Already Cluttered

How is it that I enter the New Year already cluttered?
Piles on my desk and in my psyche
Lists of "to do's" and "some day I'll get to that's"
Follow me into the next year, hindering the new of "resolutions".

In our ritual claiming of potential
As we resolve to change or grow or become more
Let us find a way to coach more than judge.

If, for example, we want to lose weight
Let us resolve to love our body more
If we want to spend more time with family
Let us resolve to cherish the moments we already have.

Do we really need to clutter our being with new and better ways of living?
Or do we simply need to pause and recall the good that lies within,
So buried in our judgment, so lost in our perfectionism.

What does this new year bring?
The opportunity to love, to cherish, to wonder, to engage
The details will unfold into a life well lived.

It Is An Honor

It is an honor to breathe with trees,
To engage in the touch of breeze.
An honor, to mingle our lives,
So that roots grow and spirit thrives.

I have little to do with this blessing,
Little to add, I'm confessing;
But to marvel at life with deep care
For the earth, for the cosmos, for air.

Christmas Sighting (Haiku)

One thousand birds flock

Lofty flight as ocean waves

Resonance of wings.

And Then There's Beauty

There are times when I have had the opportunity to walk our dog in the early morning.  We have a lovely view of the sunrise emerging over distant trees and the gift of uncultivated fields.  There is a stillness, if not a silence, that is sometimes palpable and an expanse of sky that offers free breathing and eternal seeing.

I’ve walked our fields sleepy, angry, joyful, confused, yearning for spiritual connection, deep in thought, burdened with worry, light with a sense of abundance.   I sometimes ask for wisdom from the fields and sometimes dance with abandon in the labyrinth.  More often than not I am full of myself, trying to make sense of my being or a shape to my living.  I’m sure the fields are constantly shouting in their own ancient knowing, “lighten up!” and when I sense that beckoning, I become aware of beauty. 

Sometimes when I take in a sunrise, when I let myself open as far as I can -- my mind, my body, my spirit -- the presence of beauty overwhelms me.  I cannot take it all in and yet it is there for the taking.  The generosity of beauty is astounding.  It is ever available.  It exists regardless of our gaze or opinion.

The phrase: “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”  is not about our power of judgment – that is, whether something is beautiful or not – but our willingness to see.  Of course there is preference and taste.  Things appeal differently to different people and there are different resonances of being which can harmonize or seem dissonant.  But all of it, all that is around us and within us has a beauty about it.  That beauty is depth of being – that beauty is the authentic call to become fully alive.

Matin

I open my heart to this day:

To the wonder of  being,

And the marvel of consciousness,

To the beauty of creation

And the joy of connection,

To the play of many,

And the finding of One.

I open my heart to this day.

Matin

I open my heart to this life
    and the inherent beauty about it
I open my self to this day
    and the natural treasure within it
I open my being to this moment
    and the eternal fullness of it.

Signals of Belonging

There is a multiplicity in Being
We each partake of Life and living.
When we put ourselves in the center, it is more than we can handle,
And so the cloak of fear and all its lonely responses.
When we put ourselves in the field, we find ourselves companioned
And so the help of the Cosmos and all its signals of belonging.
Open to your life.
Open to your belonging.
Let Being be the center and respond from there.