SO WHERE DID YOU GO NOW?

Tonight as I swam upon my back, alone, and the
Lights from all side struck my living body ...

The moon so milky
I thought, maybe, that is where you went now.

For I learned that you are gone
Oh, so hard I took it.

I beat that Night against
this moon; to willow the streams

of light seeing did you
go there now.

Down into the water of the reflected
crescent fickle moon

I asked up if you became happy; if you became well;
or if all we believed of Love is a wisp of a night's moon-glow.

TRAVELING DOWN SOUTH

In the Swells of low mountains and hills, I pass by as a witness of timelessness,
through an Earthly watch of some snaking human movement.

So swiftly, I travelled down and further down. And,
the Light was not to give way easily; but, fought the Night so
bravely and with such stubborn solidity.

And, the argument seemed clear:

Doubt
yet
Faith

I watched the battle and it seemed
original and new and once again.


So, too
with such Crimson colorings came for me,

and

I was bathed in that moment,
the moment of War
of one Sovereignty over the next,

with
clarity and comprehension.

That, Light carries its emptiness
and burdening of the Dark.

That, Dark is forerunner and attests
to the Light.

And, that doubt and faith are

all
our
own
Nightfalls

COAL VINES

Tonight, I drove through such inky darkness all around.

I knew the vines lay there;
but, if you didn’t know, you wouldn’t.

And, it was this way for miles and miles,

and,

I learned then
that, perfect knowledge

is trust
and faith

in things which sit covered and unseen.

SALT DOLL

S A L T D O L L


The ocean I stand in laps up against me and I am not made to last.

Granular, by grain, I become part of the start of me,
my creation,
my entering in to begin with.

I peer at this wide- open- place, and look at the evaporations and thawing of the many multitudes before me.

And, I recognize things now that I hadn’t before.

Looking backward I see my inception and how the ocean seemed so much smaller and less deep and darkly inviting.

Then, I stood at the Edges,
before the Shore,
and was crusted and became an incrustation of a larger being-ness.

It was solid and real and necessary.

But, that was waters and waters past, and the brininess is now
reaching my toes and ankles and knees and ever upward
and the sensations are

simple,
known,
and rehearsed.

I am dissolving too into the Sacredness of all our destinies and my
saltiness is emptying out through to the oceans of Great time and
Givenness,

where lay mingling and remembrances and murmurings
of a pure whitened
Joy.

CONTAINER

~What is contained within us, I wonder?

~Birth, life... that is what is contained. So, our endings are held in these our vessels of grantedness.

~In the original seed is the fallen shades of winter; and, in the blooms of light, there too, are the shadows of nightfall and demise.

~Casts of living are sacred and the mercies of God give us at our inceptive pools, life and death at the very same time and in the very same place. When we are conceived, the rose seems already to be snipped and placed in an earthen urn, to wither and drop its pedals in due time. As infants, the elder lay within us, too. The cradle and coffin, the east of sunrise and west of sunset occur at once, simultaneously, most directly, in the Now.


~In our box of humanness, we cannot witness this for the truth that it is; that the seas’ breakers have long since crashed upon the Shores and the tastiness of salt in the air has already since been savored and swallowed.

~But, for grace, we live. But for the mystical election of God, do we travel and still live as a People, standing in deserts of not our own devisings.

~How simply we can be snuffed as pieces of short enjoyment or embittered sorrows; and how great is our creation, our Creator, and journeys toward our individual changings, toward our given freedoms. To assume the sweep of night mists will be among us; to assume the white moon will past through her phases and wanes; to assume that we shall breathe as we rise, is in the direct, divine hands of happenstance and Hope.

~No, the fragility in which all move is likened to the delicacy of neonatal drifts in crystalized snow that bear reddened beats of sun’s rays. For, I am delicately poised in a wood, in a pasture, in a meadow, in a briny ocean pond, upon a great undulant hill; looking out and knowing that I, too, am a relic, a fossil, something already shed, already molted, yet surviving still in grace and gratefulness.

~And although passed as mistings of my own simplicity, I live; and today my eyes close in thanksgiving with my palms raised to all there is; and to all that occurred; and to all that ever shall be.

THE BLUE AND THE BLACK SKY

Up, in the blue and the black sky, I spend much time in thought and thinking,
trying to make sense of how is it that each of us, throughout time, within our histories, over the course of our lives and living,
Dwell
under this blue and black sky together; yet, hurt each other so often knowing, unknowing...senselessly, poignantly, for always.

