Navigating Mystery

 I'm back to a topic that I did a whole series of (prose) posts on a while back, this time with a single poem. It is an inquiry I am in a lot - how to reframe living with uncertainty to navigating mystery, the words and concept coming from Martin Shaw.  

Now, I wrote this poem, some weeks ago, before I fell and broke some bones, and, oh, the irony!  The day I fell I was evidently not looking at my feet, just as I advise myself in the poem, and look what happened!

Hmm... Maybe some middle way is called for.  I remember Angeles Arrien saying so many times, "Walk the mystical path with practical feet."   My feet and I need to get a grip!  But I still think the poem has something to say, to me, at least.  

I am now spending much of my time healing, but also considering what healing really is about.

So, here's the poem.  And the Mystery of the sunset sky.

“Navigate Mystery,”

the storyteller says.

Look at it this way -

You can cower in fear

with all of life’s uncertainties,

or you can open to

the adventure.

Every story has suffering.

Every wanderer loses the way.

You live in the center

of your own imagination,

privilege your own story,

accentuate your own

pains and sorrows.

Traveling the trails

of the unknown

you have this choice:

either focus on your feet,

afraid of stumbling and falling,

or look up to the trees, the sky,

the birds winging their way

to a place of belonging.

Pain does not define you,

but if all you see is suffering,

all you will do is suffer.

Instead, watch the story unfold,

step by step, mile by mile

into whatever future

awaits.

The Mystic and the Pragmatist

 I draw a SoulCollage® card pretty much every day as a guide for the day.  Here's one that sparked a poem. What is hard to see is that the woman on the right is holding a model of a factory.

The Mystic and the Pragmatist

In Memory of Angeles Arrien and Seena Frost

 

 

Angeles always advised,

“Walk the mystical path

with practical feet.”

 

It is truly a balancing

act, always juggling

the moon and the machine,

the stars and the darkness.

 

This waterfall world

is liminal. Edge dwelling

is what we have.

 

Neither mystic nor

pragmatist must

reign supreme;

one alone is

half a soul.

 

Ground the body!

Raise your eyes and

your hands!

See how the waterfall

links heaven and earth!

How to Receive Love

We must be on a roll in my meditation group - this is the second week in a row that our reading and subsequent conversation have led me back to the blog.  I had one of those little aha! moments Monday night.  It's not that this was some brand new information, but you know how sometimes things can just hit you in a way that hadn't registered before.  (There's a phenomenon Barry and I have noticed about poems, for instance.  You can read one, sometimes many times, and then one day you hear or read it and realize you never even saw it before.  It's like that.)

So, we were talking about receiving love, and that so often love comes at us and we don't see it, or we ignore it, or we devalue it somehow.  Even those little connections with strangers walking down the street, when you both make eye contact and smile, can be moments taken in as love.  I think there are multiple times every day when I shrug off what would help to fill my heart.  Angeles used to say that we should give from the overflow buckets around the well, not from the well itself.  It took me a long time to stop just giving myself away, which is what I internalized in childhood that is what I am supposed to do.  But I have always looked at being open-hearted (which, of course, I always saw myself as not good enough at), as how well and how much I gave.  The aha! came when I saw this week how much I need to open to receive.  (Part of me responds, "Well, duh," but I'm not going to indulge my inner critic today, thank you very much.)  So, here's the first edit of a poem I'm working on (the title is the post's title):

Do not shrug off

the gift of the

stranger’s smile,

the friend’s embrace,

the grandchild’s hand

in yours.

There are so many ways

to receive love.

All of the offerings,

small and not-so-small,

together could fill

and nourish

your hungry heart,

if you would only

recognize them

and welcome them in.

All your life

you have wished to be

one of those regarded as

open-hearted and loving.

The truth is,

it is not that

you give insufficiently.

It is that you do not

replenish the supply

by accepting fully

and consciously

all that is offered

to you.

A Priestess Speaks

We went to a day with Michael Meade last week.  Michael is someone who never fails to inspire me.  I guess that's no surprise, given that he's a mythologer, storyteller and mystic.  The day was all about genius, which Michael describes as the soul's calling.  A topic I dwell on a lot.  I truly believe that we are all born with a unique set of gifts and talents that need to be given to the world; what Angeles Arrien calls our "original medicine."  Hanging out with Hecate as I have been doing, I am in a period where the call isn't as clear as I wish it would be.  It's okay.  I know I'm in a liminal stage, and the new phase of life will open up as it needs to.  But I have felt it strongly at other times and know how satisfying it is to be inspired and to be moving that inspiration into manifestation.

What I do know is that I need to keep writing every day, and I need to meditate more regularly.  I may have to take up William Stafford's plan of writing a poem every day.  The thing about blogging is that these things may come out here unpolished and unrevised.  Oh, well.  So be it.

This is what came this morning:

It is my calling

to be hollow and empty

as a bamboo reed.

The wind may blow through,

or a song,

or the breath and spirit

of one who dwells

on the other side

of the veil.

I could be a messenger

or a vehicle for love’s rapture.

I could be a voice in the wilderness

or a hawker in the city.

I could be a puppet

or a whirling dervish.

I could be a clown

or a mourner.

My crown opens.

My feet are planted.

My arms rise up.

I must take my desires and my preferences

and stash them away.

Empty.

Hollow.

Come, goddess, come.