These days, I am grateful for the blessed, passing moments when I am immersed in beauty. I am grateful for the whole green-lit window in my living room, greened by the beautiful birch that shimmers each day, morning and evening, and when the wind blows, in-between.
Life is filled with so much of importance. Or so it seems. What was important is not important at all, I am learning. Thankfully, I began the journey, long ago, of letting go of all of those things, and day by day, often with tears, I shed the brittle, worried me that was not real. Now, this: Life is filled with so much of importance: the light, a certain light, at just the moment I awake, the cat, purring on the bed, a child’s curiosity, touching my face, a moment when I know this moment, only, is what is. And gratefulness, a moment of gratefulness, complete.
All of my life, I have yearned for the ancestors, my ancestors. I miss them. I love them. I hope they have loved me. Perhaps my longing for them is just another attempt to not die, to live forever, to be connected, larger, to something greater than myself. And so, some day, I will have to let go of the ancestors, too. Another shedding, another sorrow, perhaps, another moment of wholeness.
Thank-you, Mary Elyn, Poet Dear! Traveling throughout Iowa I have been struck w/ this culture of deep connection to the Earth and its beauty and productivity… and the oft-engaging, hard-working relationship folks have w/ it in clearing, planting, tending. Fields about to be or just having been planted… tiny shoots upcoming a week later, searching of the skies for imminent rain. Fields will become greener as the plants move upward and outward to transform brown into green in upcoming months. So many connections we Children of the Earth have with it — and your earth-and-light-and-creatures-as-illumination is a precious one.
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Thank-you, Mary Elyn, Poet Dear! Traveling throughout Iowa I have been struck w/ this culture of deep connection to the Earth and its beauty and productivity… and the oft-engaging, hard-working relationship folks have w/ it in clearing, planting, tending. Fields about to be or just having been planted… tiny shoots upcoming a week later, searching of the skies for imminent rain. Fields will become greener as the plants move upward and outward to transform brown rectangles into green in upcoming months. So many connections we Children of the Earth have with it — and your earth-and-light-and-creatures-as-illumination is a precious one.
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