There is no deep forest
to explore

No high desert
chalky sunset colors
purple and peach

No great expanse of lawn
dotted with morning deer
grazing

No gardener’s palette
and beyond
a creek or
the staying summer sea

There is only a yard
surrounded by a decrepit fence
creaking in the night breeze
a hole dug for a pond
full of weeds
a few tomatoes

But the winter compost is
rich, black and hot
and steams through the frosty day

And the children still come here
to play.

Just for a moment
Or an afternoon
I’d like to be ten again

To be sitting in
My grandmother’s kitchen
Feeling uneasy
With the immense serenity
Of her place

Hearing her tell me
I’m a good girl
I’m good
I’m beautiful

I’d believe her
If I could
I wouldn’t think
She’s just saying that
Because she’s my grandmother
And she’s afraid for me

I’d let it come in
All the way to my bones
Like the rich smells
Of espresso and biscotti
Like the comforting weight of pasta

And I wonder if I’m alive and I can almost feel a hint of fear and sadness that I am not more fully here but it seems as though Life is guiding me to know myself and to reach toward the one who is Dreamer and the Dreamer is dreamed. It’s nearly unbearable this ghostly existence. This un-moored drifting from storm to calm to storm. Nothing makes a difference anymore but I long for things to matter. I long to feel their weight. And because I feel so achingly light I am shocked when I glimpse my body in the mirror and see weight. So much flesh containing such vast emptiness. The part of me that wants to be caught up in the fisherman’s net and singled out and weighed and sold and bought and set free and swimming and killed. To matter. To get caught up.There’s very little I want to do anymore.

It’s a comfort that someone who looks like me shows up in the dreams of others so often. Maybe that’s is my real life.

Entering the tear stream of Life, I am like the visitor arising from the shaman’s fire but not the shaman herself. And I don’t impart truth to the shaman but she makes something truthful of me. This is trust. This is Love. And the death of self is only on the outside. What can I give to the part of me who is fighting?

The secret dreamer slumbering inside is stirring and will know herself to be the dream.

More rain on the way

And I can’t feel anything but grateful for it

Because of three years of drought

Of being careful and not wasting

Which of course meant no running through the sprinkler

For the kids and no water balloon tosses

Alex came home

In the middle of the day

And we sat together knee to knee

Leaning in

And came to understand some things

And those were things such as

There are no guarantees and security is an illusion

Such as fear just wants to be held

Such as we are vulnerable and we are strong

Such as the desire for freedom

Is a wild horse being broken

By men with ropes and whips

And that I’m here for the horse

Across the street

DeanDean the dancing machine

Is looking at the sky

Rocking on his heels

Opening a can of beer

I don’t know what he thinks

But he asked Alex if he could take the boys golfing some time

Since they don’t go to school

As if schoolessness equals empty space

As if I don’t even exist

Maybe I don’t

I want to be at the beach today

Staring out into the gray vagueness of the sea

Letting the sand trickle through my fingers

Remembering another place

Of browner skinned people

Fortunate encounters that lead to

All-night conversations full of raptness and accord

With music in the background

But I’m afraid there would be war

I wonder if Earth

Will collapse in on herself

After we’ve bled dry all her channels

And then when I hear Ian

Crashing around in the kitchen

I wonder what to make for dinner

He asks if we’re in the phone book

And I don’t even know

When I was very young

I thought you could call information

And ask them any question

And they would have the answer

Yes, he says we’re in the phone book

Oh good

That’s proof of something isn’t it.

]]> http://www.healingtowholeness.org/partly-cloudy/feed/ 3 http://www.healingtowholeness.org/blue-yes/ http://www.healingtowholeness.org/blue-yes/#comments Sun, 23 May 2010 22:09:57 +0000 Kathleen MacGregor http://www.healingtowholeness.org/kathleen/?p=639

As I look into the blue yes

Of the face of my son

He is talking

Words like flight, like running and jumping in –

Cannonball splash

I feel myself depart, searching

With swelling desperation

The desperation

Searching for a way to convey

I love you

Without guilt

Without it being a burden

But I am lost

Because the desperation will be in it

And the guilt

I am mute

How to convey

The feeling that stirs

Of being touched by brightness

By the essence of light

And his smell of clean grass

His voice reaches my ears

And my heart of hearts

Like gentle, pulsing bee song.

I can sense him wonder:

Where are we?

For him

The denial begins

To seep in

The judgments already forming

Mom?

Inside,

The inner voice:

Please, don’t ask me

I have nothing to offer but

Poisoned love

Tainted with guilt and guilt

And self-hate

I have nothing to teach you

That I’d want to teach.

But teach I do

I know

He looks to me,

A question in his throat,

Mom?

And in this moment of deep loss

A mother’s loss

This moment of unreachable-ness

Falling away

I am reached

Her presence surrounds me from below

Sweeping me up in her arms

I feel her knowing me

Understanding and

Loving me

Completely

No questions

Only grace

Held in the arms of

The Mother and her Loving Spirit

I find that I am

Alright

All

Right

I breathe her in

Soak her in

I have re-membered

My self

My wholeness

Looking into the blue yes

Of the face of my son

With new eyes

I have taught him a dance

Without any telling

The dance of losing faith and

Finding faith

Of being separate from Love

And becoming Love

Looking into the blue yes

Of the face of my son

I wanted a child
Because I was going to invent the
Biggest love
That had ever been
Pure love
Pure beauty

I could be Mary (Ah! Ah!Ah!)

And all the trying
Soul searching
Book reading
Frustration, worrying
Falling short, falling apart
Hating myself
Loving myself
Losing and finding and losing
Myself
Again and again

Was not about
Raising my sons

It was about
Raising myself

Parenting isn’t so much
Something to do
As it is
Something to let go of

Letting go:
Letting go of the possibility that
I raise a child
At all
That I parent
At all
That I do anything
For, to or with anyone
At all

Ah! Here is the terror
Of manifesting something
Beyond my reach
Beyond belief

Mmm! Here is the grief
Of losing something

I never had (Aw! Aw! Aw!)

My children are strangers to me
They always have been

My children are gone
They always have been

Because I can guess
What flavor ice cream
He’ll choose
I think I know him

Kinder to accept
That I’ll be living closely
With strangers
For a few years

Letting go of
All my self
All my love
Over and over

Because holding
Kills the butterfly

Oh! Here is freedom
And here is love
And now we fly
Bye-bye