No Soul Left Untouched

Holding Vigil

As I passed through the dark of my home this morning,
  I felt the presence of many souls peering at me from outside.
  I sensed an urgency, a desperate need to reach me from beyond.

I stood before them, square feet, broad shoulders,
  my arms drawn across my chest, my stance strong.
  Feeling a threat, I told them,'You may not enter here.'

I cleansed the entire house, blocked their entrance into my space.
  As I stood strong before each window, I saw a small statue
  of an African woman holding vigil over an eternal flame.

The spirit of Africa flows through her, touches my soul,
  carries me back to Zimbabwe, the land where the heavens
  touch the earth and voices of all-past ring across the savanna.

'So many souls, so much pain, so eager to release the pain,
  so thirsty for compassion, so hungry for love,' she whispers.
  'Don't drive them away.  Embrace them, touch them with love.'

'There is only fear and love.  With love, there can be no fear.
  They seek you because you can see, you can help,' she explains.
  'Gift them with love.  Melt fear with compassion.  Hold vigil, always.'

Michael, Your Spirit Guide

In a vision, a girl presented herself to me...for you.
  She is very powerful.  Her spirit swells into the night.
  A force so powerful contained in the frame of a small girl.

She is come for you.
  She bids you awaken to her presence.
  She is with you, of you, has always been.

I saw her searching in the dark.
  When I called, she glanced at me,
  then turned back to her search for you.

She saw you, standing alone in the dark.
  She ran to you, gathering your hand in hers.
  She merged into you, became as one with you.

Then, she separated and looked up at you.
  Taking your hand, she asked you to walk with her.
  Through the dark your spirit guide led you, hand in hand,

till you reached a precipice from which shown a brilliant light.
  You stood quietly together on that precipice, hand in hand,
  gazing into the light, at the gift being offered to you.

She glanced again at me, so I asked her
  what she intended that I share with you.

She said

She is inviting you to walk into the dark with her.
  She has something magnificent to show you.
  Then, you will be asked to make a decision.

I don't know the nature of the decision,
  but I sense it is a question of soul, yours.

She is with you, has always been.
  She helped you to create community.
  She is the abiding spirit of that community.

Your guide is a spirit of grace and compassion.
  She wishes to make herself known to you, to quicken
  your relationship with her, to start now, your work together.

She is patient and walks at your side, always.
  She will honor your decisions, for your journey
  in this realm is a spirit walk, designed in love for you.

Joy Born of Sorrow

Abundance born of poverty.
Freedom born of oppression.

Never, never is my intent to dishonor
  or denigrate the devastating impact
  of poverty and oppression on a soul.

Yet, I continue to search for the meaning
  of ideas gifted me with the concomitant
  injunction to transmit their significance.

Abundance born of poverty.
Freedom born of oppression.

Experiences, mundane and momentous,
  have been gifted for my enlightenment
  on these matters of the soul embodied.

So, I petition them for another lesson.
  I am ruminating on my ephemerality
  on this plane, and in this incarnation.

I note nascent thoughts and feelings
  and witness their journey through
  my heart, mind, soul...this mortal.

I am recognizing how I attach meaning to new events,
  namely through connections to previous experiences, 
  and how those attachments constrain my perception.

I was planning for the night before my heart surgery.
  As I planned sleeping arrangements and our dinner,
  I witnessed a sickening feeling quicken in my heart.

I followed that pain to a Thanksgiving long past,
  and the dinner my mother so flawlessly created
  for her family, the eve before she started to die.

Sorrow, tears, mourning her death, my loss of her, still.
  Serving dinner to my family on the eve of my surgery
  retrieves this memory and reveals another attachment.

I remember that dinner and grieve her absence from my life.
  But to attach the path of her life to my circumstance denies
  me the precious experience of my own existence unfolding.

Recognizing this attachment, I can release it from my heart.
  Free of the attachment, I can prepare dinner for my family
  on the eve of my surgery to celebrate our love and my life.

Joy born of sorrow.

Abundance born of poverty.
Freedom born of oppression.

I Am Just Regular

'Let go of illusions.
  Release expectations.'

'Being, simply being.
  It's enough, you know.'

I am just regular.
  'That is just enough.'

It doesn't feel enough.
  It feels, somehow, amiss.

Regular is inadequate.
  'Regular is magnificent!'

I can't argue with you.
  'Yet, you try your best!'

I want more than regular.
  'What is it you want, then?'

I want to shine, brightly!
  'Then shine, for all to see!'

But, I'm just regular...
  'And yet, your light shines.'

Tortoise

The Tortoise requested to sit in the center
  of my alter, posed to see in all four directions.
  She can gaze down any path, but focuses on me.

She invites me into contemplation, to learn.
  With her great, slow strokes, she flies to the stars.
  I look upon her face and see eternity shining in her eyes.

Then, we are under water, her stroke unbroken.
  Her eyes wide, protected by a translucent sheath.
  In the dark, she sees clearly, swims steadily forward.

Again we are in the universe, gliding now around the moon,
  surfing on a planetary wave, catching the crest of the earth's gravity.
  Rounding the earth, the gravity unleashes its tether, hurtling us to the sun.

Into the sun's core we plunge, flesh incinerated, Spirit released.
  Cleansed, we linger in the calm, peace, wonder, of oneness with the All.
  In the stillness, the Ancients appear with a lazer of light to etch upon her shell.

They inscribe upon her back the wisdom of the ages,
  and send her forth to share the gift with all of humanity.
  To all corners of the earth, all of life, she carries the message.

She rests beneath still waters to glimpse the inscriptions
  in a reflection, and then swims on, for she is the messenger.
  She can not see, but fully comprehends, the wisdom she carries.

'Your life is a message,' Tortoise counsels me.
  'Allow the ancient wisdom to be inscribed upon you.
  'Let it emerge from your soul, then carry it for all to see.'

Like the Tortoise, we each have wisdom of the ages
  etched deeply upon our souls, visible to our mind's eye, 
  a universal code of love to guide our walk through this life.

We need only to become quiet, to look within, to trust
  that the wisdom resides within each of us, that the wisdom 
  is our heritage, our connection to All, the ultimate and eternal gift.

Miniature Assassin

I do have a fear.

In the shadow of the furor and fuss about the heart,
  grows a small but deadly plaque on the carotid artery.
  It resides at the base of the skull, inches from my brain.

I have not allowed myself to acknowledge the fear
  incited through my being by this miniature assassin.
  Even positive thinking can be used to hide from reality.

And, hiding is exactly what I have been doing of late.
  So, brutal honesty.  I am horrified by the possibility of
  having a debilitating stroke, losing my ability to cogitate.

My mind is my greatest strength.  From it flows my gift.
  This gift, my writing, requires a mind capable of discovering
  the perfect word to weave into the exquisite phrase, a thought.

Without my mind, I am a painter without a paintbrush.
  Without words to express that which cries for expression,
  I am as a songbird without a voice, a ballerina without legs.

I can imagine no greater assault to my being than to
  lose my mind, lose my gift, be forced to live robbed of
  the ability to think.

My mother almost died from a stroke during heart surgery.
  My father died from an aneurysm during a pre-heart surgery
  procedure.  My grandmother and grandfather died from strokes.

I have always known this was most likely to be my demise.
  I never imagined, however, that it could come at 54-years-old.
  I am so young.  I live a healthy life style.  I take care of my body.

So, what to say after acknowledging the fear in my heart?
  I shall not chide myself, nor shirk in shame at expressing fear.
  I shall stay with it, love it, allow and honor it.  I shall seek quiet.

And, I shall await the Divine grace upon which I rely for all.