It’s the light this morning
that opens me. How is it
a certain changing angle of gold
can make the heart leap up
all nimble and sprightly and eager to praise
as if it’s never before seen such beauty,
as if it doesn’t happen every day,
this radiance that reaches
through space to find us
wherever we happen to stand
on this unlikely planet.
I don’t know how it is the light
works as a luminous key to unguard me
and swing wide my gates,
but on this morning filled with news
that makes me shutter, shut down,
close off and clench,
this stroke of light, it’s everything.
Posts Tagged ‘light’
Terce
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, hope, light, prayer, sun on October 11, 2023| 9 Comments »
Years Later, the Awe
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, light, memory, mother, time on September 27, 2023| 10 Comments »
Sometimes, for no reason, I remember
a car ride with my mother, driving
the old frontage road from school to home,
and I don’t remember what we spoke of,
don’t remember which car we were in,
don’t remember how old I was,
I remember only the way a bow of light
seemed to connect the sun
to the hood of our car, as if we were being
led forward by light itself, and
I, who knew so little of life, felt so deeply
and sweetly tethered to beauty.
Decades later, I still recall that awe,
but now I focus more on the woman
who sat in the driver’s seat, consider
how luminous she is, consider
the radiant bow that links her life to mine,
how even hundreds of miles away
she leads me with her light.
*
Autumn Walk
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged autumn, beauty, light, lose the self, loving the world as it is on September 25, 2023| 3 Comments »
Perhaps it is the autumn light
that makes the walk up
this familiar old dirt road feel
so lucky, so fortunate? This is how
I want to meet life—as if
there is no way to contain all
the beauty so it leaks out and floods
the world with gold. Simply strolling
up this gravel road, already I
am less whatever I thought I was
and more what an autumn evening
is, something at the edge
of impossible. I want to know
the beauty that comes from
release, the radiance of loving what
is, and with tenderness, letting it go.
Though You Are Far Away
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged candle, light, Paula Lepp on June 30, 2023| 10 Comments »
for Paula
On your birthday,
I light a candle in my kitchen.
There is no cake, no singing,
no balloons, no streamers,
but there is love
and there is this small light
that no one will blow out.
It will burn all night,
this little flame that celebrates
the enormity of your life—
you, more sun than candlelight.
you, more blaze than glimmer.
Even thousands of miles away,
I feel your warmth—since we met,
it’s never left me.
I see the world with that light.
Portrait
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, friendship, light, Wendy Videlock on June 17, 2023| 8 Comments »
for Wendy Videlock
It’s all about the light,
she says, as we drive west
and notice one rock fin
standing apart from the rest,
radiant now in its relief.
You could drive right past it
four hundred times and not see it.
Let the heart do what light does—
help me notice new layers of beauty.
I turn to see her as she looks
at the rocks, face naked with awe.
She has always been lovely to me,
but tonight, my god, tonight.
One for You
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged clouds, communication, light, transformation on May 4, 2023| 4 Comments »
break in the clouds
out of the blue
gold spills in
Two Months after My Son Died
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged generosity, grief, light, Mirabai Starr, silence on March 26, 2023| 3 Comments »
for MS
She gave me an hour.
Since then, every minute
has grown from the soil
of that time.
She gave me silence.
It was the wisest teaching.
She did not know me.
She deeply understood my heart.
There was a time
when she, too,
was met with unthinkable loss.
Now she knows
to say the name
of the one who is gone.
She knows not to fix.
She knows the gift
of being seen.
She asked for nothing
in return.
Over a year later,
I remember how she listened
with her eyes.
I remember the generosity
of her gaze.
She lit a candle for my child,
a golden light
on a bed of amethyst.
With that flame,
she has lit hundreds more
through my hand.
Sometimes I wonder
where her flame began,
I think of all the hands
lighting all the candles.
How beautiful that light.
How far we have come
from the dark we have known.
When the Man I Don’t Yet Know Writes to Say He is Holding Me in the Light
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, friendship, light on March 7, 2023| 10 Comments »
for R.S.
I feel it. I feel in my fingers
something of starlight.
I feel in my breath something
like dawn. I feel in my inner caverns
something akin to the radiance
of glow worms. As if just knowing
that someone is holding me in light
has made the moment brighter.
It occurs to me I can do this, too,
and I begin to imagine others
gathered by sunset, carried
by candlelight, infused
with the soft warmth
of a low campfire.
I picture the light
as it spreads across the world,
as it seeks out hearts
and lives I will never know.
What must it look like from space
as it spreads, as it grows,
as it blooms through this darkness
where we all live together.
How the Light Came
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged epiphany, firefly, light, love, sharing our gifts on January 4, 2023| 4 Comments »
The more light you allow within you, the brighter the world you live in will be.
—Shakti Gawain
And it was in the darkest time
when she was most lost,
before she even knew to ask for help,
it was then the light arrived—
as a firefly, it so happens,
a radiance so tiny
she might have missed it
had it not lit up right in front of her face
at the very moment her friend spoke of love.
Perhaps she would have resisted it
if she’d had energy for resistance.
Even the smallest brilliance can be terrifying
when it asks us to see life as it really is
instead of the way we wish it would be.
As it is, the love light entered her,
humble as a beetle, significant as a star.
It glowed so brightly others could see it.
It responded to her trust.
It met her in silent rooms and lonely days.
It shined into deep uncertainty,
It offered her no answers.
It suggested a thousand right paths.
We could say the light didn’t change a thing.
We could say the light changed everything.
Who was she to receive a miracle?
Let’s not call it miracle, then.
Call it wonder. Call it unlikely luck.
But there is no way to pretend
it didn’t happen.
Even now, she tends that light,
marvels at how it glows even brighter
the more she gives it away.
*
Oh friends, this was a difficult poem to write. I am reminded of the quote from Marianne Williamson, Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. So I wrote the poem in third-person past tense–which helped.
I wrote it in preparation to co-lead an online exploration of epiphany. Perhaps you will join me on Friday, January 6 to wrestle with your own story of being led/wanting to be led/not wanting to be led by light, of being lit from within, of sharing your gifts.
Epiphany: Stories Written in the Stars
Friday,January 6, 10:30 am -Noon PST
Mythologist Kayleen Asbo, poet Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer, artist Johanna Baruch and archetypal counselor Ingrid Hoffman explore how we can follow our inner star to bring light to the world in a celebration of Epiphany from Dionysus to Jesus and the Magi through art, story, poetry, music and creative writing practices that liberate our inner gifts.
And here is the link for registration:
https://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/eventReg?oeidk=a07ejjic613b83e1aa4&oseq=&c=&ch=
*
Soundtrack
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, dark, friendship, light, music on November 12, 2022| 2 Comments »
Sometimes another person knows our heart
so well they offer us a song that becomes,
at least for a moment, our anthem.
In that moment, listening to lyric and melody,
the entire body re-attunes to life,
each cell turning not only toward the music
but also toward the giver,
and we are led deeper into that strange
and beautiful grotto of our heart
with its mosses and echoes,
a place at once strange and familiar,
and the song becomes a shining remover
of darkness, its light bouncing on our inner walls
until we relearn who we are—
the light of a million suns.