The Saintly Throng in the Form of a Rose, by Gustave Dore

Clearly, this is no time for poetry. In fact, as I transition into 2012, I can practically see my poetry drifting out to sea, carried off by gentle waves. I’m not sure where it’s headed or when it might return to shore, and I’m okay with that. Much of it now feels prehistoric and somewhat irrelevant, in an age-appropriate sort of way. (As in, “The Ages,” not as in that chronological number braceleted to my wrist at birth.)

I have long been willing to leap into the void, to hang upon Ishtar/Inanna’s meat hook, to step into the primordial flame, to surrender and peel and wail in the darkness. Resisting that particular ray of life, steeling myself against the descent, never seemed an option to me. Far as I can surmise, I signed up for the whole package.

So here I am (again), stepping into a voidier void, facing a larger emptiness, reconsidering the deepest pre-considered crevices of the deepest issues, the ones gathered in inaccessible corners, out of reach of the illuminative searchlights that travel back and forth across the windshield of one’s inner landscape.

I don’t mind telling you this: If you are not at least slightly shaky or perhaps full-on terrified at the prospect of releasing every now-useless thought form, every hypnotic belief about yourself or others that you have clung to, every contrived notion that grates against your unabashed view of utter liberation, then you are either (1) an ascended master (so why are you reading this?) or (2) here it comes: you’re not fully embracing this unparalleled evolutionary opportunity.

That’s not a chastisement; it’s a gentle reminder that perhaps you can nudge yourself a little further than you believe. Perhaps you can reach up and oh-so tenderly pull aside the veils that have kept you in the dark. Perhaps you can hold up an untarnished mirror and take a second (or third or four-hundredth) look at the brilliance that resides within you.

There may be a wounded sparrow trapped within the confines of your heart – and if you approach softly, she may very well let you hold her close and soothe her raw and mangled feathers.

You may agonizingly wonder whether your entire life has been some sort of twisted cosmic joke – though if you allow yourself to chuckle lightly at the seeming absurdity of it all, you may choose to observe the flip side of magnificence barreling into view.

If forays down memory lane leave you pondering What could I possibly have been thinking?, offer yourself a bit of mercy. Even if the seemingly correct answer came down from the sky and alighted on the tip of your nose, so what? What’s done is done. No amount of intellectual understanding will change a thing, except to propel you to the next question, to which you will affix your next attempt at mental mastery, and thus continue the cycle for eternity.

And if you’re not called to any of this, perhaps you can allow yourself the luxury of being exactly where you are, without the urge or the need to strive for anything more.

Truth is, if we are sincerely committed to this wild ride, sometimes we must weep and grieve and double over in pain without having any sense whatsoever as to the source of the loss. Something was taken from you sometime, as it was from me, or we gave it up willingly, or we simply never had it in the first place. In ways large and small, significant and seemingly inconsequential, loss happens more often than it is comfortable to acknowledge – and as tempting as it is to pretend otherwise, one does not grieve well from the grave.

So in these days, right now, tread lightly in the heavenly garden that grows within you. No need to fling the fertilizer around in oversized clumps or hack everything off with rusted blades. You can prune with intention and lovingly pull away any choking excess. You can spy color and life and tiny beginnings and endings all around, and you can honor every blessed bit of it.

What appears barren still holds potential for beauty. What seems wildly askew is simply harmonious realignment finding its way to fresh order. Darkness carries light in her bosom and life cradles a string of deaths in her benevolent arms…

…and all the while, within the scrambling brambles rests the precious and unfolding rose that is you.

Patterns In Life, by Carlos Arturo Smith

The world needs you now.

More than you know.
More than you can imagine.

The world needs your gifts.
Your heart.
Your compassion.
Your understanding.

Your ability to listen
To speak
To feel
And to act.

The gifts that only you can give,
In the way that you and you alone can give them.

The time for holding back is over.

The time for believing that you are not good enough,
Not ready enough
Not wise enough
Has passed.

The time for fearing that you are too good,
Too powerful
Too magnificent
Too intelligent,
No longer exists.

You have run out of excuses.

You have exhausted every reason why you cannot be
Exactly who you were placed here to be.

Your usual distractions no longer distract.
Your strategies for staying small
For resisting the call to awaken
Are dead.

The world needs you now,
More than you know.

In the Great Circle of Life,
A space has been held for you
Since before Time began.

As you wandered, as you explored,
Your shoes waited, marking your place.

No one else approached,
For these shoes could only be filled by you.
You agreed to step into them when you were ready
To take your rightful place on the Circle.

And now, you are ready.

You are bored with your own self-absorption.
You choke and gag on your endless self-reflection and
Your belly is filled with an urgency
To leave jobs behind and embrace your real Work.

