Turning and Returning

And first, a poem... Entering the Kingdom

The crows see me. 
They stretch their glossy necks 
In the tallest branches 
Of green trees. I am 
Possibly dangerous, I am 
Entering the kingdom.

The dream of my life 
Is to lie down by a slow river 
And stare at the light in the trees- 
To learn something by being nothing 
A little while but the rich 
Lens of attention.

But the crows puff their feathers and cry 
Between me and the sun, 
And I should go now. 
They know me for what I am. 
No dreamer, 
No eater of leaves.

--Mary Oliver
I am 
Possibly dangerous In transition, each day is a lesson in presence, in unfolding.

The deeper we unfold, the heartier call the crows, to warn:

for possibly, deep within our trespasses, or liminal spaces, our crossing places, we may become other.  We may stop heeding the boundaries others have placed about us, hemming us in.  We may find ourselves fighting, snarling, wounded, retreating, weeping, isolating...or we may find ourselves called again, with whatever tool's in hand, to make do.  To make, to do, what calls to us, what sings our own song, what authentically spreads its wings from our own centered heart.

In that integrity, we may proceed. There was a time... ...when I thought myself invulnerable.  I had finally made right choices, right actions.  I was free from lies, and this would set me free from sorrow.

I was wrong.  Whatever the clearing, there is still more work to do.

The lies I have discovered since that time are not lies of my own making, but lies of social telling, lies of culture, lies of country, lies of state.

Lies of lineage, lies of ancestry.  Lies of time.

And I have found that my grief, my sorrow is boundless, because it contains all of the grief of lineage, social story, culture and embodied separation.  

And I have found within that ancient ancestry of grief, a great source of strength...and joy. What if this is all you have?  How will you spend your days? In the past three years I have come to pursue art in ways I never have before.  Not avocation, but antidote, healing, calling.

When I draw I become lost in time, the linearity of space dissolves and I become for a moment Oliver's "rich lens of attention."  I felt this way once about writing, but five years of teaching writing diminished that of free and holy relationship.  At least for now.  However, writing by hand, working with image as language and language as symbol has incited inspiration, and kept me rooted amidst (what feels like interminable) transformation.

Whatever results from this time, these trials, tapping in to what is right in the moment, what feeds me and nourishes my soul, has been a tremendous lesson.  I'm challenged to learn it again and again, daily.  It is a means for undoing the fetters, breaking the box, tearing the ropes that bind me to lies I no longer believe, stories that exist for another alone.  It is freedom, doing what I love when money and work and parents and teachers and exes and hexes all say no.

Every moment we give to our gifts is a moment we give to divinity, to purpose, to some greater life and love.  We give yeses to the future, to our descendants, as we shape the pattern of the weaving to show new ways of being and belonging to each day.

And I am grateful, though I write this from a place of struggle, ever for this time and its teachings.  Because I make, each day, anew.

If this is all you have, this cycle, this one precious turn of sun, of hour, of living, what is it that you must do?  To heal the grief, to enjoin the soul.  To be to yourself real, precious, whole.