Saturday, January 1, 2022

Training In Breath Control

Year round the streams flow

When I look at them

I feel overwhelmed until I get in

When I'm in them I feel peace

Nothing else matters

One deep breath out,

To the bottom

And I'm covered in water

How many peaks must I summit before

I find the Source?

I thought that if I sat with them

Long enough

It would dry out

I tried to dam them up

But they just

Flowed over and

Crashed down

I know I am no longer

At the bottom

Because it's not

Pooling up all around me

But I am beginning to wonder if

My path is meant to always

Be steep, through rushing waters

I dream of breathing calmly underwater

One day my training will take me there

Always up there and in here

 The sky is an immaculate chalkboard

As the sun drops further

I see freckles between the stars

Over that Way a cloud of watery Milk streaks the sky

I am the North Star

I don't feel good

I don't feel bad

I feel here

Tomorrow I return

But tonight

I am in the stars

I watch in fascination

Seeking to rekindle

Childhood friendships

Until light enters my eyes and

Becomes the oldest thing

I've ever touched

Besides this rock

Besides me

Born of that same light

I am raised to the top of

My star-filled

Snow Globe

And they whisper in my ear

"We are always here"

"As are you."

Dust Time

 Old growth forests contain a magic alchemy 

that connects one to the source, the origin, the Big Bang.

The star dust we are composed of seeks a home which 

cannot be found in the broken and 

attempting to heal 

landscapes mowed into miniscule patches 

like a flesh wound on the surface of a human terrace,

trying to heal by crossing a massive valley we usually suture with thread.

Most of nature we see has been split 

into tiny fragments, 

sometimes sutured together into wilderness

 corridors 

once man has exploited their easy to reach elevations.

The dust that ties us to 

the fungus, the insects, bacteria, protozoa, 

is infinitesimally small, and as such,

those massive inert valleys we created 

cutting ancestors to their ankles with our metal machinery,

 combusting dinosaurs and 

releasing plague after plague of hooved locusts are 

too large for the building blocks 

which used to be like ever-extending hands on a clock, 

the longer we left them the more clear our

 place in time became, 

now must be given tremendous time to 

find all of the perfect polarities to 

piece back together all of 

their pre-historic partnerships.

Believe me, 

it will happen. 

But we humans may not see that glory.

We have perhaps 5% of the old growth forest still in existence in California. 

But like a single tree, 

the more we cut away, 

the less resilient the rest of the forest becomes.

Inversely, 

the more time we spend in old growth forests, 

the more resilient we become.

The dust I am made of knows its home.

I walk into the ancient redwood forest and 

they welcome me to my origin in a way 

only the stars and the ocean can.

Like a soldier home from war, 

the leaves cheer me on as I walk deeper.

I take my shoes off and 

the soil life pushes me up and 

opens a valve in the bottom of my feet 

to release

my murky waters within like 

the original oil change. 

I slurp up the terpenes 

from their outbreath and 

as they pour down my nose and throat 

they loosen my jaw, 

my ears unclog, 

my shoulders droop as if 

I'm being covered by a warm blanket on the inside.

I find my spot between two enormous red columns, 

pointed up to the stars, 

so tall they look to be two lovers touching noses. 

They speak to the stars and the seas, 

bringing water inland and life to the ends

 of streams. 

I lay myself down between.

I rest where the stars meet the seas

at the feet of nature's tallest conductors

falling back into a million years of soil and

turning the satellites 

on the sides of my head

to enjoy

the concerto of origin. 

Three Hearts

 Three hearts

    born

        with a hole.

She took a piece

    of her heart

        and used it to fill each hole 

            and help them harmonize.

Her heart beat

    with ours

        and ours with hers.

When her heart

    stopped

        we had to learn

            to use our hearts differently

                or let that piece die off

                    and live

                        with a hole in our hearts.

Elements

 I call upon the water to soak my skin.

Earth push me up so I may feel weightlessness and sky push me down to meet the Earth.

Trees welcome my breath as an old friend, harmonizing with me.

Wind, make my hairs hum and brush off yesterday's news.

I am but a tuning fork wrapped in skin. 

One element between the stars.

Spin Earth spin!

Ride the River to Resilience

In the soil, when water accumulates, air dissipates.

When tears accumulate in the soul, the chest becomes weaved with rubber.

Dis-ease thrives in anaerobic soils.

Just like humans huffing chests pulsating with shallow breaths.

Air is a buffer, allowing what's inside to keep its form.

Air keeps us warm when the ground is cool, and homes quiet when the world's gone fool.

Let tears out of your soul and feel that buffer rise. 

Until what's inside of your soul is so full of air

Your lungs move care-free like giggling children.

Fine

 I am anxious and uncomfortable and fine

Tugged back and forth by time

Yet mine

Continue along what

Looks like a line

Trying to reject my own

little dot island

Spinning around and around

Looking up and down and getting wrapped

Up by the stream of

dots ahead and behind me

Squeezing until my stomach is

Tied up in knots

An endless blurring of dots

Nose running with snot

Every muscle pulled taut

I feel totally spun out and upset

Overwhelmed and yet

Right before hitting the wall

I don't take a fall

I give in to the dot

I'm on and in and with

And let go of the imaginary others

And I feel good again

I've done this so many times

Remember to remember I'm fine.