Now, at the exact moment that the world needs you,
You have uncovered and recovered and discovered enough
So that your authentic self can see the light of day.

So that you can step into the shoes that have been
Waiting for you since before time began.

Every moment that you delay,
Widens the hole in the web of existence.

For you are an essential ingredient,
Without which Creation is incomplete.
Global harmony rests in the palm of your hand.
Planetary peace will simply not be attained without
Your heart
Your mind
Your spirit.

The world needs you
And the world needs you now.

More than you know.

More than you can ever imagine.

i’m learning that i’m not learning anything new –
only choosing to remember a vast universe
that I heretofore chose to forget
(whether it was some intergalactic, ancient conspiracy
or the fact that my slightly agoraphobic father kept us home if there was
any possible chance of a thunderstorm within a 200-mile radius,
doesn’t really matter)

i’m learning that in more than fifty years of existence
i perhaps have learned nothing whatsoever about love,
except that it carries the power to elevate above all else
and will run helter-skelter through any tidy emotional framework
we believe we have fabricated
(i’m learning to want it in a way that I have never known
and, of course, I’m learning that I haven’t the slightest idea
what that might be)

i am gaining a deep wisdom about contentment right now
how it rises out of simple soil
how utterly enough it is to live each day with a roof over my head and earth under my feet
and to feel the electrifying ease of being at home in my own skin
(for reasons of no import, this gentle concept eluded my understanding until now,
arousing a succulent irony at the very moment I recognized its arrival
astride the back of a great white tiger)

every inspiration that is pure of heart
weaves me into the warp of life’s sacred tapestry

every moment to which I bring my undiluted presence
is a moment sublime in its lack of adornment

each prayer I choose not to utter
births itself with a hope and promise for which there is no measure

in every imaginable aspect that alights within my circumference
i take the hand of creation in a pas de deux divine

what i am learning now is holy reconstitution
a way to sequester myself from that which seeks to encumber my rewiring,
a practice that brings a godlike order to man’s chaos of fragmentation
and returns me to the garden naked and alive

how great the satisfaction
watching the sunmooncloudsstars
sweep across an endless western sky

In this time of miracles I recommit to faith
To the power of All There Is
To seeing beyond the physical to the unalterable truth within
To the infinite healing of pure Love
To knowing what I know
To angels among us.

In this time of uncertain outcome
I remember that which never changes
The brilliant light that lives in every heart
The unending cycles of winter, spring, summer, fall
The eternal and astonishing efficiency of the universe
Sacred in origin and indefinable in form.

In this moment, this unceasing now
I rebirth my holy soul’s intent
Resurrect dying embers into the magnificence
of the original dawn
Release ancient armor to galactic sky
Reclaim my birthright of joy divine
Helix reknit
Spirit reborn
Rekindled anew.

I am the miracle I have ached to see
In this time
This place
I am.

the best gift
by rachel snyder

I
Dawn awakens, morning time
When Lovers of Peace keep pace with the rhyme
Of the heart’s own beating, the drumming within,
The Life-Force eternal in Gaia’s constant spin
Soul-healing rhythms, the dance Earth-inspired
Bones bleached and knowing lie close to the fire,
Witness to the story that never will end,
The truth that is passed between Lover and Friend…

II
In the vast light of dawn comes a gentle sparrow’s cry
She asks the young prince, “You come here, yet why?”
“You knock, yet not enter
You speak, yet not sing
You fly not, you soar not
You spread not your wings-
Who sent you forth and to what end?
What quest is yours, my sweet humble friend?”

III
The Prince remains solemn, an angel’s voice mute
And there at his side a silver flute
Hangs quietly, void of breath and of tune,
No celestial music fills not one earthly room
No princely lips laid upon this thin neck
No princely fingers play, not one bedecked
In golden rings with knots entwined,
All Nature waits for his song sublime!
Yet Winter lies upon this heart
And inhabits a time stood still and stark.

IV
The sparrow hovers quite so near
And plucks with beak a strand of hair
Thick and golden, hay spun fine,
A piece of Heaven’s fairest twine –
She meets the Prince with piercing eyes
And asks, “How shall I pay you for this singular prize?”

V
The Prince looks up to meet the bird’s gaze,
Eyes afire with thoughts of warm summer days
“How could it be,” he asks the sparrow,
“That my lock of hair graces your tomorrow?
“It’s nothing save a piece of string,
It won’t help one fly! It can’t help one sing!”
“Alas,” the bird replies aloft,
“It shines as the sun and like a cloud is soft,
This strand will help me build my nest
My eggs will sit more safely than the rest!
Do not belittle this gift so rare,
Simply tell me what would be payment fair!”

