Awakening:  Land of the Soul

Bruises

I don't want your anger
    Take it
Take these bruises, too
They're your bruises
You wear them

Nothing

Fear is braving the darkness,
Having the courage to descend
    and then
Finding the darkness turning 
    not to Light
    but to grey.

Fear is finding myself
    in that world of unheard cries   
    coldness
    no warmth of grief, anger, joy
    absence of all feeling

Fear is nothing.

A Thousand Grandmothers

Stand beneath a tree in the rain
    and you will hear
        the tears
of a thousand grandmothers
as they cry for the fallen.

Duality

I am young and old and lost
    between the ages.
I am warm and cold and being born
    in stages.
I am iron and stone and tired
    of building cages.
I am light and dark
    and wondering what the rage is.

Offering

Would you treat this world differntly
    if you knew that these animals
    these plants
    these trees
Were Earth's Offering
    to God?

This Hour

I know this hour
    this hour when my body
        remembers
        your death
    this moment
        when you were
        and suddenly weren't
Body 
    cried out in anguish
    woke me up
    though I
        didn't hear it
        refused to understand

Believing against unbelief   
    I lived
    as though you did too
Until the evidence
    piled up
    and mind knew
    you 
        were no longer    

Dawn

Over the trees I flew
over the hills
over the years
until at last I saw
another glorious day.

Disintegration

40 years of tears
    and me with only ten fingers
    to plug the holes
    as the pressure eats away slowly
    at the walls I have built.
Salt is corrosive - ask any engineer
    how it damages concrete
And though I used stone, it seems
    to make no difference
Something had to hold the stone together
    and there is nothing left
    to make repairs.

Knocking

Shhh.
Listen.
Hear that sound?
Don't try.
Close your ears,
open your heart.

Now do you hear it,
    gentle
    but
    insistant?

God is knocking.

Will you open the door?

Holy Darkness

Turn off the lights
all of them
even that candle you burn to keep you
    safely here.

Sit in the shadows
    and watch
    as the world appears around you.
In darkness we see
    more than we know
and slide softly into sacredness.

The moon's light is the sun's too,
    you know.
It is enough to see by
    even when 
    it is barely there.

I am here

I am here
    i AM here
i am HERE
and the fact that I am
is an overwhelming demonstration
    of Love

Blessing

A pine
stretching up to the sky
called down a blessing
to touch a willow
whose branches wept deep into the earth

Reflection

Jesus is to God
    as
Moon is to Sun
    a reflection of the glory
    that we would otherwise be unable to see.

Awaken

They say the earth sleeps in winter,
    but I've never seen it.
Squirrels chattering about the weather,
a round hole where a mouse comes and goes
    when the owl isn't watching,
the owl himself - the still whiteness of hime
    feather prints in a dust of snow.
I've felt the steady breathing of a cave,
and watched the poplars absorb the sunlight
    glorying in their nakedness.
They say the earth sleeps in winter,
    but I say 
    They
    are not awake.
Many of these words were born or conceived on silent retreat at a place called Naramata Centre.  If any of this has touched you or called you to a sacred moment, please consider giving a small gift so that Naramata Centre can maintain this ancient sacred space, and the programs offered there.
copyright 2012 ailsa flynne