Recycled Again

My fingers slip a bit at the morning lantern tasks,
covered as they are with sweat from a tossing,
fevered night in which the whispers won.

Images of the womb, the birth of spring and sisterhood,
the eternal braid with simple life
and yearnings for close divinity.

The flame sputters with my touch ..

.
SWEAT

The salt water that I carry within my veins cries out for return to the seas of its birth. My humanity, of course, seeks to climb the mountain peak and bask in the flux of desert heat and snowy cold. In journey, my spirit is caressed by the breeze and flower and animal cry. I need not yearn or choose a path for Adam's dominion over physical bond. It is mine by right, though I am not sure where my authority and accountabilities lie. Perhaps it is enough to enjoy, and by careful action to insure that others might do the same. But still, there is my internal fire that burns in harmonized death of millions of cells to protect this saline bond with earth and sea. My spirit strives for surrendered call to follow the footsteps of great teachers in repeated climb to hill and cross. Yet, each drop of sweat from my labored assent drops to Mother Earth in another real claim.

My path is short compared with that single drop which will filter through fractured stone to which a billion years is but a minute of growth. Yet, each layer of sand or crystalline spread is not a barrier, but a chance for that drop to blend with history and carry forth a message to the dripping spring or tumbling stream. The whole world washes clean of the dust from my feet. Oh, but that the dust that gathers in the corners of my mind be so purely bathed away! In a basin I can wash another's feet and feel my spirit renewed as well. I can plunge into a mountain pool and retrieve man's discarded effluvia and articles of disrespect. I pray that I can learn to recognize the useful, supporting themes from the bombard of trivial dreams and claim on intellect. We speak of "peace of mind," but it should be concern for "piece of mind." The ability or gift to consciously select a chunk of useless thought or habit and toss it away without regret is not yet mine. The layers of my history's gathered pebbles are not sufficient to filter pure the distractions of uncharitable thoughts or my apparent need to classify as good and bad. So, what to do?

My feeble frame will not endure long enough for the process to complete. To dust I will return long before my drops of life that fall to stone will wend their way back to the endless sea. Yet, I cannot place my confidence in faith alone and say that a yield to spiritual simplicity will be sufficient to Source's plan. Our Lord, and Buddha and Chief Joseph and all, did not become man to say that humanity was of less import or gift than spirit! I cannot claim to be prepared to return to the fullness of God's love if I fail to live in fullness my privilege as a man. I was formed a woman first, of course, and mean no sense of disrespect bound my language's limitation. Unfortunate it is to say 'flesh' without creating other illusions, dreams and pain. My spirit is, however, bound in flesh as surly as this trembling sack of salt water is bound to the cycle of birth and death the same.

How easy it is to speak of a soul's return to the bosom of 'Source'. Yet, it is heresy of sorts to speak of part of my flesh being born again in another form. It may be as a waving fern or air born spore or muscled fang or carapace wing. Will it matter? Which will be greater, the cycling of the spirit in divinity's claim, or the rebirth of fragile life in earthen form? As all is Source, is there a difference? What if it is meant to be that a part of my soul flows back to the sea and a part of humanity's experience flows back to the Holy Spirit? Only in man's vanity do we divide and separate, group and classify. Does that illusion mask the simple truth that in a greater view all is joined and pulses the same?

Eat this bread and savor this wine. It is not a transformation. It is a normative statement.

"I am - tell them that 'I am' sent you."
How foolish we are.

papa faucon