Storm clouds curl over dark green mountains.
Their soft ridges inked with evergreens and summer leaves.
Thunder rumbles, rambling over their edges and crashing into the valleys splayed out below.
In the distance, sheets of water rain down,
dancing and swirling,
making strands of beaded curtains dangling over the forests.
Closer still, a red tailed hawk circles gently on the shifting currents,
spiraling higher and higher over the expanse of golden tipped grasses.
“Over there is its nest.”
My friend stretches his arm and points across the field to a stand of spruce trees
The sky, and all of these beings, pull me from my thoughts that strain and tighten my brow.
It's so easy to get stuck inside.
But sometimes it's just as easy to soften and open, to look around and listen deeply,
remembering that my life also exists outside of my head.
Poetry/Writings
I wish fathers loved better
I wish fathers loved better
I have grown up watching them
and movies of them
and tv shows of them
and read stories of them
All sacrificing themselves for their notions of
Their community
Their world
Their children and family
Their freedom
Willing to provide
To protect
To kill
To die
But few willing to really live
I have seen fathers bear the weight and burden of living
day after day after day
I have seen them ground down
Working themselves
And being worked
To death
I have seen fathers hold close
their grief and rage and tears
Standing firm and tall
Holding their hearts in a vice grip
Do not cry do not cry do not cry
I have seen them drink and drug and debate and fight
Even those they say they love
All to hide the pain
To hide everything
I come from those fathers
But I am not a father like that
My strength is not based on who I can defeat
Proving that I'm better
My courage is not in facing death
Willing to die for my cause
My serenity is not from hiding and pretending all is fine
Calm in the numbing, the avoiding
The silencing or the not caring
Feel all of who you are
Live awake and sober
Even in a world designed to make you forget
A world built to grind away any semblance of personhood
Love tenderly
Cry easily
Laugh deep and pure with your belly shaking and your face open to the sun
Hold close your children
Letting your heart be open to their love
A love which is exponentially greater than anything you could ever imagine existing
Let it in
All of it
Let your heart break as it fills and grows beyond its capacity
Beyond what you had ever thought possible
Beyond what you had ever allowed yourself to feel
Cause love is scary
It's the place where tender dreams and hopes are born
And broken and get pushed away
To get on with the tasks and to-dos of the day to day
Love is the place where we are exposed and confused
Where we protected ourselves from
Yet where we longed to be seen and heard and held
And came back to again and again
Cause maybe this time would be different
So have the strength, courage and serenity that lets love be the guide
Love yourself in the work you do
Love yourself in the way you play and laugh and rejoice
Love your god, gods, goddesses
Love your ancestors
Love your lovers
Love your friends
Love your body
Love your wholeness and your parts
Love your ability to feel, anything
Love yourself in your fumbles
Love yourself every time you get back up
Love your longings
Love your breath and the chance you have to come back to yourself again and again
Love this precious life and this precious journey
Love the endings and beginnings
Births and deaths
The changes everyday
All the time
For that's all we have
Let something emerge from that love
Water it, hold it
Nourish it and see what it has to offer you
And what you have to offer this life
Love these questions
Love these curiosities
Love yourself
And walk in the world with your tenderness
Your preciousness
Your heart
More open than you ever thought possible
I will meet you there
Lightning Bugs
Lightning bugs swoop in the humid night air
Bursts of bright green light-trails curl in the thick wetness of summer
Echoing fireworks
Rockets and bombs bursting red glare
That left trails of smoke drifting in the dark
Covering a city
A forest
A mountain
In yesterday's celebration of our so called Freedom
Today it was hot
And the air humid and thick
Sweat just sitting and soaking on my body
Making everything sticky to the touch
Flesh to flesh, foot to floor, hand to railing, belly to shirt
But the sun wasn’t one to be left out either
Beating heat down on my shoulders and neck
Anytime I went outside
Finally though it set
Letting dark skies and a cooler breeze drift in
I sat outside in relief and looked up
Cloud cover hid the stars but were suddenly illuminated with other flashes
Other rumblings
Thunder this time
Nature's fireworks
Is Sango celebrating this so called time of independence
Does this orisa care for our country's ideas of freedom and victory
Does he rejoice in one colonizer overthrowing another
Or is he demonstrating a larger
Deeper power
Laughing at our little bursts of reds and blues
Our petty explosions in the night air trying to recall the glory of battles won
He plays across the vastness of the heavens
With his bolts of brilliance dancing across the sky
Cloud to cloud
Cloud to earth
Dancing as the air cracks and splits carrying
His laughter rolling across the treetops
Across the city
Across the mountain
Across the ocean
And what do these fireflies
These lightning bugs
say to it all
To human and nonhuman echos of light in the night
A night that for them is
Steady
Consistent in the summer’s dusk to its deep dark
Their fiery dances will continue
Long after the smoky haze drifts away
Long after the summer thunderstorm streams through
