Somehow the height of this season has brought some major disturbances both technologically and emotionally that I am deeply integrating tonight. And all I can say right now is that they are leading me back, inside myself towards a deeper, more integrated and truly power life of gratitude and faith. This weekend our community experienced an earthquake of sorts when a dear friend’s child went missing in the red wood forest all night. She was gone for 23 hours and then, by a true stroke of angels, helpers and everyone I know calling her home with all of our hearts, she was found!!! This shook us so deeply and called forth such beauty, connection and strength in all of us, all I can say is the ripples went deep. I know her and her family will never be the same after that experience, but I know I too am deeply changed. It showed me the power of the human heart, of little girls will and of faith, connection and pray that ties us all together. It is such a tender thing to even share, but so powerful I can not pretend it didn’t break me open!! Maybe because when given the opportunity to look, feel and be penetrated by what really deeply matters to your heart, you are shown what you are here to be and do and your calling and convictions no longer wait patiently in the shadows. I wish this truly scary and profoundly joyful experience can help us all get closer to our own hearts and the hearts beating all around us. And one thing that has me on my knees is that the world took care of her and helped her preserve to find her family. Though this poem is nothing like I imagine her night was like, it somehow comforts me to think the great mother did in fact care for her and guide her home.
Sleeping in the Forest
I thought the earth
remembered me, she
took me back so tenderly, arranging
her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds. I slept
as never before, a stone
on the riverbed, nothing
between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated
light as moths among the branches
of the perfect trees, All night
I heard the small kingdoms breathing
around me, the insects, and the birds
who do their work in the darkness. All night
I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling
with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.- Mary Oliver
