Someone…

It’s 2am and I’m hauling ass down the freeway, head thrown back and howling this Spanish pop song that I love. I’m sweaty and happy, having just salsa danced the night away with friends at Tapas. The city all around me sleeps but I feel alive.

I see lights up ahead and slow a bit, but not quick enough because I almost tag this cop going about 30mph as he stands blocking the middle of the slow lane holding a flare. I come so close to hitting him it’s absurd, but he just stands there, unfazed and intent on slowing traffic to a halt. There is a buzz of lights flashing all around and I wonder what the hell happened. It’s late and I want to get home. 

Then I see the car. Crushed beyond recognition and propped upside down against a cement pilaster, the entire top half demolished. No human being could have survived that. I see medics and police officers and firefighters, gurneys, rescue equipment but no bodies. Then I see the blood dripping from the center divider wall. The red of it hits my eyes like a massive wave. It impacts me deeply. 

I think to myself that was someone. I start to cry. That was someone. There is no evidence to indicate who that someone might have been. My brain can not even muster an imagination of that someone being a woman, man, mother, father, child, brother, sister, friend. All I can think of is that was someone, and that is enough for me to care.

Breath as Prayer

I’m hiking up Junction Creek in Durango, Colorado. Bailey the Wonder Dog walks beside me, my best friend with four legs with whom I am pleased to share this afternoon. A most perfect companion on a day I wish to spend in peaceful silence. We walk. The trail is narrow and fringed purple with blooming alfalfa that smells like honey. Pine trees form a mottled canopy that blocks the summer sun. A ubiquitous hum of cicadas on the breeze complements the white noise perfection of Junction Creek as it rushes along. It is a perfect day. Friendly mountain bikers and hikers cross our path from time to time, but for the most part the trail and the creek are ours.

Our cruising pace is best described as an amble. In no hurry, noticing every detail of the landscape. Soaking it in with a naturalist eye, small details come into focus and the woodland world matrix envelopes us. I begin to converse with the woods and chatter to the creek via internal dialogue with myself. A sense of gratitude fills my every breath and I am deliberate and conscious with each inhale and exhale. Breathe in a delicious oxygenic prayer directly expelled from the soil, herbs, shrubbery and trees. Breathe out a carbon monoxide offering of alms to the saintly blue spruce minarets lining my pilgrimage. Quite pleased with my life I offer thanks to the spirit of its genesis. I am greeted with a cool breeze upon my face. Smiling with love for the diverse wonders of life on this planet I offer thanks to the spirit of creation. I am gifted with a cavalcade of yellow swallowtail butterflies lighting overhead. Seated by the creek, feet emerged in snow melt coolness I close my eyes and think of my beloved family and friends, offering thanks for their lives. I am visited by the whirring curiosity of a hummingbird. I was once told that hummingbirds represent the dancing joy of God. I close my eyes and laughter wells up inside my heart.  I am present to the divine workings of the natural world, large and small, inside and outside. Magic. Thunder sounds in the distance.The raucous boom grows closer and my pulse quicken. Indigenous peoples of North America believe that the Great Spirit dwells in the clouds. The Thunder Gods. I hear their booming voices, drawing closer. They seek me. Raindrops begin to fall, fat like tadpoles. Here and there they glitter upon leaves and my bare skin until more and more unite to form a sheet of cool, cleansing sky water. Let go they coax. Let go. The water beads upon my shoulders and runs down the contour of my chest forming rivers of goodbye. Goodbye to hidden sadness, doubt, worry, guilt, anger. Goodbye to all that is not love. Rain soaks my clothes, into my skin, pooling with my blood, percolating through bone and diluting my cells. I let go and tears slide down my cheek, salty rain from the cumulous clouds of my mind and heart. I am one with all and I smile through the tears and through the rain. Bailey walks silently beside me as the rain thins to mist and we near the end of the trail. 

 

 

I Fall…

…in love easily. It’s almost problematic. It matters not age, gender, culture. The spectrum of love falling is broad and diverse for this little sprite. I meet an exciting, delightful new species of person and little glitter hearts form in my eyes. I share a sweet moment with a man, a conversation full of nectar and I am smitten. I’m not shy about this phenomenon. I wear it like a little blinky pendant on my breast, I LOVE YOU it reads and I don’t care if you know.

I share this with a sagelike lady friend. She cocks her eyebrow knowingly as if to suggest, “Ah yes my child, I know of such symptoms. At your age I too fell swiftly into the pools of others so beautiful and fascinating.” She then speaks, “It is not these people you are in love with. You fall so deeply into love not with them as individuals, but with elements of their spirit, most notably those which you love about yourself. It is a recognition, an appreciation of your own soul reflected in another that has you so delighted by their presence.”

This sits well with me. I think of all the people I encounter and all the personalities I adore, all the characters I cherish, all the quirks I celebrate in all the beings I know. Simply put, I love people. I love them for their humanity and their courage. I love them for their unique journey through the adventure of life and how they weave their own river paths and shine their own kind of brilliance. I truly love people. From this new perspective I enjoy freedom, in that I no longer feel the need to censor my love. I no longer harbor embarrassment of my abundant love and I realize that it is ultimately the divine nature of another that I am loving anyway. And that divine nature is a prismatic facet of God expressed in the form of human being. In short, I am loving God. 

I fall in love easily.