So after looking up and squinting all day at this blue and black sky, I go to the bench.

The Schubert f-minor, plaintive and calling, places my questions to the blue and the black sky into staccatos and sixteenths.
Pages of asking and thought and wondering and why, moving in time and sequence, my hands begin to give way and beg stop.

Tired questions hang upon my fingernails as I enter my bedroom and see my cat, deep in his slumber upon a fattened furred face.

And,

I fall silently down next to him.
In the deep of featherbed, in the undulance of his tiny body with the exhaustion of my own, I lay down and look up.

And, I noticed that he lays in curves and his breathing moves in curves,
then, I, too,
felt the curves within me, circling and encircling as the shimmerings of the blue and black sky beheld the both of us,
down under, into the empty still question.


His honesty began to envelope me, and I started to float in a kind of blankness wherein he was teaching me and showing me...
Immediately, it seemed
the questions to the blue and the black sky, which plague and harass me most constantly, began to wane a bit.

And, too,

that depth of the f-minor entered me now, returning questions to the blue and the black sky with the White of pulsations,

in the unassuming fellowship of my sleeping muted cat, who knew this song long before it began in the very first place.


And,


I learned then that it is gossamery Peace, and purity’s Acceptance, into the very way of all living things.

Simply,
a suspended acknowledgement,

inside the curves,
inside the notes,
inside the questions,


to the blue and the black sky.

TITLES AND ENTITLEMENTS

What is it, I wonder, about honorifics?

Father this?

Mother that?

Brother such and such?

Sister so on?

Bishop and Reverend Father/Mother?

Why?

This is self-revealing. In certain ways, it is driven by ego and a lack of esteem for self.

The titles offer personal sanctuary and spiritual elevation where, perhaps, that risen state

is not appropriate. The title lifts where the person may hide. I say this for I feel that I do this and it is become a revelation to me.

In my day, I meet people. 'Sister, they nod' ... That is a feel good and personal/emotional massage. People show their respect for the Life of a Religious and that is all well and good; however, if I thrive on the attention, live for the recognition, need that noticing: something is very amiss, indeed.

In my heart lies a Hermit. In my heart lives a Hidden life for Christ. Wearing a Habit on the outside of my enclosure where others peer into my privacy and perhaps wonder of the life being publicly displayed, prayer is being said and pondered about that.

A monastic Habit worn outside the Hermitage is a signpost of a life lived for something larger and more potent than myself. That I do believe. How I wish to state that another way exists in this land of profound materialism and 'give-everything-to-me-now-especially-if-it-new' mindset and culture.

What need be kept in the forefront of my mind and heart is that the black monastic Habit does not become something of vanity, pride, and self-absorption. Indeed, that the black monastic Habit state both to myself and to all that this person has died to the World and lives NOW in Christ Jesus, through Mary, ever-Virgin.

Oh, may this be so.

WHERE ARE WE NOW?

Alas, the Computer Age has stolen from us Humanity. Humanity, the gift of God from throughout the ages. Humanity, from which sings the angels in Paradise. Humanity, which God entered to become One with us! Where are we going, people?

It started small at my Parish, the Healing Service at the Mary Chapel. I would stand in full Habit, with an Acolyte holding the Chrism. We would wait for anyone to come for anointing and prayer. At first, it was a trickle. But, each one who came were embraced and held and kissed with the Kiss of Christ, anointed and bid the Love of God. In short, each single person was touched and loved humanly, as Jesus did and desire us to do.

Each Sunday the line toward the Mary Chapel grew.

This past Sunday it began at the High Altar and snaked all the way to the Narthex and front doors. The anointing continued until the last Congregant wandered out. It was for me the largest crowd ever.

Why? Why do you think it is happening?

I have placed that question before Mary, ever Virgin. And, the answer is so clear. We live in a hands-off, Internet run, sexual misconduct ridden world where folks are frightened and filled with anxiety around physical embrace. In the Church, the word of the day is: Stand Clear. This, sadly, as a result of decades of abuse. We are afraid to embrace and the vapidness of the Internet support the dying of our spirits.

Do you not see that if I changed my ways at the Chapel and used this 'stand-off' approach that people would not come, would not feel Christ in their heart, would not be touched. We are so hungry to be touched and loved in this Age of Distance. Somehow, the Church must break open our tiny shells and allow the goodness known to God, through Jesus and Mary, to fill our hearts and give us the healing and health God desires of us!