A Prayer for Freedom

No matter when you hear it, the truth
has a resounding echo of insistence
as it arrives, none too early or already a bit too late
but, you are willing to listen - still
you are free to release the pain that insists

"if only"

finding the origin of the "is, and, but" has been hard
not sure I'm any closer yet
the wound that I keep picking at
bleeding
scabbing, bleeding
scabbing
needs to heal

I know that I am free
to let it go

During the short walk to and from
Home Market last night
coffee beans and pizza dough
weighing down my bag, I decided
I will date me, for now
I will give myself the respect I want given
to all these thoughts and ideas in my mind
I will laugh at my jokes,
be playful and funny, and
read
all the books
in my own sweet time
I will wrap swaths of blankets around me
when I want to be cuddled
lean into warm arms when offered
stay 

as long as I damn well please
because
loving arms want to be appreciated when offered
I will choose wisely and ask questions

any
when I need information and clarity
when things stay unsaid
mysterious, and scary

I will take myself to the ocean
to the vast expanses of beaches and let you go
pain
I do not want you anymore
but, thank you
for being here and insisting that I look at these parts 

of myself

I disrespect and dishonor
and where I make do
where
"it's all good" means really
"it's actually not good enough"

[I want more]

but that stays in the UNSENT BOX
as a draft never finished leaving
an open door to familiar pain

"You have to invite me in," you said

Somewhere in here
is the power to say 

"NO"
to that outdated rejection story, that keeps
me chasing the kind of love
I can only give to 

myself

Where the Sacred Dwells

The rocks are all different, not like the ones you find in a riverbed, smooth, dusty pale blue or yellow, but hot, porous, ragged and cracked, red, brown, the color of slate and stormy skies.

In meditation, I think:

Earth Rock Canyon Road Shrub Cactus Adobe Textured like brail under my fingertips, the outsides and insides of buildings whisper in a language encoded in their skins. The sun makes everything warm here, except where the wind blows. Through the moon-shaped corners carved in the temple, the wind keeps the air clear and the sound sacred, as we chant during morning puja. A little after 5ish, I'd shoot out of bed, beckoned by the first sound of the coffee grinder that Gretchen had brought to life. A literal wake-up call! Louise, already awake and running to catch the sky colors of morning announcing the day. You know, those long moments before the day's arrival? When it has just begun to whisper sweetly, like the whisperings of a lover's foreplay before even the first kiss? The sky, pink like saltwater taffy, purple like violets against a great indigo cloak of stars, pulling itself off the sky in its slow walk over the hillside. "Yogisramsuratkumar, Jai Guru, Jai Guru, Jai Guru, Raya." Incense offerings to Ganesh, rose petals, holy water, prasad offerings for each of us: raspberries, candied ginger, bits of chocolate. Windswept faces chanting the names of God into the wind. The echo in each building on the property is exquisite, resonant, and full. Every voice offered every sound, held and expanded, cast back deep into the soul. The darshan hall with its grand piano and library is my favorite room. As soon as you walk into the hall, through the great big wooden door, under the relief of Yogi Ramsuraktumar emblazoned in the adobe, welcoming you, you feel enveloped. I could stay there a long time, at the altar of my teachers' teachers. And not because the faces of men equal the holy but because the women are giants in the room. They do not ask for reverence, but carry the line, it is quite clear. They are the giants here, quiet, magnificent, wise, tending, and offering. I've entered into the womb, I think. It is a birthing place of my own becoming. I have not been here for a long time, but now that I've arrived, I know I have come home.