A Wintered Annointing

Some times one can see the months coming, exchanging old outfits for the new. January to February stays dedicated to winter's cloak without a hint of anything different. These weeks stretch beyond countable days and I find myself imagining the still distant cries of red-winged blackbirds. Feeling phantom rays of the closer sun does not, however, lead to t-shirts and bare feet. I still shiver my request for heat and light. To love me is build fires today, even though tomorrow's wood dwindles. Woodsmoke on the downdraft is to winter like hamburgers on the grill in the late setting sun are of summer. The truly grateful appreciate the context before them; Yet I think on garden cilantro and fireflies and night-swimming while the tomb of winter lies still. There is work to be done here. How I long for happily, happily.

Light and life must not quarrel. Behavior must match belief. Bridge metaphors catch my breath because as usual, my interior life does not just belong to me. We must arrive at the other side because the unbearable pull of the safer shore is splicing the wholeness I am beginning to remember.

He is busy today yet pokes at the fire to wish me warm and draw me closer. Love does not triangulate; we do. Instead, love bends all of life's tensions into a circular oneness - never losing sight of what always was.

I am so loved. Yet I am also bending, curving towards the very nature that saves us all.  The delay is excruciating and so one must ask, again: how?  How does one surrender unto that which refuses understanding? I pour these questions at your feet, offering my hair to dry our tears.  For I know you have always cried with me.

Yet A Slave

Some kind of mental dust collects and settles over whatever clarity I've tried to maintain. Another dark dawn leads to an unalloyed gray. As a prayer for more light, I clean the living room windows with slow and measured intention. One can't keep waiting for the sun; the memory of its pleasure only brings pain. Teacher tells me to want what I have and care not for what I don't. It seems I am yet a slave to more than one master.

what flows between

banks of pleasure and pain -

love's clear expression of

I AM

Lately twenty sentences seem too many, especially when stumbling clear of confusion. Who doesn't read reveals an abeyance I am unable to reconcile. The compass spins. My heart protests. What remains unformed swirls around my spiraled heart cage like the melted wax of holy candles. I watch the flame drown in the pool of its own making and despite the effort to keep quietly alert to the real nature of Self, it is very hard to breath these days. Peace is a promise that must be kept.

At the window again, I watch the softer cardinal share the rhododendron with gray juncos. The jay bullies his presence onto the scene, scattering the trance and reminding me of the day's calling. Birds seem to reveal a presence of the undivided heart, singing songs void of restless meanderings and renouncing all that disturbs what is. I need them longer than I expected. Perhaps I am not ready for home.

letting go

yet frozen fog clings to branches

early declarations

Zen and Vodka

The cardinal climbs heavy pine branches, not quite settling in one place for more than a moment or two. I hear her higher song and listen for her mate. A white world covers the notes of what was once alive cauterizing the spaciousness of my heart. Snow hangs in sheets over the pergola, unable to stir in dawn's movement. My god, how I long to trust the simplicity of love! On hands and knees washing floorboards I hear the Bible-study ladies' admonishments rising with every filthy wring: Do everything as if unto the Lord. Pretend you are cleaning for Jesus! I asked them what it was like making love to God; maybe that had something to do with their reluctance to commission us to Africa. In the end, I scrubbed floors for Jesus in Kenya, her red dirt turning my water to blood.

More days than not now, life is sterile. Everything righteously put in order. Yet what tends towards chaos creates a perception of lack. Still. I am eating from the plate of everything I ordered.

Studying the zen voices brings relief. Though in the same way vodka abates, the tenor of their smooth answers allow a temporary distraction, followed closely by the surround-sound of my heartbeat ripping itself from the comfortable cage.

So it seems that one must surrender to the idea that winter remains choice-less.

So it seems that this theology on the rocks is deemed sufficient.

So it seems that my designated meal is satisfactory without dessert.

What a liar love has made.