the music of me….



I want to believe in rest,
the kind that found me on the mountain
~ soft and supple
 and scary to step into
like fog on the ridge
that would surely give way
if I lay down
the heaviness of me.

Rest is so like trust that way.

 But I wanted rest.....needed it
 my molecules charged with rush,
jarred to attention,
 soul strings strung tight
and plucked hard,
plinking shrill,
too fast,
feeling broken down and hungry for rest
with no way to feed it.

~help~



And in that quiet breeze it came
as I sat on a stone
that had clung to mountainside
for longer than I'd known air,
sunning myself like a sleepy newt,

 I began to remember 
what I'd forgotten to love,
brave songs long quiet inside myself
and I began to hum

Rest me again till I’m mellow and peace
songs from my belly flowing  free
Strum  these heartstrings sweet and low
till they  play effortless the music of me.

“The question begs, do we appease those who would laugh at us,
or touch those who will remember our song
and help them to remember theirs?” -Brooke Meservy

August rest……


Each month I start a new folder on my laptop
for photos I’ll take and save that month.
Humming with messy hope,  I type in the title
like mixing a color
or naming a poem
and no over-thinking allowed
…just plunk it down,
whatever is rolling around in my belly.

I love looking back a the images from that month
and seeing the serendipity
…”there is only love”
“a river runs through it”,
“the days were golden”
….each month with it’s own story to tell.

This month out popped “August rest”,
pulled playful from August Rush
(which I’d begun to type)
and I sat grinning at the irony,
with the engines of our busy season are already rumbling,
the acceleration making my floorboards quake.

Yes,  yes indeed to rest.

Yes to resting from  stuff that steals away my time,
from spending on anything I don’t have to buy,
from trying to please,
trying to know,
trying to foresee.

Rest from scolding myself
to be quick and try harder,
from wondering if I should do more,
offer more,
be more,
write more,
right more.
Simply inside myself,   rest.

A firm “no” to rush;  a gentle “yes” to rest.
August.  Rest.

I’ll still be coming around to share my rest with you!
One way I’ve been resting my mind is with these outdoor paintings!
I love letting them find their way into the garden and onto the trees.
The weather-proofing is working!
(palms clasped)
The music of it all is sweetness to my soul.

just this….


Today,
it’s just this.

Everything about me needs rest.

I’m going to choose to believe
that this is enough.

I send you love
and tired hugs.

 

windy wobbles and winsome waves…

“I need to get to the sea,”  I said,
to lean against the winds
and let the waves wash over the weeks of ache
until sky stretches out wide inside my chest,
rising and falling,
with the rhythm of the tides.”

But the week wouldn’t roll with my wishes,
wouldn’t wait for me to go and return
so I leaned instead into Love like-an-ocean
and let the clay of me
dip deep in the waves that appeared
once I traded wanderlust for here and now.

There were whisps of Autumnlight,
like sunsparkles on big water,
and wild wooly winds whipping willows overhead
as I stood beneath
and let them coach my soul easy.

There were waffles and winesaps
and whispering grasses gone dry,
their breezy waving and whooshing a golden tide
finding my weak and wobbly places
and soothing them soft
with great affection.

Right here.
Right now….just where I am completely
there is an Ocean
and I am in it
and it swells and rolls inside me,
it’s gentle comfort brushing back my hair
like the sound of seashell held to wondering ear.

Listen.  Do you feel it?
Go slow and savor.

“If grace is an ocean we’re all sinking.”  
                             – John Mark McMillan