What do they notice in the skies above
Do they see our celebration
Our godsesses
Maybe their own
Do they reach upwards in ecstasy
Longing to be reunited with the greatness flashing above them
I don't think so
I think they
As we do
Orient to those who speak a language we understand
Lightning
Lightning bug
Fireworks
Firefly
Those are our words for them
Light and Fire
But what do they call themselves
They know their people just as we know ours
Yet can we be open to this fire and light on their own terms
To listen and see in their language
Enough to come together in relationship as siblings
As partners
As elders
or more likely
as juniors
In this life
They may not see our fireworks as wondrous
Though they may wonder at them
They may not see lightning as their god
But still relate to its presence
Or not
As dark deepens I close my laptop
Letting this light and my thinking rest in the wonder of the dancing that surrounds me
More life I have lived than remains
This body aches
Turns out what the elders speak of is true
Bodies creak and moan
In this new soundtrack to life
Mornings are hard
Stiff joints and tight muscles
More work to keep steady and healthy
Or some notion of healthy
Than it used to take
Running just to stay still
Is how it feels sometimes
Though I'm clearly not going out running
I remember my wife’s Oma, her grandmother, saying years ago
“Getting old is no fun”
And I see bits and pieces of it now
I feel the shifting and the transitions
It's like a video game when a vehicle or city or something needs constant maintenance to run
And just as one piece is cared for another needs attention
And sometimes you let one thing get really bad cause there just isn't enough time or resources
And then you rush to care for it,
To catch up
And sometimes you're successful
And sometimes not
It can feel like too much
Like maybe it's easier to just lay down and let it all unravel
Let it all spool out on its own til it comes to its own conclusion
Not winning the game but not playing by its rules either
And just letting the end come
As it will for all of us
But that's no fun either
Sure, less attention on the upkeep
But more attention on the breaking down
And that breaking down aint pleasant either
So I guess it's trying to do the upkeep while enjoying the ride
Maybe that's a thing to focus on
It's so easy to push and push and say I need to do better
Look at them they're so in shape and healthy
And sometimes I feel bad and ashamed of my body
My too big and soft belly
My sore and injured ankles
My wrist that pains me
My back
Oh now it's my back that needs all the attention
Hips and abs and glutes and joints
So many joints in my lower back and pelvis
Pelvis to sacrum
Pelvis to itself
Pelvis to hip sockets
Sigh
Such a sacred bowl and it's calling out to me
Hey
Down here
I need you too.
Don't forget that I'm central to all the ways you want to move in the world
All the ways you want to walk and dance and sit and crawl and play
And bend and twist and
Simply be
Honor me
Attend to me
Strengthen and stretch and help with these connections
I look there and see there's so much holding
Holding tight and scared
Holding firm
Holding it all together
Keeping it all under control
But this holding is burying something too
Buried fear
Buried doubt
Buried curiosity and possibility
Buried expression
Buried acceptance of my size and fluidity
Buried being seen and beheld
Like a great Rainbow
Or a giant Iroko tree
Hidden deep within
Just being themselves without fanfare
Without rolling thunder and drama
A tree
Not to be confused with any other
Just growing
Firm and strong with deep ancestral roots
Expanding to the broad wide open sky
Sacred and reaching towards the light that is life
A rainbow
Reflecting and refracting sacred light
Arching beautifully across the sky
After a storm or summer rain
Radiant glory and color
Look in the direction your shadow points you towards
And bring your gaze upwards
There you will see the rainbow
Such instructions
Let your shadow lead you to the brilliant light show in the sky
Upwards and outwards instead of down and in
Maybe that's my time now
Up and out
Leaving the inwards gazing
of winter's reflection to the shine and glory of summer
The desire to plumb the depths of that shadow
Diving inwards
Following a well worn trail delving deeper and deeper
Falling into the morass of self doubt, self loathing, fear and shame
Of the shouldas and couldas and wouldas
A path of grinding the pain deeper
To simply feel something
Anything
As I live in a world guiding me to numb out
to consume
to feel anything else but who I am
Maybe to learn something in order to live better
Maybe
But maybe it's more important now to simply look up
To remember that the point isn't to get lost looking into the deep dark of my shadow
but to notice the rainbow quietly arcing above me
To be the rainbow
And maybe like the great Iroko tree
To draw strength and nourishment from my roots
Letting them secure me to this life
A life full of joy and sorrow
of pain and peace
Of all of it
While extending outwards and upwards
Reaching towards light and life and possibility
Letting this growth energize me too
To look towards hope and beauty instead of towards the hurts and doubts
May I hold dear and close the tender excitement and wonder at not knowing
The activation of the seed planted in the mysterious darkness
Whose purpose is to extend upwards into the light
Rooted always in this mystery,
Grounding it
Yet seeking this other wonder
Beckoned upwards and outwards
Looking up to the sky
Open and accepting
Of this life
And what is still possible
Let's do this instead.
Healing & Liberation Counseling 