Oración Para Un Mundo Cambiante

Por favor, ayudme con mi gramatica. Muchas gracias.

Le ofrezco la cancion en mi carazon.

Empiezo el circulo de mi cancion en alabanza de cortinas amarillas, felizmente expresando la voluntad de algria en el mundo.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Me honra a todos, es decir el abrazo extatico de luz y sombra.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Escucho la cancion de nuestra sangre! Leventan y hacen un ruido alegre!

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Me alegro por amigos maravillosos. Estamos felices juntos.

Me alegro por grandes gatitos naranja. Shelley, te amo.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Me honra Al Norte; el lugar de mi nacimiento; La Tierra. Pido a Dios por la sanacion del suelo.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Me honra el brillo en los ojos de mi madre, de la que nunca se separaron.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Rezo por la paz en El Barrio.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Te amo, Joshua.

Me honra El Este; Haegl Magnificado. Pido a Dios por la sanacion del aire.

Te amo, Justin. Te amo, Miranda.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Me honra la abeja y la matriz de toda la vida. Usted susurra la historia de amor asombrosa.

Te amo, Brandy.  Te amo, Savannah.

JayBee, maestro y amigo mas amable, gracias por todo. Te amo.

Aprecio el Coro del Amanecer.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Me honra las estrella gemelas de mi dia: Cocer al Horno y Cocinar.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Gracias por desconocidos en las paradas de autobus.

Gracias por las cintas de mezcla sin listas de reproduccion.

Gracias por las camas recien hechas.

Gracias por desnudo jardinerias y cantantes desafinados.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Me honra a sagrado acuerdos con Los Reinos Animal.

Me honra Buho. Me honra Ciervo.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Me honra la mesa de la concina, querido amigo. Gracias.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Escucho la cancion de nuestro sangre! Leventan y hacen un ruido alegre!

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Te amo, Girard.

No le temo a las mas oscura desconocida.

Honro la marga.

Me honra las semillas y las piedras y las celulas.

Heather, hermana y amiga, gracias por todo. Te amo.

Me honra el Sur; las familias de Los Desaparecidos.
Pido a Dios por la sanación de la Humanidad.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Me encanta levantamiento vientre.
Me encanta la bobino de mi sexo.
Me encanta levantamiento vientre.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Me honra el pantano y pereza cerebral.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Aprecio Los Faros, Los Narradores y Los Posaderos. Gracias.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Me honra Al Oeste.  Pido a Dios por la sanacion de las aguas.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Me honra La Historia de La Creacion.

Me encanta que el Lago Superior.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Me honra Los Maestros y Guias, el monje y la mariposa, Joy Harjo y El Dalai Lama.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Me honra nuestra Amorosa Antepasados.

 Me honra La Maria, que se manifestan en el mundo hoy.
Me honra El Buddha, que se manifestan en el mundo hoy.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Honro la rueda del cielo y el eje del tiempo. Puedo aprender a hacer lo que esta escondido como un regalo para los demas.

Me honra La Estrella de La Noche y la gran carcajada de la magia de curacion profunda.

Ofrezco elogios y gracias por toda la creacion. Celebro la plentitud de a vida.

Dios nos depierta y despertar dentro de nos otros. Hermanos y hermanas reconstruir sus vidas.

Que no haya extranos aqui.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,

or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Mary Oliver

Gang Of Five. I spent so much time with these kids that it's difficult to grasp that I barely know them at all now.

from left: Edith, me, Shannon, Larry, Misie. 1982?

I called mom this morning.  I'm going home.

Figuratively speaking, I ran away from home when I was 19. I was a kid when I came here, my cousins and my brothers too.  Each of has taken a different route into our (mostly) adult lives and many of us have lived all over somewhere away from home base Illinois.  But, as fate will have it, in two weeks, we'll all be in the same state again.

If I am honest about why I'm moving home I will say that it is to help my mom with a few things but it is also a hope that I can get to know these kids again.  I have no idea what makes them tick.  If they are like me then that which made them tick as an adolescent has changed a bit. Maybe we didn't know each other so well as kids, maybe it's more a familiarity that I hope to regain. I don't know.

It has been a slower realization with my extended family but the more I think about moving home the more I realize how much I've missed and how much I miss them. 

Two Boxes

by Shel SIlverstein

Two boxes met upon the road.

Said one unto the other,

"If you're a box,

And I'm a box,

Then you must be my brother.

Our sides are thin,

We're cavin' in,

We must get no thinner."

