we drove into winter, into below zero, with everything that matters on four wheels. there was nowhere else i’d rather have been than with them. my hand held, the palpable intricacy and delicacy of all that we have shared on this road between colorado and california. as the miles passed, i thought of what it has meant to raise our children into their teenage years, of the depth and heartache shared in twenty-two years of relationship. i thought of all the boundaries pushed, the fears faced, the gains and the losses. i thought about forgiveness and humility. i thought about what is coming and what no longer is.

as this new year begins, i am without many plans and outward ambitions. i find myself still taking form in surrender, in letting-go, in allowing slowness and service to prevail. i want to laugh more. i want to spend time daily in nature. i want to know myself as a guide and a healer, but first to myself.

i want to continue to explore the relationship to what captures us –wind, water, humanity and howling. i want to know vitality and vulgarity, where the rough spots wear down to reveal something alluring and elegant. i want to tell the truth of these things, in imagery and with honesty.

i believe that light prevails. even though each and every one of us will wind up in the most senseless of dramas where the smallest parts of our brains, and the arrested parts of our hearts, will make decisions that wound and hurt, i still have to believe that light will prevail. my prayer for 2013 is that i may know this light as a home that i may always return to– in my body, in my relationship, in my service, and in the world. a home in which i may feel settled and rooted. a home that is a sanctuary and a foundational place to return to for respite and nourishment.

as the mountains rise and the rivers run, may we all remember this home that we share. the one where the light does not dim, and where there is peace waiting at the threshold.
i will meet you there.

I open the window and snow has fallen in a
steep drift, against the pane, I
look up, into it,
a wall of cold crystals, silent
and glistening, I quietly call to you
and you come and hold my hand and I say
I cannot see beyond it. I cannot see beyond it.
~Sharon Olds, from the poem True Love

the realization is that our depth becomes our greatest leverage and, ultimately, our levity. it is when we sink into the under, the encompassed, the clay that surrenders to the fire in the middle–that is when we rise into what looks like contentment.

this is not an experience of unrivaled bliss. rather, it is that collected, textured, felt and known experience of what IS. seedpods that explode in autumn and feathers that find their way to the sand. stuffing acorns into my pockets and painting walls in my home. days of questions and other days of epiphany. sifting through politics and finding the poetry.

it is, in truth, that feeling of rightness, order, timing, and being.

it is fear-driven ambition that is undone, and fallen, into grace.

and, yes, it is loving and being loved. serving and the abundant return.

in the end, it will be the foggy mornings and mountain lion encounters that i’ll want to remember. it will be their arms around me and the images that will speak our story.

i wish only that i will fall ever more deeply into vulnerable, primal, reciprocal, and sensual.

and that i will never miss a chance to walk this earth.

Stand Still.
The trees ahead and the bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be know.

~David Wagoner

i didn’t think it was possible to love them more, to rise each day in service to this love.
i didn’t think i could give willingly, without restlessness. freely, without depletion.

when i didn’t believe myself worthy of figs and the blue moon, there was only sacrifice and doing.
now there is undoing.

what was an experiment in intuition, in claiming toward believing, is now a living resolution.
there is time for breathing in my every day.
there is time to notice the dying moth on the windowsill, and to step back and appreciate a circle of community.

i understand the cultivators and the gardeners now. i understand the holy gasp of a ripe plum.
i understand the chemistry of our intentions meeting our circumstances.
i understand the importance of seasoning.

i also understand how delicate it is, this moment before the dew dries.
even the parts that still twist, rise up, and reinvent the day that i expected.
the tired, the timed, the strained, and the doubting–these too i offer reverence.
there is space now for all of me, mine, ours.

gently submit to it,
passionately embrace
all of it,
wickedly revel in it,
quietly explore new
parts of it, laughingly see joy in it;

with all of you,
be in it,
this gift,

this, your life.

~from the gift of it, by my beautiful friend leonie wise

i am owning this life, this body, as subtly it changes, sinks and settles.

i do not apologize for the view, the invitations, the sweet pleasure of time.

i know that i am here to help you with the same. to offer legitimacy to what is longed for. to witness what is already there. to know beauty as a birthright.

i remember what it felt like to be free.
and my soul’s purpose is to find the doorways back in–for all of us.

may you never doubt the gifts you bring ~john o’donohue