Tonight I invite in the snow-covered field
and the towering ponderosa
with their bark that smells of butterscotch
and the thin winter river capped with deep ice.
I invite in the dormant soft-leafed mullein
and the rabbit brush coruscated by mice.
I invite the hungry mice.
I invite it all into my being—
fling wide the doors of my heart that somehow
forget to stay open.
I invite in December’s chill and the vast blue sky
and the dark before the moon and the moon.
I invite in the braille of rabbit tracks
and I invite the rabbits that made them.
The jays and the chickadees and the grosbeaks.
The dried sedges and the evergreens.
I don’t want to play favorites.
I want to be open to the all of it—
want to know the truth of how
it is already at home in me—
the thistle seeds waiting for spring,
the badger, the spider, the wind.
Every thing and every being.
What is not my teacher?
Let me make of myself a body spacious enough
for an inner circle in which all may speak.
And let me listen. With my whole being
let me listen—to what is seen,
to what can never be seen.
Every day, the earth sends thousands of invitations
for us to meet this world.
There are many ways to learn the many ways to do it right. A thousand thousand thousand ways to say, Yes, to the world as it is.
And let’s get a doorstop for that pesky heart-door forgetting to stay opened. (Oops. That’s not saying, Yes, is it?)
yes to the world as it is. yes to the doorstop. even when I think it’s open i find it’s been closed … amazing! yes to the closing the opening, like a heart valve
Meet it, and bless it. And so be blessed.
that is the circle of blessing, so beautifully said!
Gorgeously masterful lesson, gorgeously and masterfully shared! LOVELOVELOVE
thank you, friend … I was talking to my friend Art last night about this–about the invitation to remember how we are the land, how the land is us, how we belong to it …
In this wonderful poem you offer an invitation into the abundance of nature, how to meet it and bring it in. This set me wondering. Could it be that the pines and rivers, the mice and the sedges are inviting us saying you are part of this, you belong here too. Come in. Welcome.
that was exactly the invitation I heard
What is not my teacher? With that question, we can live deeper into our lives, learning how to meet the world. xoxo
it’s helped me so much, friend, for years to say to almost everything What do you have to teach me? It began in a dream … and carried into real life.