VI
The Prince now ponders the question anew,
“What could I receive from the likes of you?
A tiny bird, two spindly legs!
I would not even eat your wretched eggs!
And yet you sing as I cannot –
I know I once could, but I fear I’ve forgot,
And fly? I’d like to soar above,
Held safely in the wings of Love,
Fearful not of ever falling; swooping, gliding, gaily calling
To other birds and wing-ed ones who live for Earth and Sky and Sun,
Perhaps the gifts of song and flight
Might bring our barter round to right.”

VII
The offer made, the bird was still – until her song began its trill
And others joined! A glorious song!
The Heavens resounding so strong and long!
A Light encircled the Prince so fair, raising him high into the air –
Illuminated he now became, upon his neck a golden mane,
Strands aplenty of silver-gold light,
The stars themselves beamed at the magnificent sight!
And then from the throat of this once-silent one
A most Divine song rose up toward the Sun!
And he followed soon after, with wings stretched wide,
No fear lived inside him, and nothing to hide-
Soon Winter moved out and Spring took its place
And the glow returned to the fair Prince’s face.

For the Prince learned the lesson we all must now live:
The best gift we receive is the one that we give.

thanks for listening
for in your silence the value of my words is affirmed
the uprisings of my heart given flight
thus i know that i am here
and it is good

thanks for whispering
for cutting through the noise with soft-wrought utterance,
damping down the clatter
gently sanding the edges of the sharp and loud
for it is good

thanks for waiting
for in your patience all are given room to grow
and when you are impatient,
thanks for the absence of judgment and scorn
for this, too, is good

thanks for your willingness
for saying yes
for stepping away from yourself when you are able,
for simply being in the room
is so very good

for reaching out
thanks
for being curious about who i am
thanks
for asking questions without demanding answers,
thanks and thanks
for standing up for what you know is true
for placing your courage in full view
for letting down your guard and granting precious access to your soul,
thanks
and thanks
and thanks
and thanks

thanks for loving
for allowing others to bask in your radiance
swim in the dazzle of your eyes,
thus the keys of peace are passed from one to another
and surely, without question,
this is good

it is such a delicate configuration,
this gossamer in which we place our hopes and dreams

and so it is wise never to squander gifts given,
tender mercies received,
for who can say when the door to grace will slide slowly shut
when the wafer of heaven we rub between our fingers dissolves,
when all that we believe to be enduringly ours
is borne away by a wafting breeze

it is such a fragile web,
this tottering cradle from which we revisit the dawn
greet the moon
offer our hearts bared raw and unvarnished,
lean into palisades we fabricate to buffer ourselves from the wind,
from each other, ourselves

every moment matters
be it cloaked in darkness, arrayed in brilliance,
this one carries the seed of the next,
germ of the former,
an endless procession of unformed outcomes
spiral and swirl in search of higher ground

and so it is wise to remain awake
merrily gathering whispers of life in braided baskets,
knowing full well that the unraveling never ceases
and the birthing never ends

now the barren gives way to the blossom
if you but untie the limp strings of your torn and tender heart
and let it go

the mountainous terrain of the past heaves and crumbles
and in its stead soft valleys arise in a series of gently rolling caresses,
if you but sink to your knees and assume the holy posture of acceptance
and let it go

the moment you allow yourself to be fully fed,
you acknowledge the depth of your lingering starvation
and you can let it go

the instant in which you agree to be wrapped in illuminative splendor,
you shed the chill that has held you in its icy grip through endless summers
and you can let it go

when you are able to meet the eyes of one who bears your true reflection
and not shrink from your own brilliance
(no matter how tarnished you believe it to be),
a glorious visage will greet you
and you will be shown all that was withheld from your gaze
since the onset of antiquity
so let it go

once your senses are awash in silent symphony
you recognize how fervently you had come to rely on distraction,
the hollow ring of obfuscation forever fades
and you are gifted with the sustained and echoing tones of truth
so just let it go

once you bid farewell to your default resistance
and release it with kindness and grace,
you shake your head in astonishment
that you chose to carry it for so long
and yes, you let it go

there is a moment in time
when you find yourself at peace with all that once brought deep grief
and you feel sorrow give way to an indeterminate joy,
your aching for authenticity subsides without notice
something inside opens ever so slightly,
and you enter the temple of divine consummation
where you are the lover and beloved and every act is born sacred and pure

and in that single, uncontainable moment
you know that love’s offering dwells within~
has waited patiently upon the doorstep
while you pointed yourself in another direction,
bemoaning its absence
and decrying the forsaking of your soul

til at last, with a sigh,
you simply let it go