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Posts Tagged ‘invitation’

When Shown What Is Possible

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on June 24, 2024| 10 Comments »


 
How do they do it,
the marsh marigolds
rising out of the muck,
their bright white petals
and lemon yellow centers
seemingly unmarred
by dark swampy ground?
They grow, beautiful,
not despite the muck, but
because. Because slop.
Mire. Mess. Thick mess.
Squishy boot-sucking mess.
It’s what they were made to do.
Dear heart, how about you?

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Pupil

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on December 20, 2022| 10 Comments »


 
 
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 nibbled 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.


 

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The Invitation

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 31, 2021| 15 Comments »




Two nights after he died,
all night I heard the same
one-line story on repeat:
I am the woman whose son
took his life. The words
felt full of self-pity,
filled me with hopelessness, doom.
And then a voice came,
a woman’s voice, just before dawn,
and it gave me a new shade of truth:
I am the woman who learns
how to love him now that he’s gone.
It did not change the facts,
but it changed everything
about how I met the facts.
Over a hundred days later,
I am still learning what it means
to love him—how love is
an ocean, a wildfire, a crumb;
how commitment to love changes me,
changes everyone,
invites us to bring our best.
Love is wine, is trampoline,
is an infinite song with a chorus
in which I am sung.
I am the woman who learns
how to love him now that he’s gone.
May I always be learning how to love—
like a cave. Like a rough-legged hawk.
Like a sun.

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On the Street Corner

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on August 5, 2021| Leave a Comment »




In the dark, we follow
the wail of live jazz
till at last we discover
the trio playing
on the street corner.

Not all invitations
to fall in love with life
are this easy to follow—
just turn the corner,
walk a few blocks,
then find a place to linger.

But tonight, the invitation
is so clear: to be led by the music
of the moment, to listen
with the silence inside.

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Perhaps Next Time

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 20, 2020| 2 Comments »

 

 

Vast and powerful,

the invitation

like a sea

with a surf

and unknowable tides—

 

I do not want to stay

on the shores

of my life.

I want to run headlong

into the waves,

to feel myself buoyed

and challenged,

to know myself

as one who risks,

who emerges

shimmering.

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After Talking to My Teacher, I See the Invitation

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on July 12, 2019| 2 Comments »

 

 

What wants to happen?

            —Joi Sharp

 

 

Today it is the tow truck

that leads me back to myself.

For though I call the driver

and though I receive

a text that says he is coming

and though I have paid

my AAA bill on time, the tow

truck does not arrive.

Though I did everything right.

Though the same actions have worked before.

Still the world has not turned out

the way I expected, the way

I want it to. The car

is still stranded. The tow truck

is still not here. Oh failure,

how clearly it shows my attachment

to outcome. How clearly it

shows me the world is in charge.

I look for more doors to knock on,

try to plan more ways to control.

Meanwhile, I am the door.

Meanwhile, this chance

to let go.

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You Are Invited

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 15, 2018| 2 Comments »

 

 

Today, a party, and the whole world

is invited. No written invitations,

but the occasion? It’s Wednesday.

And here we are, all of us, in the same place

at the same time. Might as well

get to know the person standing

next to you—learn their name,

shake their hand, discover

all you have in common—

the party goes on tomorrow, too.

Bring your own. Bring something

to share. No RSVP, just show up.

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Puddled

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 7, 2018| 7 Comments »

 

 

 

Today it was the puddle

that woke up my heart,

the way it received the sky

 

and remade it in smeary mirrors

of grays beneath my feet.

How at first, I tried so hard to avoid it,

 

and then, once my feet were wet,

I could see it only as a way to play,

an invitation for joy. To splash

 

in the clouds. To splash for the pleasure

of splashing. To splash until

I could no longer recognize her, that part

 

of me who longed to stay safe, stay dry.

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Growing Orbits

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 3, 2016| 2 Comments »

 

 

 

Dead end. That is what the sign said.

Funny how long I’ve believed I could only walk on the road.

It was the deer who showed me how to leap the fence,

how to circle the sign in irregular orbits.

There was no end to the number of paths I might choose.

I was clumsy at first, unversed in this new navigation—

the earth so soft I easily lost my balance.

It was the breath that taught me to pour my weight

first into one foot, then into the other.

My soles relearned how to meet the ground.

It was the clouds that showed me how to let myself

be orchestrated by wind, spiraling like a bird,

as if stirred by some great hand.

Ever since I began circling, I’ve come to see that dead ends

as invitations.

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With Any Luck

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 17, 2016| 1 Comment »

 

 

 

Meet me in summer

when the mountains

are softened by fields

of blue lupine

and the creeks run clear

with the memory of snow.

With any luck,

we’ll get lost until

we, too, begin to bloom,

until whatever is cold in us

melts and races away

with a bright and bubbling laugh.

There are days we forget

how to make a fist,

how to speak any language

but praise. Meet me

in summer when the old

high trails are open—

what else might we find

behind the crumbling

mines—some share

of ourselves we’ve yet

to have met—something

so spacious we never

dreamt it would fit

inside our skin.

With any luck,

it will follow us home.

 

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