And so two boxes, hand in hand,

Went home to have their dinner.

I love the life I live. My laughter and my tears I don't know where it's going but I like it like it tis.

April 14, 2010

I listened to Brother Ali's song Fresh Air today and I would like to share this with you now: I honor and give thanks for the words, work and spirit of Brother Ali and the music he makes.

When I listen to some of his songs I feel light in me. Today as I listened and danced I was able to give up a little of my grief. It's not lost on me that great joy is an enormous depth of feeling, a gray area where joy overlaps grief in such a strange way; after all, they live in the same house. It is a fine and subtle mystery.

Today I tried to give up a little, live up to my desire, let go of my desire, to breath freely and clearly, to let the music in me, let myself out clearly, up and up and out, if even for a moment... like swift wind on the shoreline in a moment of sure integrity.

The beauty of the Epicurean life is that there is nothing to figure out, nothing to understand, nothing to subject to painful analysis. The work, rather, is one of educating the senses, giving them their due in abundance, finding the soul in them, and loving with such consistency as to appear foolish and imprudent. The ultimate Epicurean is the holy fool, whose wisdom is judged by a standard made in heaven. Thomas Moore

The passage of time, so organic and so arbitrary, gave me a surprise... I looked at my tatoos and was shocked to see them. How long have those been there??

It's been seven months to the day since my last post, how funny.  Time is so funny.  Heh. I didn't plan this.  

I woke up to the second exquisite rainy morning this week, feeling as I did yesterday, that I was waking up in a cabin somewhere on the North Shore.  Languishing in bed for about five seconds I turned to the book I was nearly done reading at page 816.  I knew what was coming. I've read this book so many times that the thing is nearly in tatters which is strange because until the last few years it was a rule of mine never to read a book more than once; there are so many why waste time re-reading?  Then I got out of bed, made coffee and french toast and finished watching the travesty of translation from book into film, The Time Traveler's Wife.


Apparently I have a bone to pick.  Or something.


Both of these stories culminate in the death of a husband, each at 40ish years of age.  Death has been a strong theme this year, giving me much to consider. Being a semi-social person and not in fact a recluse who never sees other living souls, I have heard a handful of stories over the years about a person awash in a tide of deaths.  I think you have known these folks too, perhaps you are one of them, who have spoken of numerous deaths in the span of a year or less.

I have always feared this time and in the back of my mind wondered when it would be my turn.  

In my childhood there was only one, my stepfather Bill.  In my twenties it was Edyth Ann, Heather and my big orange kitty, Shelley... each death was devastating in its own unique way. Ten years later, this February, it was JayBee, though his death would show me something, maybe even a million things that just mean one thing.  I'm weary of the statements in my head that want to be said and written; if I have learned anything at all it's that I know so little.

side note: Strangers in Paradise is coming to mind, another story whose final arch involves the death of a male partner... a scene just before a plane crash when David says to Katchoo, "You must confess!" to which Katchoo replies, "I confess I love you. I confess I love the clouds in summer. I confess I love this ocean... and so many things beneath it. But all I'll miss is you... Francine."

I know, in the next couple of months that I will be taking the next fork in the road and leaving this state to go home to Illinois, back to my family.  However much I know that Minnesota remains I also know there isn't any coming back, even though I'm sure to visit.  It's not so much the place as the time I must say good bye to now.  It's the proverbial river I can't stick my foot into twice.

I came here in 1995 having aimed for Seattle, fell in love and fell in love and fell in love and became entangled and lost and lost... thank you all for that.  When I found my apartment on Grand I found a deeply needed refuge and another great love that would help me get even more lost, lost enough and sick enough to really find myself.  What seems so impossible to commit to text is a bold enough statement that perhaps it looks like I'm asking for a challenge (I'm not).

Having searched and dug in and wept and struggled and rejoiced and... there are so many threads I wish I could describe right here but I'll settle for telling you this: I was repaired, made whole again and thankful for the revelations brought by the terrible tearing.  I feel equipped with the gifts of perspective and a clear open heart.  I believe the truth about myself and I know this requires constant reflection and unerring honesty.  I have worked hard for the stripes that enable me to say this and I feel that I can say it in large part because of my teacher and friend, JayBee:

I do not fear death.  All that we are, all that we will ever be, is who we are in this moment and what we carry within us and engender between us.

I understand, for the moment, that I do not miss you because you are not gone.  I still here your giggle, still feel your breath, still see you with your pants down wiggling and laughing in the sunshine.