What Would Love Do?

International Women's Day - desire stirring

Handmade collage
I began at the
International Women's Day
SpiralMuse women's circle I hosted
in my little cottage on
Sunday 8th March, 2009

It is definitely time to glue a new vision together.
One with less walls.
*

Wild geese inspire late night rambling thoughts.

We do share this planet. Sometimes - too often - it is easy to forget this. We do share the earth. We do share the sky. We do share the oceans and rivers. We do share the air that we breathe.

Today - for a moment - it was easier for me to remember. Wild geese and humans, each desiring a safe return home. A moment. A flow-flow on the air current. A slight turn. A flap-flap of wings. A miraculous landing. Safe returns for some.

Tonight the homeless children I work with delighted in sharing. Feathers. Stickers. Paintbrushes. It didn't really matter what. They had the experience of feeling good while relating in this new way. It was a game. They felt connected. Seen. Wanting to share is unusual for them. Their lives are rich in scarcity.

I think of the Middle East. Africa. I know I sound ridiculously naive, but my aching heart begs can't we just share?

*

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

from Dream Work by Mary Oliver

*

oh, just the burning heart of god.

There is a line in a Counting Crows song*
that always rips my heart open:

"When I think of heaven
Deliver me in a black-winged bird
I think of dying
Lay me down in a field of flame and heather
Render up my body into the burning heart of God"

my sage and sandy heart burning beach birthday ritual
had me singing that line today.

* The heartbreakingly gorgeous version
on the 1998 "Across A Wire: Live In New York"

Balloon

An oldie for this week's Illustration Friday theme of "balloon".
I made this back in the fall/early winter of 2005
and, funnily enough, the theme is still pertinent...
(And, yes. That is little toddler Pen!)
.
.

r e p a i r

A very hastily made, in at the last minute,
Illustration Friday piece for the theme
: repair :

Accepting small favours from the gods

When you travel, you experience, in a very practical way,
the act of rebirth.
You confront completely new situations,
the day passes more slowly, and on most journeys you don't even understand
the language the people speak.
So you are like a child just out of the womb.
You begin to be more accessible to others
because they may be able to help you in difficult situations.
And you accept any small favour from the gods with great delight,
as if it were an episode you would remember for the rest of your life.
At the same time, since all things are new, you see only the beauty in them,
and you feel happy to be alive.
That's why a religious pilgrimage has always been one of the most objective ways of achieving insight. The word peccadillo which means 'small sin' comes from pecus, which means 'detective foot', a foot that is incapable of walking a road.
The way to correct the peccadillo is always to walk forward,
adapting oneself to new situations and receiving in return
all of thousands of blessings
that life generously offers
to those who seek them.
- Paulo Coelho

Journal entry, 8th March, 2006
Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi

Be The Ever Alert Guardian Of Your Inner Space

Be the ever alert
guardian of your inner space.

Journal entry, April 2005.

Step One: Notice you are in cage.
Step Two: Acknowledge that cage is of your creation.
Step Three: Find key. (Note to self: you are key.)
Step Four: Unlock cage.
Step Five: Powerfully leap into your delicious life.
* Repeat as necessary *

Journal entry, early 2005

You Knew What You Had To Do

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice -
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do -
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Mary Oliver

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