BODYPSALMS

What will happen
when the end of your world comes?
Will you say you breathed
enough air into your deep
lungs, expanding your chest
from the outside in and
peeled back enough layers
skins of roses and eggplant
squash and succulents
and tasted life to the full?

No one will remember
that you didn’t get the project done
or you didn’t meet the deadline
or there was a stain on your pants,
shirt, or flesh for that matter.

It is not just the roses
you were invited to smell
but every scent alive
sniffing out wonder in the rain
when day turns to dusk
and you know all too well that your pores
cry out for moisture
in so many ways beyond
washing your face

and the apples in the backyards of your childhood
have long been replaced
by concrete from another era
on that day when life comes to a close
where will your heart be
and will you have tasted
the unquestionable delight
of just being human?

Here on this lush planet
you are beckoned to respond
to the ingredients of creation
an ongoing meal

Come. Play. Dance. See.
Touch the wide sky and
notice the smallest bud
and your child within
unravel your cares
and do the only thing you can.

O P E N.

Behold the slow turning of light
the reversal of sun
presence in winter sky
has its precise timing
in its relation to earth, moon, stars
and all you inhabit.

You have a sky within you
waiting to be found
the still expanse -
listen, touch and dwell
to the great silence
return in the season of darkness

Solstice beckons you to receive
the embrace of stars planted
in your cells and tissues
and all you love
even the edge of stone and sea

Know the sun comes closer
dancing you through all
shadow and luminosity
bend into the light you know
even partially
for the hidden is growing within you
through the spinning
of your own heart.

give in to the weight of your body
let the slowness seep in
the tiredness fill you
till the call of rest
clothes you in a garment
of relaxing into
the place of sweet fragility

the deadlines will wait
and you will sip
lifelines as your limbs
sink into cushions, coaches, beds
and everything that is supple and soft

hot lemon and ginger
is not only for your cold and flu
but to warm the soul
and encompass
your being with the fluid of grace

give in to not concentrating
accomplishing, doing, thinking
and taste the silence
of an afternoon at home
where the one bird
on the rooftop
comes to speak
in a voice
that only stopping
can understand

you are called not only
to restore your physical immune system
but the immune system of soul
where the still small voice
within you
is clear and radiant
once again.

you live in the place
where you are home
and not at home – in this world
and not of this world. This is the state of
being human, for we come from somewhere,
we live in the where, and we don’t know
where we are going

we are in the state of travelling
the province of traversing,
whether you step on a plane
or go on a trip, our lives are a continual
trip from one point to another
and this is not pointless

for it is the place of in-between
where the ripeness lies

the heart lies open to be discovered
over and over again
peeled back as the fresh apple

you are being called to be peeled back
be under the skin and let the skin off
and celebrate the spaces in your life
where you are caught in between

between health and unhealthy
between singleness and coupledom
between employment and unemployment
between peace and hesitation

it is all the journey
and this is what we were made for
we are constantly wanting to arrive
yet arrival happened as soon as
you departed from your mother’s womb
and you have also been departing
since you arrived

therefore:
embrace the trip of your own
exquisite life, as only you know.

You have gone through
a massive shift, your body is calling
you to bodyrest
it is a time to take in the support
beneath your feet
encompassing your world
from every small and large place –
friends, family, beloveds,
practitioners: medical and alternative
and the wider embrace
of the divine – the great Love,

We are each called to surrender
to the change that continues
to inhabit our bodyspirits
as uncomfortable as they are
strength runs through you
and has been building
from each bending towards
the demands of life transitions
you have already
leaned into these ruptures.

Now is the time to lean
into the love that is with you
and let your body receive
a transfusion of beginnings
here in this change to your cells
is the invitation

to a new chapter of health
altered from before
yet an honored passage
to a season of clarity
where you will be free
to archive the beauty of your life
and venture into the
dawn of desire within
your loss will be your entrance
to a new way of being.

Drink in the support of care
and  t r u s t  in
the landscape of your own heart
beckoning you
to the shore of wellness
breathing you from the inside out

and most of all –

be patient towards all
that is not known
and rest your head in
the pillow of comfort
where you are held
from a much deeper place

and know your pain
is stitching you to healing
where you are being
re-created to enter
the magnificence of your own life.

What ever happened
to the sheer delight of
p l a y i n g
where your fingers and feet
touch the earth
and you play in the mud
let sand run through your palms
and sea, salt and dirt glide
on the edge of your skin

remember the joy of
rinsing your hair in the rain
and running through an open field
and dancing on the shores
of the body of water
you knew as a child

Why does Jesus say
you must be like a child
to come into the kin(g)dom of heaven
fresh and fragrant
is the place
to play and pray
in dusk and dawn

Now is the season
to call back your heart
to live with lightness
and cherish the chance
to take back what you deeply know
find the joy in movements
which sweep your being
into first utterance

the sound of words falling from breath
the touch of wet sand on arms
the scent of sky
the dance of wind

Reinhabit
the ecstatic pause
where play takes up its vital cause
and you answer
YES!

You are living an accelerated pace
where there are as many arts-based ways
of expression and research as there are art forms
and emphasis is increasingly on survival
in this strange, complex, wondrous and complicated
organism called higher institutions
budget cuts are happening at every turn of life
and competition is brimming at the helm of this journey
marked by a plan to dance through one hoop or another

It is time to return to your first loves -
where curiosity and wonder
color, texture, sound, movement and voice
nurture your very essence
and it is your deep beautiful life
which is your re/search
life and art, art and life
are a glorious partnership
and let paradox and mystery find their way to your inquiry
trusting the place of surprise in this path of bridging worlds.

Take other ingredients on
this road of bringing your
artist, performer, poet, researcher, educator
ones which don’t have
the weight of fundable options
but will give you gravity and levity.

Take the sweet silence of solitude
the ability to taste beauty
in the winds and hues of the natural world
allow for the ecology of your own soul
and befriend your own body
trust the inward place
which fuels you in
artmaking  & scholarship

Live your own precious life
as no one else can.

You know what you know
what is it that you don’t know
the delicious place of unforeseen
this is the call to living as in improvisation

you may yearn for a sense of security
the familiarity of what is known
but it is the unfamiliar which
holds the exotic
you don’t have to travel
to a tropical climate
or leave the country

the unknown is a bed of petals
anticipating your arrival
waiting for your agreement
to make peace with the unpredictable
asking you to soften
into a different destination

you have departed from the known
and you are on the runway of new starts
here are no forgotten wings
only material to glide

this is the province of trust
s i m p l y
s e r e n e l y
s o f t l y
s e n s u o u s l y
a riot of color
for the life you are living
and who you are becoming.

Each day the petals
unfold their face to the sky
an act of surrender
open hearted to breathe
for a new day

Await each breath as if it was pristine
your lungs living in the glory of
inhabiting air for the first time
everything is old today
everything is new today

all your issues remain
family, finances, relationships, work details, and
endless domestic disasters
but there is a spring
rising within your torso
you know it by its pulse
the energy where you cry yes
to this tiny alive moment

let the morning birds sing inside your chest
and cultivate body beginnings
new ways for fingers to touch earth
glances for being a lover in the world
finding ease through baby steps

the big deals – the big problems
will be with you
but there is something else arising
a ripe heart – a softened soul
an eternal arm embraces your weariness
and calls you back once again
to body beginnings.