter.
How truly wonderful this alternate environment is.
Delicious in its tastes of sun-tea, 
brown-sugar soil, 
blue-corn skies 
and rays of golden sun warming my exposed toes.
I love not wearing any shoes ... 
this is the place to do it nearly year-round!


The concrete walls surround me in the back yard, 
as they delineate yards everywhere,
yet I see the open sky, 
hear the birds, 
watch the mesquite that hangs 
gently moving over our border, 
a bee hurries by intently, 
and I adjust to the beautiful starkness here 
so different from our former home in Maine--
surroundings even in dramatic contrast 
to the vegetation and landscape of nearby Tucson.


When walking down the long paved road yesterday with the dogs, 
who trotted along on their short legs 
sniffing the air and watching everything in rapt fascination, 
I recalled words spoken before we moved here-- 
saying how I liked Nature to be all around on my walks, 
and then arriving to realize the seeming emptiness 
of this location divested of the abundance of Nature. 
Yet not really. The dogs know more...
What is "nature" after all? 
I see it/Her all around when my eyes were opened 
from within outward, 
the thin grasses, 
the stubborn mesquite, 
the resilient birds who sing in joy even here, 
the glimpse of the huge black-tail Jack, 
an occasional almost-spectral coyote crossing a road, 
and so much more spread out before me, 
stretching so very, very far 
without confinement of barrier tree lines 
or constantly rolling hills. 
Gravel and sand, minerals claiming their right to be here 
reflecting back the miners' supposed claims upon them. 
Always slightly squinting against sun glare 
in spite of dark spectacles, 
the tension of skin reacting with arid space,  
creating creases near the eyes more rapidly than in 
dimmer lit environs settled in mists and clouds and shadows 
more often than not. 
Nature is all around me here, 
She simply wears fewer decorations, 
less clothes upon Her gorgeous tanned body. 
I join Her in the delight of near-eternal sunbathing,
drenching my essence with light during the day. 


Yet at night, pull blankets overhead, 
snuggle into cocoons of warmth because 
as soon as the sun drops over the horizon and 
we tilt away from its glow...brrr... 
a match dropped down a deep well. 


I still marvel at the contrasts--
is it any wonder that I am like a kid in front of  candy store 
eagerly waiting for the door to open in the morning 
so that I can go satisfy my taste for that sweet sunlight? 
I step outside instead of inside. 
Out into a world of brightness and subtle gifts 
where nothing is ever taken for granted by 
Her indigenous people or the native beings who 
crawl, walk, hop, fly and grow. 

As I continue settling into the experience of 
living in this gorgeous-ugliness of desert survival--
over-grazed, over-farmed, abandoned when depleted 
of its meager precious topsoil by those who were greedy and oblivious--
accepting what is,
I smile more, 
I admire more,
I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to explore 
an exposed world along with my now-revealing-themselves 
depths previously unknown. 
There is an exquisite aura of vulnerability 
here where nothing is hidden. 

We'Moon Rebirth

Rebirth.
Not just in the Spring but in each moment as life brings changes from an instant, one to another, and again.
Birds fly in peace as my heart opens in gratitude, swelling with the earth, the sky, the shortest day as it goes by and begins to grow again in a new cycle, never the same twice.
Grateful for Her transitions that show me how to begin again, to be reborn.
I say Grace as my heart opens and we all join hands in Unity across time and space. 
Light shines through, stronger each day, honoring the night while also welcoming the light of reflection.


Change. 
Rebirth.
A year in retrospect that has been even more full of change than usual; although what is usual--is it only more full of change because so outward and obvious? perhaps every year is full yet often subtle and I miss the changes?
I'm grateful for the changes that have carried growth in ageless hands of blessing.
Grateful for the love and commitment shared with my beloved.
Grateful for the experience of moving--to know and learn a new land, a new dimension of Mother Earth, Gaia, as She spreads Her arms wide offering a unique landscape--a new palette upon which to paint my path.
Grateful for the faith and courage She brought into our hearts so that we could know we would be provided for.
Grateful for this house that has become a home, and is sheltering family; encouraging love, compromise, giving and allowing.

I say Grace for the abundance of beauty and wisdom that surrounds me every moment when I open my eyes, feel Her presence in the world of form through which Her light shines and grows.
I'm grateful for the pause of increasing darkness that enfolds and reveals the Truth within so that the flame can be seen all that much more clearly, flickering, bending, rising and ever glowing, deep red in the Core of Her Love.
I'm grateful for Her teaching of cycles and seasons on the grand scale as well as the tiny; to see my own life ebb and flow each day, each minute, reflecting the outer glory of Her gorgeous bright warm days and clear cold dark nights where the stars never seemed so bright before.
Silhouettes unfamiliar of cactus and distant mountains, of dry riverbeds seldom flush, of a silt the color of Her dried blood that seeps into my the cracks of my heels and presents a new perspective of rebirth; as Dormancy spreads yet Light also grows.
I say Grace as I turn my face to the sunrise, feeling Her loving smile feed mine. 


