This poem by John Burroughs was posted at http://www.therainforrestsite.com/ today.


How beautiful the leaves grow old
How full of light and color
are their last days

What Lies Frozen

There is a pond on my mother’s property. I usually can only get to one small area of it because, except for in the dead of winter, the other three sides are overflowing with vegetative life - and LOTS of poison ivy. This weekend, the snow thawed and I felt invited by the openness between the trees. I took the plunge into the woods.

Almost immediately, I noticed a HUGE rock a good distance away. As I got closer I could see that it appears to have a man’s profile, big narly old man face. This rock gave me a profound sense of stability. I wonder, “What would it be like to sit here ‘forever’ gazing forward? What would I witness?”

This drew me back to the edge of the pond directly downhill from this rock. The edge where I started is in a clearing, where the sun routinely keeps the ice from forming. This harder to reach section, generally elusive because of the brambles and poison ivy, had the thinnest cover of ice forming the sheerest barrier between me and what lay beneath. But oh what a mirror it seemed to me.

The colors of the leaves frozen in place were enchanting. You could feel what used to be yellow or red, now faded to shades of brown. I felt like Alice in Wonderland. Then I watched a bubble of air under the water burble forward just below the surface. Further out the ice formed a fascinating circle around a rock that sits out in the middle of the pond. I know in the summer time this pond is home to turtles, fish and myriad dragon flies and the like. Who/what was sleeping now under the ice?

What lies frozen just beneath your surface? Are there leaves that have completed their life cycle but you won't let go of the last bit of fading color? Or is it something growing and rooted deep in your mud? Is something hibernating? Or like the air bubble, is it trapped under the surface, pushing and seeking space, seeking release?

What lies frozen in you?

Moonflower

I'm one of those people who has trouble letting go. My garden is a metaphor for so much in my life. Not only can't I let go; I just love to grow things. The health of the environment is a huge issue for me. (One more reason I am so relieved that Sarah Palin ain't gonna be wailin in the White House.)

Every fall I agonize over what annuals to bring in - hoping they will winter over inside, safe from the death of winter winds. This year I even brought in a pot of moonflower vine. Then I found one more plant out there struggling to bloom. Me being me, I plucked it out of the soil, put it into a pretty little pot, and brought it to work to live on my desk. Mind you, I'm in an internal - windowless - office. But I do have a grow lamp!?! Not surprisingly, this poor little shoot didn't take long to give up the ghost. I simply hadn't gotten around to throwing it out.

Here comes the metaphor I'm clinging to. I just noticed 6 tiny shoots of new life today. I'm so excited!

Unconditional Conditions

What is unconditional love?

My definition would be loving someone inclusive of their shortcomings, not excepting those parts. Being able to still open my heart and soul, and life to a beloved knowing full well that they don't measure up to my perceived needs. Taking responsibility for the shortfall and working to find ways to fill in the blanks myself.

Are they blanks? I think the absence of what we desire in a beloved is more an opportunity to grow a missing aspect of the self.

Hindsight being 20/20; I can now look at the opportunity I had to see just how complete I really am in and of myself - and - that there is room in my world to allow for more. I had an opportunity - at which I did not succeed - to be in the present moment and cherish what I had without trying to make it something else.

Osho writes at length about loving without fear. His writings are not easy for my Americanized brain to digest, let alone live, but the concept of allowance seems to me to be the true gift of unconditional love. Loving what is - in it's totality which encompasses what it is not.

I think it's important to know what I'm looking for. But should I be so inflexible that anything short of that becomes unacceptable? As am I, the other is perfect in who they are - AND - the rest of what I'm craving will have to be fulfilled some how/some place else.

Is it unconditional love for these beings that allows me to let them be? Maybe it's myself that I'm learning to love unconditionally. That two souls want something different does not make either wrong. At what point do you stop railing against the night and simply wait for dawn to arrive according to it's own schedule.

I frequently pull The Fool card from the tarot deck. The description speaks of innocence, simplicity; the neophyte who journeys for the sake of the journey, not for the outcome. Contrary to what I would feel if someone called me "a fool" I find I welcome the opportunity to be open-minded and non-judgmental; open to possibility; being in the land of "and" rather than either/or. I suspect the Fool is a master at unconditional love, dancing in the moment, and living life according to natural rhythms; all things I strive for.

All that said, I still want to know what time dawn is expected.

THE LAND OF AND

It’s caught my attention recently how many people live in the world of ‘this or that’ absent the possibility of “and.” It’s as if their eye sight allows only black or white and can’t even take in the spectrum of gray, let alone Technicolor.

Are we losing the ability to negotiate? Are we, as a culture, becoming entrenched in, ‘I’m right, therefore you must be wrong?” If I choose to see something that you don’t, am I wrong? Can’t I just be different?

Is it a fear of being different, willing to live a different life style, honor a different set of values, that puts others in an either/or mindset?

I used to think I was just wishy-washy but I’m beginning to value my ability to negotiate. I like the Land of And.

Esmerelda, the Passion Flower Vine

I came home tonight with a 3 foot passion flower vine. This plant is so full of life, full of color, full of form that overflows boundaries, and it’s totally full of buds about to blossom. After walking past it, I backtracked 10 blocks because I knew I could not come home without it. I don’t know where I’m going to put it on my terrace. I don’t know yet if it’s poisonous to my cat. I don’t know how I’m going to care for it when the summer is over and it has to come in off my terrace - AND - I’m seeing what a metaphor this is for how I want to step forward into a new way of being. Time to be complete with the old doubts; time to overflow the boundaries and blossom with exotic abandon.

So what will it take to step into that; to move past the barricades around my heart so that I can enter that space of surrender and trust? There are plenty of relationships where I love (or am loved) with conditions; or within certain perimeters - just a little bit but not enough that I’d cease being able to function if the floor dropped out. All very neat and tidy.

My revelation is that it’s all about me! Am I willing to think enough of myself to stand fully in my passion and give all that is in my heart? If I am free of expectation and judgment; and just dance in the moment, the other is free to just receive and reflect back. I grew up always being told to lessen myself (don’t speak unless spoken to, don’t show too much cleavage….) So what if I get hurt? So what if I get rejected? It hasn’t killed me before. If I already know I can survive this, why does the possibility still scare me?

I’m sure every individual has their own definition of what it should feel like to know we are loved. For me, I think it’s a feeling of being cherished; secure enough to be transparent in my foibles, both relaxed in my Melinda-ness, as well as radiant in my Melinda-ness without a worry as to where I am at any given moment because my partner adores and welcomes it all.

So how do I know if I am loved? I don’t. I can trust it. I can believe it - or not. So, what makes me feel loved? Communion. Feeling that buzz of energy that warms the heart and expands my consciousness. I’m realizing that when I stay in that place of the open heart/barricades down - whether the person I’m with actually does love me or not, allowing myself to love them without conditions actually fills the empty well. This feels incredibly liberating.

I’m going to go water my passion flower vine now.

Poetry

The Call:
Come, open the window.
The siren song calls you

Step through the doorway
Your life’s dance awaits

Vision your future In the fire of the old ones
The winged ones beckon
Journey home


Limiting Beliefs Unlimited:
If I knew I would not be refused, I would tell you the truth of my heart.
If I knew I could not fail, I would unfurl my wings and take flight.
If I knew there were no limitations, I would dream into being these gifts;
a world bright with promise and wonder, a true surrender to bliss.


Trying to be Haiku:
soft brown silk implodes
into trembling steel. I am
ruined in ecstasy


. . . .