I stood in the surf
waiting
for what I was to receive
I looked at,
then past,
glistening rocks,
colored shells,
green sea glass,
none of them were right.
My back was to the Sound,
Waves coming and going,
Sand shifting under my wet feet.
I scan,
wait for what I must recognize –
then I see it.
this?
a black glob of rocks stuck together
browns and grey and bits of reds
it’s ugly
it’s heavy
it’s rough
it’s jagged
it’s not what I thought I wanted,
it’s not what I thought was valuable.
what is it, that the water has just delivered,
and I feel lead to pick up
to cart home with me?
I want it to be romantic.
Maybe…
I search for romance…
a meteorite?
a mystery from another planet?
I walk the mile home,
wondering what lessons I will learn from this ‘gift’
I have just received from the ocean.
Almost home,
one more curve,
I spot my favorite kinda caterpillar,
the brown and black,
softest, loveliest velvet
crawler in the world.
I loved the feel of them as a little girl,
let them crawl all over me.
I pass it,
then double back,
as directed by intuition,
to visit this small friend.
I am bent down,
and my fuzzy friend moves along,
and recognition comes.
I carry,
in my hands…
asphalt,
ASPHALT???!!!
a piece of the road,
which came to me by way of the ocean.
I belly laugh
as I my lesson,
my gift,
becomes clearer.
I am,
right now,
every moment,
in the ocean of grace
no matter where I am
the path is in the ocean of love,
of God.
The road is everywhere!
It rises to meet me.
It comes one chunk at a time.
This is gift –
teaching me what I need,
bringing me diamonds with each step.
Living,
and breathing,
thanks
is the best gift.
We are always loved
The message is waiting in
every surf
every leaf
every tree
every song
every heart beat
every tiny created thing
every little moment breathes and burns.
Remove your shoes,
dance wild by the fire,
dive into the sky,
sing loud and long –
holy,
holy,
holy
and fly away
home.
I’ll meet you there!
xoxo
ACL 9/22/14
On this day of your life I believe God wants you to know that there’s no abiding success without commitment.
Anthony Robbins said that, and he was right.
Commitment is the key to achievement.
How committed are you to your future, to your goals,
to your relationship, to your self?
Do you want to be healthier, or do you just say you do?
Do you want to be happier, or do you just say you do?
Do you want to be nicer, or do you just say you do?
Do you want to be more patient, or do you just say you do?
Do you want to be lighter, or do you just say you do?
What do you really want…and who are you kidding about that?
– Neale Donald Walsh
sometimes words are hard
to put together
truth all covered
under ghosts
of deeper issues
so deep
you can almost deny
you’ve gone a lifetime in denial
thoughts
sitting in the brain
all in a bunch
reflecting the cauliflower look
of the brain itself
all glowy white and gnarled
needing to stop and slow
but life goes on
and the moments are busy
no time to pause
the avoid-dance is
a wild ride
as the mass of
hurt
confusion
denial
lies
sits like a toxic blob
waiting to ooze its poison
inward
down from the brain into
all the innocents in the body
for me
the shoulder blades
take the brunt of the spillage
making them scream
night and day
while I continue
to pretend
I don’t hear them
or admit that I’m at fault
for their agony
it has taken years of excavation
to dig
to begin
to uncover
now it seems
today
I have finally reached
one of
the most important words
of life:
commitment.
ACL 1/4/13
Photo by Paul Delvaux. Train in Evening.
Did I miss the train?
I don’t think so.
I think it’s right on time
I think I’ll take a free ride
I hope the ticket guy gets mouthy
Cause I’m in the mood for that today
Yeah yeah
Cause I’ve about had enough
Enough of the bird you want me to be
it’s time for a change
it’s time to be free
So hold the door
ain’t no holding me
trains pulling in
I’m on platform B
I take one more glance back down the track
I return the smile to the cute guy on platform A –
then I wave
and I’m gone
ACL 3/7/13
“I was afraid but
that is the beauty of past
tense. It’s over now.”
– Amanda Helm
amandaspoetry.tumblr.com/
The simplest things in life
Are the most extraordinary
Let them reveal themselves.
– Paulo Coelho
There is magic in every little thing.
Your very breath is magic.
You, showing up on this tiny planet,
at this very time in history,
purest magic.
The way the sun glints off your hair,
magic-magic.
The way the trees recognize you,
all magically-like.
The way a child can turn their head
and plunge you into instant grief,
the deepest-darkest magic.
It’s all about perspective.
Einstein reminds us,
We have a choice in how we live.