Grateful for this new home, in a new place, brimming to overflowing with opportunity.
Grateful for rebirth in every second.
Easy to feel deep gratitude whenever I pause because I am alive.
All I need do is look within or around...
Within I feel love and peace; I feel a body that is aging and that has quirks but I FEEL and that is a blessing of life.
Around I see beauty everywhere, in Gaia's creations, and those of Her myriad creature beings, but also in that which is created by humans from tiles on floors to quilts on beds, all are so beautiful.
Grateful for the gifts of Nature in the animals who share my life and the wild ones I admire from afar, as they all embody freedom and delight in each moment...these "Guardians of Being."
Grateful for the food abundant here and now, knowing that its presence is never a surety in a world on the brink of massive change that could come in a second or a month, a year, a decade, or, Goddess willing, never in destructive harshness devouring.


Life can change in an instant, it does change continually, and so I am grateful in my core for Now.
Being present is a gift I didn't appreciate when I was much younger looking 'out there' for fulfillment...and yet grateful for that journey of youth for it brought growth and a bits of wisdom each moment of the stumbling steps.
Truly, reasons for gratitude are everywhere, and mind-boggling were I to try and list everything I'm grateful for.
So, I am simply Grateful...for life...birth, death, and rebirth in every moment.
Blessed Be
_________________________
Contemplative writing prompt from We'Moon iPad app 2011 (image above).

Sky is Home

She kneels upon the earth, after swooping, falling, her legs spread to brace herself, balancing, opening her feminine core to the energy of the Divine Mother.
A creature of the air that transcends and integrates all the elements into One as she kneels to kiss the earth.
She has to land periodically, she cannot remain upon wing forever, and so she is grateful to earth for offering her rest and peace, a place upon which she can pause, wonder at her fellow/sister creatures who crawl and walk and swim and transform. 
Her sturdy thighs are thickly muscled, surprising how they resemble a much larger being than the twig-like lower legs of air-filled bone easily lifted and tucked inside her body when air and space call her home. 
Home for her is not the nest where she temporarily raises her young, and home is not the earth she kneels upon, precious though it may be.
Home is not a circle, a burdensome line holding her within its fragile shell.
She was born that way, cramped tightly into a hard shell she pressed against, expanding until it cracked...first a bit, then a tiny hole poked through by her sharp little beak and she tilted her head as much as possible though it was hard to do in that tiny space of before-birth, and she held one eye near the hole and saw the entire world and--CRACK!--she broke free from her shell of protection after she saw the world that awaited her with all its colors and textures and beckoning wide open spaces! 
Her body damp, her feathers barely there, wet and clinging, she fell forth into the dry crackling nest with the thin layer of down, and immediately felt her skin begin to dry from the air that called to her, tickling, enticing, telling her stories of the sights she would soon see on her own.
For her nest is not home, only a place to rest and become a real being she had only dreamed about.
She tipped back her head on the thin scrap of skin called a neck and opened her mouth and sounded out, sending her voice out into the world upon the breeze and heard an answering call.
Quick as the wind blows, she ate and grew and took such joy in the feathers that would soon lift her up to home where she would never be confined again. 
Where she could soar and see and live fully free.
And yet.
She did not forget. 
So in gratitude she returns to the earth to kiss her grounding where she shall go when death steps in and calls her soul to return for a new beginning. 
Earth where her food comes from.
Earth that holds the water to bathe in and soothe a parched throat.
Earth that offers her a never-ending visual extravaganza of ever-changing scenery and seasons. 
She glides through a thick gray cloud and giggles with the momentary hide-n-seek of the elementals.
Then catches a current and bobs up and down, riding it like the dolphins below play upon the ocean waves. 
They talk and share and she knows there is less difference than one might think between her blue and theirs...the waters of the seas and the currents of the breeze.
Patterns and currents and flows and eddies.
One so light and the other so heavy, yet she sometimes gets to play with both when the mist is on the mountain, and the world she sees becomes a subtle mirage of the normal one, the trees try to disappear as if to play her game of hide-n-seek even though they are rooted to earth. 
Then she gets to seek her special resting place for it is now disguised and not easily seen from her flights on high, and they play in this world where home is different for all of them.
Yet earth is precious, nurturing, nourishing, welcoming, harboring, and transformative in the end.
And so she kneels to kiss the earth.
___________________________
This was a visual writing prompt from my We'Moon 2011 iPad app (image above).

Inspiration

"Writing continues to be a scary proposition for me, as I don't see myself as particularly talented and I wonder how much longer I'l be able to massage novels out of my meager storehouse of gifts. Daily, I show up at the computer, and I hope for the best. But when I'm reading someone's stunning first novel--like Cold Mountain or Ingenious Pain, a British first novel that I'm reading--I think, What am I doing? My God, I am so insignificant a storyteller in comparison with these guys. But then I tell myself that all I can do is my best, telling the story as well as I can, leaving the rest up to God.
Journal of a Novel, February 24, 1998"


The above is taken from Elizabeth George's Write Away and I find it inspiring to know that authors I enjoy and admire could have at some moment felt as inept as I do. Their confidence can feel intimidating, but when they share their own fears or insecurities, I realize we are each of us merely doing the best that we can. And doing our best--being our best--is enough.

As I finish reading Write Away, the last 'teaching' book for now, I prepare to dive fully once more, with as much courage, confidence and commitment as I can muster, into writing. And see what happens...