Listen, your life is speaking...
I hear the sounds of women crying-- and the angry shouts of men who wish they knew how to weep. A stone altar lies before me adorned with precious objects- djembe, ecclesia, kyo-zakura. These are names in other languages that languish on the tongue, like the names of women and men who walk the edges of my waking: Dream-state. Child of the light. Protector of the sea.
Spirit animals dance here ...snapping turtle, owl, woodpecker, crow. A circle gathers round to offer rose quartz- stones of love and healing- in a place that has known violence and death. Demons dissolve into murky water, and the lost are reconciled.... The lion lies down with the lamb.
On a devastated city street we are given small bronze crosses, engraved with a word that means to be called. I lay it now on this altar made of stone- with the cherry blossom incense, the turtle-carved drum, the Cape Cod shells, the owl feathers, the singing bowl.
There is a path of healing that opens wide before us, out of these tangled brambles. A woman is learning to speak. She is telling her story to all who will listen. A soprano sings back in operatic voice: you must go looking for your life.
Community is afire, and there is no one but us: these people breaking bread on the stoop; these children of light who are facing their pain; these friends who are showing up to fix the broken pieces of our lives. Together we share the ten thousand things: they are you, and they are me. We are the ten thousand things.
My daughter tells me every part of her body is a different religion. She has a Jewish foot, a Muslim hand, a Christian arm, and a Buddhist tongue. Her Sikh heart pumps her Hindu blood. I hear her and know she is the universe. The soul of the world runs through her veins.
I see us and know we are the body, the body of this earth we re-create. We are broken and fractured- and on the way to re-membering, with hands that arise to mold the visions of our lives.
I hear the sounds of women crying-- and the angry shouts of men who wish they knew how to weep. A stone altar lies before me adorned with precious objects- djembe, ecclesia, kyo-zakura. These are names in other languages that languish on the tongue, like the names of women and men who walk the edges of my waking: Dream-state. Child of the light. Protector of the sea.
Spirit animals dance here ...snapping turtle, owl, woodpecker, crow. A circle gathers round to offer rose quartz- stones of love and healing- in a place that has known violence and death. Demons dissolve into murky water, and the lost are reconciled.... The lion lies down with the lamb.
On a devastated city street we are given small bronze crosses, engraved with a word that means to be called. I lay it now on this altar made of stone- with the cherry blossom incense, the turtle-carved drum, the Cape Cod shells, the owl feathers, the singing bowl.
There is a path of healing that opens wide before us, out of these tangled brambles. A woman is learning to speak. She is telling her story to all who will listen. A soprano sings back in operatic voice: you must go looking for your life.
Community is afire, and there is no one but us: these people breaking bread on the stoop; these children of light who are facing their pain; these friends who are showing up to fix the broken pieces of our lives. Together we share the ten thousand things: they are you, and they are me. We are the ten thousand things.
My daughter tells me every part of her body is a different religion. She has a Jewish foot, a Muslim hand, a Christian arm, and a Buddhist tongue. Her Sikh heart pumps her Hindu blood. I hear her and know she is the universe. The soul of the world runs through her veins.
I see us and know we are the body, the body of this earth we re-create. We are broken and fractured- and on the way to re-membering, with hands that arise to mold the visions of our lives.
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