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Posts Tagged ‘communion’

Praise Song

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 19, 2025| 2 Comments »

I went outside to sing a song to the thunder
as the thunder sang through the graying sky,
and while I was singing a secret song,
the thunder sang through me.
I went out to sing a song to the thunder
as it rumbled through the expanded air
and the thunder entered the rain and the earth
and the thunder entered me.
I went out to sing a song to the thunder,
and I was also the thunder.
And the thunder was also the branch and the pond
and the thunder was also me.
I went out to sing a song to the thunder
and there was nothing that was not thunder—
not even the silence, not even the song,
yes, even the longing to sing.

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Between Winter and Spring

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on March 3, 2025| 6 Comments »


 
 
I am here to remember my place
in the field, to remember again how
what looks dead can, in just a few days
of warmth, turn vibrant and green.
It can be so hard sometimes to have hope,
yet even knowing what winter did,
look at all this life.
I am here to remember again how the field
is made of uncountable blades of grass,
and how I, too, am one of many
that make up the whole, all of us growing
together. Knowing this, I feel at the same time
the truth of my insignificance and
the truth of our mutual greatness.
I come to the field to learn what the field knows—
a belonging beyond language, a vastness
that opens in me, a cell-deep trust in life itself.
This is how we learn. By listening. In the wind,
each blade of grass sings the smallest of songs,
joins in a chorus of rub and swish and kiss
as each blade whispers, this, this, this, this.
 

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The Great Chorus

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 18, 2025| 4 Comments »


 
 
We all live together in a home
in which the rooms are
made of song. Fierce
songs of resistance. Wounded
songs that rise like sirens and
drown out every other song, till
once again, we hear the tendrilled
song of opening. Chants
of freedom. Wild song
of belonging. Sweet lullaby
of trust. What moment cannot
be met through song? Even
the greatest heartache, even
the greatest joy, even
the smallest hope knows
itself not only by its melody, but
by who is willing to sing along and
who is courageous enough to listen.

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Redefinition

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on January 10, 2025| 9 Comments »


 
 
when I say my heart breaks
I mean it breaks like a wave—
as if exhausted
by its own separateness
it gives itself back to the whole

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Let Us Gather in the Garden

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 25, 2024| 6 Comments »

Let us gather in the garden in late July
when the snap peas are fat and sweet on the vines
and the tiny white cilantro flowers charge
 
the air with fragrant green. When the sunflowers
have not yet opened, but the cosmos are already
a riot of pinks and white and the nasturtiums
 
have erupted into spicy orange petals
and the heads of lettuce open and open
as if looking for the edges of the universe.
 
Let us gather when the onions are beginning
to swell and the kale leaves are big as elephant ears
and the basil is lush and vigorous and flourishing
 
and it’s so good to be here with our hunger,
not to consume but to be opened by goodness,
to know ourselves as part of this generous
 
plentiful land. It so good to be here
together amongst the ripening,
 to share the living blessing, to welcome
 
each other into the garden of our hearts,
to nourish the seeds of all that is to come
forming even now inside our open hands.

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When I Was Feeling Alone After My Father’s Death

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on July 22, 2024| 6 Comments »



 
 
In a vision, I knew the universe as seamless—
a place with no horizon, no anchor,
no tether, no foundation. And though
it was beautiful—a water-color wash
of pinks and blues and grays and greens—
 
I was terrified, feeling myself formless
in the vast sea of space, too free, too free.
I wanted an object, a person, a shape,
a something to belong to.
And Love spoke in words I did not hear
 
but somehow felt, and said,
The only thing that will ever ground you
is not the object of love, but love itself.
Now, sitting in my kitchen, I feel it again.
Though my feet are on the ground
 
and I hear the hum of the cars on the highway,
though there is a cat that desperately wants
to sit in my lap and I taste the dark and bitter leaves
in my tea, though I am undeniably in a body,
I feel it again, the seamlessness, the communion
 
of the great everything that is, the underlying all-ness,
the domain of no division. But in this moment,
I know freedom not as terrifying, but as generous,
as uncontainable love that runs through everything.
The only thing that will ever ground you
 
is not the object of love, but love itself.
To write this is to touch the truth again,
a beauty that can never be broken or fractured.
Every cell of me disassembles into beauty,
opens with awareness, even as the cat yowls,
 
even as phone rings again.
 
 

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In a Circle of Trust

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on December 9, 2023| 8 Comments »


 
 
I love these fierce and gentle hours 
when the silence between us
blooms between voices
as deeply, as profusely
as the pale pink blossoms
that flourish in pavement cracks.
I did not know how much
I longed for this silence,
Did not know how the silence would honor
each voice the way a frame holds a portrait,
bringing value and beauty to the art inside,
didn’t know how shining it could be
with its infrangible truth,
how silence invites a deepening of self
the way a river deepens and changes the  canyon,
even as the river itself is changed.

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On Any Given Day

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on December 3, 2023| 17 Comments »

How easily I forget
I contain the story
of the universe.
Easier sometimes
to feel alone,
as if I am not connected
to every single atom
around me, as if
I am separate
from the shimmer
that made it all,
as if I am not
also you.

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What the Heart Would Keep of Today

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 25, 2023| 3 Comments »


for Naomi


Into this time capsule
of our conversation
I add a shovel and two trees,
a candle (of course),
a black and white button,
a closing door,
an inner knocking,
a cat box, tears,
wise words from a monk,
what isn’t here,
a dissolving dream,
long ribbon of laughter,
a letter that survived
four years of weather,
books we’ll never read,
the great hole inside,
sorrow that will be with us
until we die, and …
and whoever finds this capsule
couldn’t possibly guess
how this strange collection
nourished two friends.
It just looks like a shovel
and some other strange things—
but for an hour,
oh friend, we had wings.

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The Great Reframe

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 16, 2023| 11 Comments »

 
 
Let this sorrow
that has opened me
to love
be like a frame
that has no photo—
so I might know
how to be this broken open,
this tender, this compassionate
with anything,
not only toward the one
who first filled the frame.
 
Let me not try to control
what is worthy of framing.
Let me trust everything
is worthy of prayer,
of consideration.
Let sorrow continue
to teach me generosity.
Let the frame be big enough
to hold it all.
 

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