Transparent

Transparent

As though through gauze, you live.

Only a thin layer in front of a deep open place.

Bearing your scent and history and your truth.

The pieces that were barriers, are cast aside, flowing away.

Your inside and your outside, transparent now.

All dieties, all saints, even Jesus, pays attention to this kind of courage, this true beauty.

A border thin like gauze, barely there remains.

Tranfiguring all over the place, remants of shapes shift.

Drift down covering notions of what you were supposed to be.

Revelation through a thin layer.

You show it, well.

birdsong

trolling for voters, watching the crash, dollar worth nothing, panic and flash.
the lines going downward, the pending gloom, changing accounts, signs of doom.
Fear not, for in the midst of shuddering, lurching, banks out of control, remember that there are a million birds who are singing right now, the sun will still rise tomorrow and creation shakes her head and laughs at our greed.

inspired

ok, so i've been inspired by a fellow poet, wanderer and artist and new dear friend.
the blog is taken up again, and perhaps this is a way to stay in touch with friends and family during my sabbatical. I will be on sabbatical Nov. 16 till March 1 after serving for 9 years on the BC Conference Staff of the United Church of Canada....yes!

now it's time for learning massage at the esalen institute and writing poems and learning spanish and travel.

Slowly, slowly, they return, to the small woodland let alone:

Great trees, outspreading and upright,

Apostles of the living light.

Patient as stars, they build in air

Tier after tier a timbered choir,

Stout beams upholding weightless grace

Of song, a blessing on this place.

They stand in waiting all around,

Uprisings of their native ground,

Downcomings of the distant light;

They are the advent they await.

Receiving sun and giving shade,

Their life’s a benefaction made,

And is a benediction said

Over the living and the dead.

In fall their brightened leaves, released,

Fly down the wind, and we are pleased

To walk on radiance, amazed.

0 light come down to earth, be praised!

-by the great poet: Wendell Berry

questioning

it's an up and down thing life, really........
perhaps that's what it's really all about.
learning to live within the space of change and movement and darkness and light.
learning how to breathe in the midst of an ever changing back ground of life.


i heard this poem yesterday in church and it spoke to me of this ability to hold strength and to hold hope in the midst of the dark. It's by Wendell Berry, one of the great ones:



"In the dark of the moon, in the flying snow, in the dead of winter, war spreading, families dying, the world in danger, I walk the rocky hillside, sowing clover."



This work of the world, our work, simple and clear. To live in hope that in the midst of winter there will come and wondrous summer of light, and of hills full of clover, and that indeed we have a role to play in the sowing of all sorts of things that can bring more light.


so the question to me and to all of us: what's the thing you are sowing?

this picture of the golden hand comes from one of the art installations at greenbelt, a festival in the uk i went to this summer. this golden hand says alot about how our hands are our deepest gift, to ourselves and to the world. so many blessings possible from the acts of hands. so many possibilities for light and for dark. i love this picture of the golden hand.

way up high

hey so this is me, at one of my favourite spots in the world, the view of which you'll also see on my header photo. A beautiful lookout where the rocks are warm from an okanagan sun, everything is sage and earth colours, the lake shines and seems to overtake you, the village at the point is close and the mountain of rock rises up behind the lookout.

a gorgeous place in the world.

returning back from a life in the world

ah....jetlag....it's 1:25 am and i who was once exhausted at 7 pm, am now awake to the night and am creating a blog! so far so good, first sentence complete. not sure if anyone will ever read this, but i'm offering the words tonight anyway.
wandering the planet is serious work these days and jetlag, airports, cranky and sick fellow travellers all add to the pain of this work. there is alot of joy and beauty to be found in the midst of wandering the world from the airport perspective as well.....
the man who shared my joy in finally getting home and passed me my bag....
the little bird trapped in the airport lounge who i fed a bit of bread and wondered how i could help release.....the young man who smiled at me feeding the bird when he saw what i was doing....the beautiful swirl of people from every country immaginable, hanging out in frankfurt airport, waiting for planes, sleeping on the floor, tired, waiting, just wanting to get home....
the man who made my salad in denver, who added cilantro with a smile because i asked.
each one a life in the world, each one no more important or special than my own life, each one a deep mystery into belonging and joy, each one longing for so much. i offered a prayer randomly for people i passed in the airports, more for me than for them....to keep me real and connected to all those around me.
it was sept 11 the day i travelling home, and i was greeted in denver with a code orange security announcement, and airline workers who i knew must have remembered that this was this day, by a country who deep down remembered that this was this day. and i felt other than the raised security alert, a kind of getting on with it, doing what americans do....dealing with it and moving on.