I Can See Who You Are

October 30, 2018November 11, 2018 becomingandbeholding1 Comment

We hustle.

We bustle.

We cover up.

We avoid.

In the constant press forward,

the moments are lost.

When able to still ourselves,

we can catch glimpses of

what is real.

I sat with a patient,

one of the sweet ones

with dementia.

Her eyes alive

with love and openness…

Her speech cute and senseless

most of the time.

I am present to her

and focus on being –

instead of doing.

When the time for goodbye comes,

I touch her shoulder

and lean in.

Her eyes widen

as these words spill forth

in clarity and affection:

“I can see who you are!”

Grace finds me

and I am blessed by her glimpse.

I am reminded…

I am Love.

Poem · Poetry

Noticing

September 10, 2017 becomingandbeholding1 Comment

The way it feels

when I dare to step away from patterns

long held onto

with a tight knuckle grip

as a way to hold me up,

glue me together.

The look in your eyes

when I am really paying attention,

allowing my heart to open to you.

The soaring freedom that sends me

to new depths and heights

all at the same time

when I get out of my own way.

How pain disappears

when my attention turns in a divine direction

instead of towards my navel,

so clogged with repetitive angst.

How a long walk by the sea washes me

of all the garbage

I have allowed to enter my soul –

a baptism of surf and sound,

wind and grace.

The thunder of the surf rocking me,

holding me with an eternal embrace.

Oh, how healing that is!

How the voice of a great singer

sends my spirit soaring

and beckons me to use my voice

with full expression and power,

freeing it

and healing me from the multitude of ways

I have held it back.

How Love is present,

when I am present

whether with the dying,

my love,

or my cat.

Turning away from the moment

robs me,

robs us –

of God’s company.

Waking up is a beautiful thing –

a peeling of the layers –

that so strangle and constrict.

We think these layers are important

but they are all false construction.

I love the release as they fall away

allowing a deeper joy

to be found.

I am noticing

two openings:

my eyes with inspired vision,

my heart with a tender softening.

Both are wrapped up in deep peace.

Poem · Poetry

New Ground

September 6, 2017 becomingandbeholdingLeave a comment

The pull of patterns weighs me down

and sucks me in

to that space that agitates

and darkens the room

keeping me from the lightness

that beckons deeply.

Even with you,

though I longed to be next to you

after seasons apart,

what is new and better and different

struggles to shine.

We settle for old and familiar,

the constrictions

set long ago.

I want you to know me.

Not the me you think you know,

but the evolving me

that dares to bloom

even at my age,

when most settle for being set.

I’m not.

I am a dynamic canvas.

Poem · Poetry

You See Me

September 6, 2017October 24, 2017 becomingandbeholdingLeave a comment

Beyond the ways I hide

from myself,

you see me.

Underneath the make up

and beneath the gray roots and wrinkles,

you see me.

Despite my busy ways,

my lists,

my problems with digestion,

my anxieties,

my crafty ways of avoidance

and inattention,

you see me.

You see all of me.

Sometimes when I look in your eyes,

I catch a glimpse

of the me

that you hold in your heart.

It is a beautiful vision.

When I catch its glimmer,

I feel a wholeness,

an unfamiliar peace –

about life,

about Love,

about being me.

So, I am thinking…

this must be what Love is –

to hold onto that larger picture of our beloved –

to cherish it for them

and to protect it from harm

as if it were a world class masterpiece.

A beloved allows for the dropping

of all that does not matter

so that we can hold onto each other

for dear life –

for a life that is dear.

Beloved,

I am yours.