Structure

September 24, 2017September 24, 2017 becomingandbeholdingLeave a comment

Limping again

with another broken bone.

A repeat injury

only this time

on the other side

as if it had to happen

for a symmetry in the lesson.

I am feeling a little picked on.

Feet are important

for grounding and balance.

Standing is now clumsy and awkward

with one foot in a walking cast.

Walking is even worse.

I am forced to slow down.

Is God toying with me?

Forcing me to look at what I am made of

and what kind of condition I am in?

Now there is talk of potential disease

a thinning of my bones,

a weakness that clearly has been hidden
until this year.

All this makes me feel old

and envious of all those effortless walkers

out there.

I have heard that healing

can make us stronger in our weak spots.

I hope this is true.

And now that I have run out of feet,

perhaps I can get grounded again.

Inspiration

September 24, 2017September 24, 2017 becomingandbeholdingLeave a comment

Trying to coax you

feels dishonest – and yet,

I do not know how to proceed

without you with me.

I love our usual rhythm

when you bubble up like a fountain

or surprise me with a flash.

The light you bring leads the way.

It is as if, like an eager child,

you grab me by the wrist,

pulling me with all your might,

to see what your wide eyes see,

to open to what is being born right before me.

This is our ritual,

our occasional awkward dance.

I long to know you better,

to deepen the intimacy between us

with more regular meetings.

I get jazzed when we can be together –

You, the lightening bug-

Me, the catcher.

But you are an unpredictable one,

mysterious in your ways

and sneaky.

I never know when you will appear.

You are always in the driver’s seat

while I ride shotgun,

trying to trust in the route you put me on.

You show up,

and I am knocked out of my usual rhythm,

suddenly consumed by your presence.

I love those moments.

They are like electricity lighting me up

on all circuits.

It is as if

you give birth to me all over again,

but in little flashes of light

to direct my unfolding.

I dare not ignore your brilliance.

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

The Opening

September 6, 2017September 6, 2017 becomingandbeholdingLeave a comment

It is the space between
what I hear
and how I receive it.

It is the time between
what I think
and what I do.

It is the moment of rest
I sometimes allow
before the next thing.

This is the place that needs enlarging.
But I tend to keep it small,
even though it beckons me
with sweet whispers
and gentle nudges.

I hear it in the rhythm of the waves
and the rustle of the dancing leaves.
I see it in the glide of the seagulls
and the ballet of the small shorebirds
as they float across the shoreline.
Be like us,
they seem to say.
Float through your day.
It is easy
if you let go
and feel the flow.

The invitation is always there,
expansive and inviting –
a huge place of calm and beauty
waiting to hold me
with a comforting embrace.
Waiting to lead me
to the unimaginable.

But I am distracted.

I know I am not alone in this.

Thankfully,
Grace is a beautiful and patient teacher.
She has taught me many things.
I finally know that
You are in the space that calls.
You are in each breath –
especially the deep ones.
You are in me.
You are around me.
You work through me.
You need me as much as
I need you.

I have learned that turning away from you
and ignoring your sweet beaconing
is akin to a slow and lonely death.

Opening to You –
and the spaces between,
is like coming home
to who I am.

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.

Poem · Poetry · Uncategorized

Breathing Rare Air

September 6, 2017September 6, 2017 becomingandbeholdingLeave a comment

“I don’t think you can see it,”
said my love one day
during one of our connecting moments
when he gently dared
to pull away my self-imposed blinders.
“You are too close to it.”

He may be right.
Maybe I don’t see it,
this reality that few get to be in.

I work in a strange land,
a land of life
and a land of death.
The terrain is sometimes rocky and treacherous,
sometimes peaceful,
always momentous.
Every day I am in the midst
of the end
and the beginning,
all wrapped up in the movement of breath
and the wrenching of hearts.
I get to witness this,
over and over.
And my love does not see
how I can do this.

I breathe rare air.
It is the air of final breaths,
filled with spaces, longing, regrets,
love and letting go.
On a daily basis,
I am next to bodies as they sputter to a stop.
I take in the worn faces and the withered forms
barely taking up space.
I breathe this rare air.
The air of souls bursting to be free.
I hear the sounds
and smell the smells.
I breathe rare air.

You may wonder what this does to me,
this rarified experience.
I wonder, too.
Is this death I witness contagious?
Will my disappearing act be hastened
because I am seemingly comfortable
in this strange land?

I think not.

If anything,
entering this territory on a daily basis
is an invitation.
A chance to truly see.
With eyes wide open to what lies ahead,
there is no pretending.
No glossing over or dodging the truth.
I will end one day,
or, at least my body will.
There is no covering this over
with any effort to avert it,
whether it is in being as healthy as I can be,
or in avoiding what needs attending
before it is too late.

No.

Working with the dying
and breathing this rare air,
has opened me up in ways
beyond my comprehension.
I am being changed.
How could I not be?
All I know now
is that with each inhale of this experience,
my tightly bound heart
unwraps a little more.
I am softening.
And here is the nub of it:
I am getting a head start
on letting go
of all that does not matter.
I am being schooled in death bed academics
and I intend to be a straight A student.
So, maybe working with the dying
and breathing this rare air
IS contagious
because in learning to let go now,
and do the work before me,
my death can be more beautiful
when my time comes,
and my loved ones
more at peace.

Poem · Poetry

I Am Not My Body

September 1, 2017January 7, 2018 becomingandbeholding5 Comments

I am not my body.
I am not the wrinkles around my eyes,
nor am I the deep lines forming under my nose.
I am not the softening of my belly that is thickening my waist and
now spilling over my waistbands.
I am not the annoying chin hairs cropping up.
Every time I look in the mirror,
I notice the things I am not.
My eye goes right to anything that screams aging at me,
especially my now droopy neck.
Or the brown spots forming on my face and hands.
“Damn it!” I say to myself.
“I am getting old.”
And I turn away in disgust.

But I am not even the parts of my body that I like.
I am not my pretty blue eyes.
I am not my fit arms or my perky ass.
I am not my feminine hands
nor am I my white teeth
and nice color treated hair.

I am not the bad,
I am not the good.
I am not my body.

I am much more than what I see in a mirror.
I am more than how my clothes feel on me.
I am more than any pain, any tension or ache.
I am more.
I go deeper than all that.
I am larger and more expansive than any image I see as I walk past a mirror,
or window.
I am above and below the skin
I am not the skin.
I am the spirit that gives my body life.
I am the sparkle in my eyes,
the warmth in my voice.
I am the tenderness in my touch.
I am the deep tones of my hearty giggle.
I am the strength behind a sincere embrace.

I am made of stardust.
I am connected deeply to all living beings.
I am energy.
And most of all,
I am divine love expressed.

I am not my body but
I live in my body.
My body may be weathering on the outside
just like any home would.
The paint may be flaking
but a warm light burns within.
A house is not a home
without that inward glow.
Shine on.