Sequoia: healing from the roots up

The map of my daydream is a thin sliver of grey, shimmer sheening in the sunlight. It is a thick rind, ripe with possibility. It dances like the sparkles in the center. It is a tall, still aspen. And the particular grey blue of the winter sky. It is the silhouette of the orange chair, and the messy hair bun of my love, smoking his joint. It is the quietness of the morning. It is the hot bitterness of my green tea. It is the paper weight, and the plastic cover crinkle of my library book – Seven Thousand Ways to Listen. It is the joy of knowing that everything is going to work out, according to plan. (Whatever that is.) Tickety Boo of the Universe. The more I let go, the more it works out, defying reason. The beauty of the daydream is – it is not practical, it is not reasoned. And it is all the better for that. It is the sound of the piano – resonant, insistent, probing, melodic.  It is the sound of my laughter. The map...

Can you endure your uncertainty until it shows you another, deeper way?    -Mark Nepo Being lost, I am found. What I was taught was sin, is actually my salvation. What I was taught was bad, is good. Dark, light. Dangerous, liberating (although that is a paradox.) I need soothing. To get over the pain of being taught wrong. But this is life, discovering that you were taught wrong, by your tribe. Everyone experiences this. And now it is simply time for you to relearn. It is your choice. Re-invent your life in a way that feels right to your soul. And all that undoing becomes a part of your liberation. My god is brooding over this exploration. They are watching. But they have always been watching. Tight lipped, tight fisted, ready to pounce with words of judgment, with looks of disapproval. Will I live the rest of my life under this shadow? Or will I risk shocking them, myself. Will I risk liberation? Will I risk detaching from what they thi...

There is always more than one silence. The silence I felt this morning was deep and steeped in grace. Held, and sowing tears; it was a fertile ground for sprouting new life. One silence is like an open book, one like entering a new country. One is so, so tender. And like a little child, we are free to explore and expand into it. One silence is there for encountering the intimacy of your own self. It is a vast, still place. Luscious, rich, ripe, and largely untapped. There is always more than one silence. There can be an uncomfortable silence. But for me, silence has always been comfortable. I am home there. I am tender and soft and real there. The silence, like a friend, wraps around me. One silence is there to help us see our body as it really is. Our beautiful body, cased in our soul. And even more beautiful is freedom and release of inhibitions in our glorious, ripe body. There is always more than one silence. The one just after y...

What is the landscape of longing? What does it look like? It is bare, grey. It is the fields of golden green grasses rippling in the sun. It is every barren place, so starkly beautiful, it takes your breath away. Winter is coming. It is the still, quiet tundra. It is the hot desert, with grains of sand far outnumbering the raindrops. It is the arctic plains, with white snow and caribou. It is the harsh winter – the only way to survive is to burrow into the ground, with smoke and fat. It is the prairies, golden wheat as far as the eye can see. No relief, no variable. It is the ocean. Only shades of blue, swells. Sometimes it is fierce, sometimes it is deceptively calm. There is so much underneath the surface, it is frightening. It is the vast dark of space. Unknowable. It is the fear, and the pleasure of seeing that landscape within yourself, and longing to surrender to it. It is also the lonely, vacant lot, with crumbling cement and fading graffiti. It i...