This longing to get it right—
to not only find the right path
but to walk it with grace,
without stalling, without stumbling.
But the forest is dark and deep
and the paths are many—
and I fall, and in falling,
I stop.
So this is what it takes
to notice the beauty of being still,
to see how staying in place, too, is a path,
how falling, too, is a grace.
How much easier it is to walk now
when I trust any path I’m on is the right one,
even this one where I fall,
even this one when I don’t move at all.
Posts Tagged ‘path’
So Many Ways to Do It Right
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged being right, falling, path, stillness on March 13, 2021| 2 Comments »
Momentum
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged choice, cliff, path, step on January 25, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Only after I step one foot over the cliff
do I realize the drop is so deep
and the pool in the river below so small
that the chances of hitting the water at all
seem infinitesimal.
I thought nothing could stop me from my course,
but seeing the rocks so far below
and knowing how likely it is I would hit them,
now I stand one foot on the desperate edge.
The other foot, free as a prophecy, hovers in the air.
The Path of Love
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ego, Joi Sharp, jude Janett, love, path on January 6, 2021| 10 Comments »
with gratitude to Jude Janett and Joi Sharp And here I thought the path of love would look like love. Like kindness. Like generosity. Like gentleness. Instead it looks like me being bothered by the sound of loud chewing. Me wanting praise. Me needing to feel loved. Hello me. How elegantly love has arranged for me to meet all the parts of me that would stand in love’s way. How easily it shows me I’ve thought of love as a destination. But here is love with no expectation. Here is love with no name, no locus. Here is love with no face, no shape, no promise, no vow, no hope. Here is love as itself, surging and flowing, love as itself insisting on love, love as itself eroding all those layers of me that still think they know something about love (and love holds me while I rail and love throws me back in the stream and love is what is still here when I am not). |
Advice to Self: Get Lost
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged lost, love, map, move, path on October 27, 2020| Leave a Comment »
To move forward, move forward.
But first, get lost.
Really lost. If you have a map,
burn it. Not that there’s
anything wrong with a map.
But you must recalibrate
the one using it. Let her not know
where she is. And if she does know,
perhaps through rote,
perhaps through muscle memory,
then spin her around
with a blindfold on,
the way kids do when pinning
a paper tail on a donkey.
Spin her until she has no idea
which direction to walk with that tail.
Spin her until she falls.
And then let her do as St. Francis taught—
let step in whatever direction
her head is pointing.
Let her trust that any direction she steps
can be the right way forward,
every path can be a path toward love.
Stubborn
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged brain, healing, heart, path, stubbornness on October 13, 2020| 4 Comments »
When the brain is separated from the heart, it is capable of doing terrible things to each other and the planet.
—Jane Goodall
And so I try to tend the path each day
between brain and heart.
Whatever smallnesses I trip on,
I try to remember to bow as I remove them.
Whatever weeds try to overrun it—
weeds of should and shame—
I try to yank them out, knowing full well
I never get the whole root.
The more I travel the path,
the easier it is—
though steep sometimes,
and the effort to go on
makes me weep.
And sometimes, it feels unfamiliar,
though I’m sure I’ve travelled this way before.
Frightened, lost, tired, exposed—
yet I try to find and preserve the path.
Because the stakes are too high
when the path is gone.
Because the healing is so great
when I honor the path
step by stubborn step.
Progress
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged movement, path, progress, thoughts, worm on August 25, 2020| 4 Comments »
Perhaps I am more like the earthworm
than I thought—
one part of me anchored in place
while the rest of me moves forward.
Every time I go, I also stay.
Every time I reach ahead, part of me holds on.
Over and over, I pull myself along.
What looks like progress is slow.
No path except the one I make
by letting the world move through me.
In order to proceed, I make of myself a wave.
In order to proceed, I must let go.
Wanting to Get It Right
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ars poetica, journey, path, perspective, walking on August 24, 2020| 2 Comments »
Who is this woman so concerned with arrivals?
Doesn’t she know we are writing about paths?
What is her rush to get to the meadow?
What does she think she will find there?
She missed the sunflowers in the garden,
a whole row of luscious bright yellow bloom.
She missed the chatter of the chipmunk,
the hot scent of rabbit brush almost like sage,
the mica glistening like crushed starlight beneath her feet.
She is like one of those trucks on the highway,
a blur, a roar, an impersonal thundering.
Oh, see, now that she thinks she’s arrived somewhere,
now she starts noticing the field,
the crunch of dry grass, the dirt, her own short shadow.
Funny, she looks lost, standing there with her pen and paper,
her longing to find something worthwhile to say.
Should we tell her it’s okay,
that the lack of arrival could be her new point A?
And everywhere she looks, a new path.
On Red Mountain Pass
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, mountains, path on June 21, 2020| Leave a Comment »
for C, A, A, A and J
I want to share with you a trail with no map
and the clean scent of spruce and a clear Colorado sky.
I want to spend an afternoon above tree line
in a field of corn lilies and alpine buttercups
the pica chirping brightly in the rockfall.
Let’s not find the lake we were looking for.
Let’s stop where our feet say stop.
I want to share a leap and a shimmy,
a chocolate cookie, the mighty salt of love.
I want to slide down snowfields on our raincoats,
to find more paths to take another day,
to wade through the cold rush of change.
I want to take a bolt cutter to any door
that won’t let us in, to let the ears of my heart
attune to your words, to lose our hats to the wind
and find them again. And as the night
fills the room, I want to sing as the guitar
of friendship finds a new tune. I want to hear it
play on long after the day has gone.
When Making a Choice
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged choices, direction, path on February 10, 2020| Leave a Comment »
It’s like any new landscape. At first,
You don’t know which direction to look.
Each time you look east, you regret
you can’t at the same time look west.
Soon you become a spinning top, unable
to focus anywhere without wanting to turn
and see what you’re missing. For a time,
it serves you, this willingness to see every side,
keeps you from making poor choices. But then,
spinning and spinning becomes dizzying.
What would it be like, you wonder,
to make a clear choice and then walk
that direction and never look back?
And so you try it—at first by forcing yourself
to look only one way. It’s not easy to walk
a straight line when you’ve been spinning.
Then you begin to notice how good it feels
to put one foot in front of the other
and walk a single course. It is, after all,
all a single person can do. How easy, now
that you’re not always looking away,
how easy to notice every detail about this landscape,
to revel in each step, to focus being
here, and now here, and only here.
Off the Path
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged certainty, journey, path, poem, poetry on July 26, 2019| 4 Comments »
On the path, I am the one
who forgets to look up—
the one who doesn’t see the mountain
because I am focused on the path.
I am the one who fears the dead end,
who worries and obsesses about it,
only to discover it wasn’t an end at all,
just a sharp turn, and the path goes on.
I am the one who fears she’s not good enough
for this path, who wonders if there’s another path
somewhere that I am supposed to be on.
Everyone else seems to know where they’re going.
I can’t even seem to spot the signs.
Confused, I stop, which allows me
to notice the weeds gone to seed,
notice their tiny white globes, notice
how good it feels to stop
and notice them. I am the one who
cares so much about the path and still
fails at staying on it. In fact,
the more I pay attention, the more
I am the one who forgets there is a path.