A Little Morning Poetry

Photo from several years ago of a harp I no longer have in a house I no longer have, accompanied by various things I no longer have, in the rosy glow of sunset .... Beautiful, isn't it!

My friend Lisa encouraged me to keep a Book Of I don't Know everyday for 100 days, writing one thought a day of what I don't know, and being okay with the mystery of that not knowing, and just seeing what emerges. Well, what has emerged are little poems--not haiku, but certainly inspired by haiku.

***

Look! my village--
hens flap to me
hopeful for treats

***

Full moon--
I don't expect to see it
caught in the maple tree

***

JOSEPH & SAN MATEO

I don't know if here
and there--
are the same places

***

READ FOX

Russet-leaf coat and white
nosing for tales
I don't know anything about the fox
I'd better ask.

Okay, I get It

Some artwork from a few years ago - "The House Of Belief".

I get it. After reading and working with all kinds of material, listening to many wise folk, sitting hundreds of hours in my secret spot, tracking my natural gifts (these last two are Kamana Naturalist Training Program routines), I really do get what this true nature
stuff is about. You'll find the notion very familiar, no doubt. I've certainly encountered it many times! But this time, something just turned carefully around, and I understood in my gut.

The 'it' is this: that if we are truly to live our true nature, we are not striving but being. We are absolutely present with where we are, just as an animal is, and we move through the challenges and possibilities of the day, the month, the year, responding and considering, but mostly by being in the moment, allowing what is in motion to move through us, and responding from our heart-and-mind, both as one. Our minds can consider forward and back through time, and create and consider in astounding ways. Our hearts know who we are in that soul/animal way, just what it is that moves through us, the absolute true and natural expression of ourselves if we "cleared the clutter" of ... whatever it is that keeps us from believing in who we are.

I understand now why I can perhaps live in a small house--in a town!--in a far-off corner of the country, and just do what I do, and it will be enough--more than enough. And I understand that I really did hear the clouds murmur to one another when they flowed east at sunset, the air entirely rinsed in gold, flower-blues appearing and disappearing to the northeast in a hues I never expected to see in the sky. That, when that splash of birds flashed across to the west, I knew that one could track clouds like deer, that they too had their motions and migrations that tell stories that could make sense to those of us who stand (or wobble!) on the earth below, if we took the moment to learn their language.

That being in this part of the valley, with the magnificent snow-robed Wallowas curving around one side, and the gold-brown hills of the prairie on the other is indeed to be held in the heart of a Medicine Wheel, and to feel the giant spin of the earth, the eternity of the cloud-and-star-filled sky, and the cleansing and healing nature of these great ancient beings, who actually aren't so ancient, geologically speaking.

Okay, I'm going to leave this topic here -- I have a daughter impatient for me to help her learn to knit (it means I have to relearn how to do it!).