Healing Arts

You make idols of your guilt and dance around the fire

Your sacrifice and tears are fuel for its flames;

You make gods of your fear and cower and furl -

There is no god, but God  – yet you worship another;

You make heaven of your desires

Though they are smoke in fanciful ribbons;

You make prayers of wishes and become deaf

to the melody of silence.

You adorn your homes like they are passages to the Hereafter

while the depths of your heart are soiled with doubt.

What is Truth?

What is Mercy?

What is Beauty?

What is That?

It is there on the plain betwixt wrong and right.

So take a walk with me and along we will go.

To discover that all that we carry sets us apart.

Let’s leave this body, its names and its maps

Only take what Is, that Breath that is Life.

Horror is no more when you have nothing to lose.

Abandon your shackles and braces and ties

Step forth and fall far fall beyond the Earth

Into the gardenpath where at once you are One.

Love is what Love gives & Love grows what Love knows.

Blossom without water, burst forth! A flame.

Disarmed, detached – no caterpillars cocooned.

Sheered, pruned, amputated,

Bereft.

Ashamed, so ashamed I silenced my cries.

I grew despite, I grew because

Extended, extracted, expanded – unfurled.

I did survive amidst the barren ‘scape

Between pebbles and stones, my roots did bind

A cushion of comfort and a blanket of truth,

Ease. Such ease. Even in drought.

…

Last night I dreamed of rain.

An umbrella of clouds adorning the sky,

a misty dew to caress my skin.

I begged the Sky, the Stars replied,

“We watched and waited til you knew your strength.

This courage is yours, a treasure to keep.”

A drizzle at first, a string of pearls,

Horizon bejeweled with gems serene.

I no longer needed the drought to Be,

That is, therefore, I am.

The Cactus