Sharing Light

 You follow her through the

thickest muddiest, 

deepest darkest forest of all

until you feel the ground 

solidifying below your feet.

Squeeze through a wall 

of greenery

and into the light,

seeing your gift clearly

for the first time in years.

To be able to see your own

light shine

as your loved ones do.

You head back into

the forest

to clear a path

for those who come next.

Thoughts on Preciousness

Because we believe my Dad's time in his current form to be more limited than we used to believe, it seems like there is more regret to be had, more preciousness to the moments, words and decisions we make.

Yet this moment and all others are but a moment. As we proceed through time each moment simply is. Past and future are illusions. 

People telling us our futures are short causes us to fear. What we fear is simply a grasping to our bodies in this form and a departure from the reality we continually fabricated.

But ultimately there is but one reality of our indistiguishableness from infinity because we have always been and will always be as critical of a component of the Universe as our Sun or Moon.

We cling to our current arrangement of atoms rather than excitedly awaiting new form or forms. 

If you aren't clinging to life, that last breath must be like the deepest falling dream. Just as magical as birth.

I feel like somehow in crisis, death, and intense moments of life we can be truly alive and present. The minutia falls away. It's like we finally realize the preciousness of this moment when we realize that it could be our last. Seeing the last grain of sand in a timer as large as a mountain. 

But that's always true. 

A doctor tells you that you have six months ot live and then he could die on his way home. So who really should see a moment as precious?

Nativity

My connection to my mother was severed

They unplugged my cord

And it hurt

For some reason it never healed quite right

I've always had a half in half out

Depending upon how full I was

When she died it hurt

In many ways, but especially

There it hurt a lot

My belly button hurt so bad I saw a doctor

He told me that hernia has been there since birth

I felt the distance life and death created

At my original source of connection

Dear Old Tree

 I can see you are senescing. Your crown has declined to less than mine. Your branches have faded back to expose bare wood and sprouts are shooting up and dying back.


Now you are drying out, frail and brittle. The hollow in your trunk grows daily. Your form in shrinking so rapidly cracks are forming on your exterior.


Thank you for protecting us from storms when we were young.


I forgive you for dropping branches on us when it was too windy for you to handle. I forgive you for shading our leaves and trying to crowd out our growth to maintain your dominance. I forgive you for lacking the stability to provide us with a safe place to set our roots, and for often being the most destabilizing element in our soil.


I see your leaves wilting. I see the shelf mushrooms at your base. I hear the resonant hollowness within you.


I wish you peace now. May your passing fertilize the soil of many generations to come. I will continue to grow stronger and make sure everyone learns your lessons.


May my evapotranspirated tears nourish the soil upon which you rest. 


With love, 


Young Tree

Chrysalis

 I have emerged from my chrysalis 

a full-formed butterfly.

You brought me here in a great migration,     

having traveled thousands of miles to 

safely place my egg.

But the journey was so long that 

you passed onto your next form 

right before I entered my chrysalis.

I emerged fully formed ten years later,

ready to continue on the path you flew

as far as my wings will take me.

What great lessons

must have been lost

when you returned to the stars.

Just as all butterflies

before me,

I must travel the path

using the codes you and our ancestors

imprinted upon my soul

before I was born.

When the stars align

to light my path

in a dark moment

I feel you there.

May the twinkle of your star

never fade

and the souls of those you've touched

continue to light

the path for those around them

for all of time.

We Are The Universe

 A sheet of paratroopers falls from the sky

Blanketing the Earth

Piling up in newfound cups along the surface

Until the soil opens up with a carpet of periscope

Sponges

Pulling it all down into the ground

Blowing air out like a deflated tire.

We pump it back up

Straining it through carbonized sun rays

Pour it into a vessel of boiled sand

Down my throat

Pulled into my muscles by a million grasping hands

Send back out to cleanse

Until the sun changes its form again using

Plants like straws

Sweeping water off of

Their leaves

With the flow of the wind.

Roots

 As I sit on the soil my tap root runs deep

I soak in the shade beneath my family

I got them as seeds

Refrigerated, burned, boiled and soaked

To give them life in a plastic container

30, 60, 90, 120 days and into soil

Small pots, over watered, big pots too soon

New trays, less water, new pots

Bugs, pathogens, pests, creatures of all kinds

All of that before they've left my home

Find a new property and then they're out there

And subject to the world.

But then one day, one long distant day

I shall sit under these trees and

Look upon a forest from my hands

I will sit beneath them and

I will run as deeply as they do

Gounded beneath my bretheren

My life's journey manifest in an extension to the sky

From what was once dead dirt

Neglection into habitat

Indigestion

 My heart and soul are indigested

Memories burp out of my eyes

Enveloped in salted water

Leaves fall from a tree

Bathing my face in a warm ocean

When I finally smile again

I can feel the connection

King Tide

 The tides ebb and flow erratically

Rogue waves spilling unexpectedly from my eyes

A decade since she passed and left me with mourning flow

Which I just came to know

How

Will I wade through the same waters again

The flow unpredictable again

Deep and heavy

Why when I've just felt the warm sand

First time in a decade

Should I be swept back out?

They flow out of my eyes

Carrying memories

Coating the inside of my skin

With a lead suit

Drowning or floating in tears

Groundlessness lurks 

Like a bully backpack

Take it off and

Step through

Hard to dissolve the Devil You Know

They say don't look away

So I stay