Every day I tend it again,
this fence around our hearts.
I rebuild it each time I say no
to things that would take me away
from you. I rebuild it each time
I choose to be right here.
I rebuild it and thrill in the rebuilding,
each post of the fence is a love letter,
this fence I once tried to burn.
Posts Tagged ‘freedom’
Once I Wanted Only Openness
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged commitment, connection, fence, freedom, paradox, priorities on January 11, 2026| Leave a Comment »
One Stifled
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged freedom, restraint, river, singing, voice on January 27, 2025| 8 Comments »
this winter
I’ve turned into a river
beneath the ice, so much song
Steadfast
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, connection, freedom, inauguration, resilience, voice on January 19, 2025| 12 Comments »
Though a cold
wind is howling,
we’re not birds
without wings—
and as long as we
have voices
let us sing together,
sing of freedom,
sing what’s true,
let us sing.
- “birds without wings” is from John Lewis’s speech, January 9, 2005, at the Kennedy Center, at a choral tribute honoring Dr. Martin Luther King
Generous Assumptions
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged armor, buddha, freedom, generous assumptions, self-protection on December 9, 2024| 16 Comments »
I would like to open my heart to you
and keep it open, but the truth is
sometimes all it takes is a glance,
or the lack of a glance, or a certain tone,
or a serrated word, and instantly the heart
puts on its armor, which is something like
a coat of porcupine quills, only
the quills go inward, too, and the instant
I wear it, I am aware of how much it hurts
to wear it. How in that moment when I seek
to protect myself, I wound myself.
What if I believed you are doing the best you can
considering the forces that have shaped you?
What if I listened past your words, looked through
your actions to see how you, too, feel threatened?
The Buddha said we are always moving
toward or away from freedom.
Could I, in that moment before the prickly coat
has started doing its prickly work,
could I move toward freedom
by refusing to put it on? Could I choose instead
the silken robe of generous assumptions,
the one that allows for compassion, connection,
even kindness toward you, toward myself?
Already, just thinking about it being possible,
I notice a softening, a curiosity about how I might
change not you, but myself. Already, I feel
how fluid this robe is, how gently it swirls around me,
how strong its fibers are, how freeing it is, cool
and breezy, this gift to myself.
When I Was Feeling Alone After My Father’s Death
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged communion, connection, fear, freedom, grief, seamlessness, vision 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.
Why I Should Hike Every Day No Matter What
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged freedom, hiking, mountain, paradox, stream on July 21, 2024| 10 Comments »
I didn’t know how trapped I was
in my own busyness until,
walking past a quiet lake
and up through a lush spruce forest
I felt how with each step toward tree line
more calendar squares disappeared
and all my lists dissolved until
I was nowhere but wading
through waist-high bluebells
with corn lilies rising above my head.
How still my mind was then, still,
as I traversed creeks and clambered
over fallen trees. Still as I climbed
to the place where the clear water
streams down gray cliffs and yellow
monkey flower flourishes on the banks.
I was bathed with gratefulness.
Is it true that to know this freedom
once is to be able to carry it
like a touchstone in my body?
Will the larkspur have any dominion
tomorrow while I’m trapped in a deadline?
Will the scent of summer’s last wild roses
return when I’m scrambling
for just ten more minutes?
Oh freedom, I long to contain you.
That thought makes me laugh.
Yet it’s true. I long to find myself
mid-hustle still linked to the gurgling stream,
its waters so cold I can’t help but gasp.
This
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged freedom, spaciousness on January 24, 2024| 8 Comments »
Sit with the freedom in your heart.
Feel it expanding into your palms—
in this moment whole galaxies
seem to fit inside your fingertips. How?
When did you become this vast?
Was this spaciousness always here?
Could you have felt this way yesterday
if only you had gotten out of your own way?
Sit with the freedom in your heart—
more beautiful than any story—
feel it surge through you
until your body forgets any limits
and knows itself as infinite.
Freedom will do what freedom does—
invite you to touch the source of the universe,
replace, for this moment, your fear with awe.
How the Heart Remembers
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bird, eagle, freedom, righteousness on January 9, 2024| 4 Comments »
When I was sure I couldn’t be happy,
not in that moment, anyway, that was when,
at the edge of my vision, I saw the dark wing
and looked up in time to see a bald eagle
with its white head and white tail
as it soared toward me,
low enough I could see the bright yellow
of its beak, and I swear I, too, took flight
in that moment as my eyes lifted and my heart
wheeled and my senses stretched out—
and I couldn’t stay clenched. I couldn’t.
Not that some part of me didn’t try.
It felt too good to be angry, betrayed.
There are ways the world brings us
back into its arms, saves us when we
pretend we are small, invites us back
into greatness through wonder.
Oh the miracle of wing, the marvel
of bird as it weaves through air,
the thrill of the heart as it remembers
what it is to be free.
Revelation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aliveness, death, freedom, life, skate skiing on March 27, 2022| 10 Comments »
After skate skiing on groomed track for months,
following only the preset path, today
I wake early enough to ski on the hardened crust
of spring morning snow. Suddenly,
the whole valley is a playground. And
it’s freedom. Freedom to move in any
direction. Freedom to loop or climb or follow
the river. Freedom that seeps into breath, into smile,
into my understanding of what it means to be alive.
And the whole time I skate and pole
and propel myself over snow
I hear an inner refrain from Romans:
And death shall have no dominion.
Not a still small voice, but a resonant boom.
And I, so alive in this sweet slip of time,
know that though my son has died
and my father has died, here I am,
carrying their love, and alive. Alive!
Alive through the winter.
Alive though I grieve. Alive. Alive as I skate
through willows and aspen and wide open white.
Lungs burning, legs striding, heart beating
hard in my chest. I know myself as breath
and return to the wholeness that never left.
Skating across the frozen world, the sparkling crust,
I live into this life that so wants to be lived,
this life that asks everything, everything of us.