One of two ways –
As if nothing
OR
As if everything
Is miraculous!
I’m so glad,
so extremely blessed by,
that moment I chose to see the enchanted pathway.
It’s always a fine day here.
No matter the circumstance I find myself in,
Magic abounds.
And somewhere,
along this bewitching, musical, star strewn, pathway,
I forgot to be afraid anymore.
ACL 11/22/13
Light of Dawn, awaken me,
that I may always be mindful of You.
Warmth of the sun, fill me,
that I may radiate the love of Christ.
Breeze of wisdom, give me breath,
that all I say may be true and loving.
Embracing earth, receive me,
that I may always forgive.
Songs of birds, delight me,
that I may sing joy, sing joy.
Falling rain and growing grass remind me
that I live and die into You.
Flesh of my body, rejoice,
for I am Your vessel, I am alive,
I am here.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net
He picked up a pebble
and threw it into the sea.
And another, and another.
He couldn’t stop.
He wasn’t trying to fill the sea.
He wasn’t trying to empty the beach.
He was just throwing away,
nothing else but.
Like a kitten playing
he was practicing for the future
when there’ll be so many things
he’ll want to throw away
if only his fingers will unclench
and let them go.
“Small boy” by Norman MacCaig
When I get old
I wonder if I will hide my stuff in weird places.
Will someone cleaning out my living space
find things like
my baptismal certificate from 1932
in a plastic Oil of Olay box
mixed with various items
like eyebrow pencils,
miscellaneous change,
and various sizes of
finger nail clippers?
Will I place a baby hair brush
in a bag wrapped in paper towels
with coffee filters
and refrigerator magnets of all sorts?
Will I hide my telephone and address book under my mattress,
and my bills under the bathroom sink?
Will I buy more shampoo than I have years left to use it all,
and put cans of soup in my entertainment center?
What will I do when i get old?
I’m sure it will be eccentric and unusual.
I’m sure it will seem totally understandable to me
when I put my socks and underwear in the bathtub
and keep my kitchen cabinets completely empty.
ACL 5/24/13
The road seen, then not seen, the hillside hiding
then revealing the way you should take,
the road dropping away from you as if leaving you
to walk on thin air, then catching you, holding you up,
when you thought you would fall, and the way forward
always in the end the way that you came,
the way that you followed, the way that carried
you into your future, that brought you
to this place, no matter that it sometimes took
your promise from you, no matter that it always had to break
your heart along the way, the sense of having walked
from far inside yourself out into the revelation,
to have risked yourself for something that seemed
to stand both inside you and far beyond you,
that called you back in the end to the only road
you could follow, walking as you did, in your
rags of love and speaking in the voice
that by night, became a prayer for safe arrival…
Excerpt from “SANTIAGO”
From PILGRIM: Poems by David Whyte
It’s all connected –
All the love,
All the loss,
All the joy,
All the pain.
The world is made of God.
We live in the ocean of God’s breath,
His very words.
We are all artists.
We all speak creation.
Our words are our greatest art form,
make sure they are painting a masterpiece.
God is love is life is truth is word is love is…
every little thing is connected to each other.
Everything I really needed to know
I learned from the ocean
and the trees.
The mountains
introduced me to the angels.
Acorns were my very first teachers
the finest flock of seagulls
were my most recent.
We are the temple.
We includes the universe
we find ourselves in.
We are brothers and sisters
to stars and starships
ACL 3/31/13
It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions, my one quarrel is with words. That is the reason I hate vulgar realism in literature. The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for.
– Oscar Wilde
It is strange to be here. The mystery never leaves you alone. Behind your image, below your words, above your thoughts, the silence of another world waits. A world lives within you. No one else can bring you news of this inner world. Through the opening of the mouth, we bring out sounds from the mountain beneath the soul. These sounds are words. The world is full of words. There are so many talking all the time, loudly, quietly, in rooms, on streets, on television, on radio, in the paper, in books. The noise of words keeps what we call the world there for us. We take each other’s sounds and make patterns, predictions, benedictions, and blasphemies. Each day, our tribe of language holds what we call the world together. Yet the uttering of the word reveals how each of us relentlessly creates. Everyone is an artist. Each person brings sound out of silence and coaxes the invisible to become visible.
– John O’Donohue
We seldom hear the voice of the Holy One
who is, after all, fearsomely immense,
who sits, enthralled, perfectly still as a bird
watcher, saying nothing, offering only
the merest whispers, hidden in this world
so cleverly as to seem natural,
so as not to frighten us
away.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net
life: acoustic & amplified 