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Autumn Equinox - part lll

The Messenger

When I’m able to keep my eyes wide open, keep my ears wide open and keep my spirit wide open – Mystery speaks. As with most things, all it takes is paying attention. It might be an overheard conversation… a phone call from a friend, just when you needed one… a storm… a hummingbird… an eagle feather… an ancient fossil. These messages happen to us all of the time, if only we stop to see.

My wife and I were sitting in the late afternoon sun. We sat on a garden bench outside the oncology center, taking a break from the “too much reality” going on inside. We were noticing how the light is changed in autumn – subtler observations than the reality trying to bludgeon us inside the hospital walls. The last flowers stretched themselves to the sky, to the sun… the last vivid colors before this northern world would soon be stripped down to white, black and shades of gray for many months to come. Soon enough, our eyes would hunger for color and light. We absorbed the last of the warming light falling on our faces that were still brown from the summer sun.

All throughout the garden, chipmunks were scurrying about – under the bushes, through the flowers, busy and hard at work, stuffing their cheeks, chattering to one another, looking for seeds and other edible treasures to stash away for the coming winter months.

Suddenly, darting out from the bushes, appeared the different one – the outlier. He was completely white; no stripes of darker brown down his light brown back; no tan underbelly – totally white. For a moment we tried to grasp what different kind of an animal this was. He behaved just like all of the others, scurrying frenetically as chipmunks do and we realized he was an albino chipmunk. Fascinated, we sat there and watched him closely doing his work, when out of the blue, he charged over the mound of wood chips under the pine tree and ran straight at us, stopped abruptly and fell over on his side about five feet away.

What? He didn’t move. We couldn’t understand what we were seeing – and what we were seeing was a pure, white chipmunk, who had fallen in his tracks, that now appeared either dead or unconscious. He lay there absolutely still and unmoving, as were we. We looked at each other confused, trying to comprehend the scene, while the other chipmunks continued their afternoon’s work of harvesting. We puzzled over the little guy’s demise for a couple of minutes when as suddenly as he’d fallen, he now leapt to his feet, shook it off and ran back into the underbrush, as if nothing unusual had just happened.

In a nutshell: we had witnessed a fluke of nature – an outsider, an outlier from the norm – a little white ghost of a creature. We had seen him active in his chipmunk life of autumn harvesting. We had watched him keel over as if he were dead. And we had seen him resurrect. Before our eyes we had seen life come back into him – a private showing for my wife and I only. I admit, I was highly drugged on morphine at the time, but my wife was not. She confirmed it wasn’t the drugs speaking to me. It actually had been a visitation and a message from an albino chipmunk, never to be seen again. His message I would carry within and remember again and again in the coming months…
The universe has interesting ways of getting our attention if we:

Keep our eyes wide open,
Keep our ears wide open,
And keep our spirits wide open –
Mystery speaks.

Every day,
Mystery speaks.

Autumn Equinox - part ll

Dancing in the Abyss

Whenever I feel as though life is hurtling toward the edge, I think of the flyers, los voladores of ancient Mexico… tied by a rope, tethered to the Tree of Life, flying upside-down in the wind; ribbons of color cutting the air with red, yellow, green and blue; music trilling lightly from their flutes singing from the brink of oblivion…. dancing in the abyss. Los voladores are a tradition and vision of equanimity. They breathe grace, even as they spin, hanging by a strand as they hurtle toward the earth. Their sureness and grace lie in their knowing. They know they are held safely, cradled by invisible threads that anchor them to the Infinite.

In the middle of the night, as my abdomen engorged and distended, this unknown “thing” rapidly was crowding my stomach, kidneys, gut and breath. I struggled to breathe – to remain present. The pain cut through my belly with each partial breath, defining the edges of bearable. I fought to find my way to the still-point, the point of balance, where I could float free of pain or at least be released from it’s tenacious grip of fear. I searched to find my freedom and release my fear as I fell through the infinite, through the Abyss. And all the while the pain charged, mounting stronger, searing itself into my flesh, my breaking flesh.

High above the earth, the four voladores settle onto their seats at the top of the central pole. Each flyer, one of the Four Winds: East, South, West and North. The fifth volador climbs above the seated four, standing straight atop the pole on an area that spans no larger than the soles of his feet. He lifts himself upright, defying gravity, height and fear. Drum in hand he begins to beat the rhythm of the heartbeat: ba-bahm, ba-bahm, ba-bahm, ba-bahm. The Heartbeat of Tierra Madre; ba-bahm, ba-bahm, beating on the drum, beating down through the pole, beating into the earth. He sings, calling forth the four winds, the energies weaving together to create a dance of light and air and Spirit. Los voladores sit, each in his direction, high above the density of a world caught in gravity and heaviness. They wind their rickety platform like the winding of a cosmic clock, their ropes wrapping around the pole as they wind it up. Then, together in a synchronized movement, they let themselves go, falling backwards off of their platform into the emptiness of space behind them, trusting that their connection, a single rope tethered to the pole - the Tree of Life, will hold them up against gravity. As the weight of their four bodies pulls downward, the ropes begin unwinding and the flyers soar through the air in ever widening circles. Suspended upside-down, colors flying in freedom, flutes warbling a song of beauty, they defy distress, instead embodying the lightness of Spirit in a state of grace. Los voladres - the flyers: equanimity and balance while dancing in the Abyss.

I lay my body on the earth asking her to cradle me, to take my suffering, to pull the pain from my aching flesh. She calms me, soothes me, comforts me, her child. I give her my fear and panic, the hooks that anchor the intense pain ripping through my flesh. And I breathe…. I breathe.... I could stay here under the nighttime sky asking her to take my pain for as long as she will, for as long as she is able. I could stay here and let go of the body, release it back to the earth…. return it from where it came… “from dust thou came and to dust thou shall return…” And then their faces: my children, my wife - my loved ones appear before me calling me to return to the living, return to the suffering, embrace the pain, to find the rope tethering me to the Tree of Life - the hope for a fleeting moment of grace in the midst of chaos. I pick myself up off the ground and choose to walk forward with courage, to walk myself through the hospital doors. I surrender. And upon arriving in that darkened, pre-dawn hour at the hospital, I surrender myself to the knowledge that my life will never be the same. I surrender to what will be a week-long search for an answer: a search into my body, into my soul.

Los voladores arc gracefully through the air, their ropes unwinding from the pole, 52 times circling in an inverted upside-down dance; 52 sacred circlings of grace under fire. 52, the sacred number from the Ancient Ones, the memory passed from one generation to the next. And they hold to the instructions, hold to the memory, hold to the ancestors, performing their sacred duty, their flying dance of 52 circlings of the Tree of Life that helps the earth to awaken to another day.

The story of the hospital unfolds amidst blood tests, x-rays, cat scans, lymph node biopsy, bone marrow biopsy, consultations and teams of doctors searching for an answer, tracking down clues to a puzzle, in hopes around the next corner the answer lies: 52 sacred turnings of the rope, circling the Tree of Life.

Now the ropes unwind to their full length. Los voladores fly in beauty; large slow circles, the flutes trilling playfully, the drum steadily beating, another Dance of Grace completed… and in the final circling, the 52nd one, the flyers smoothly right themselves to meet the ground on their feet. They take their first steps on the earth... humble walkers once again. Flyers, disguised among the walking - until tomorrow when they will fly again and call the Earth to awaken to another dawn.

Dawn in the hospital held most in slumber, except those who had routines to perform: blood to be drawn, medicines to be dispensed, vitals to be recorded… routines. The dawn of my diagnosis of cancer coursing throughout my body, through my blood, found me escaping the hospital walls to the outdoors – to the garden. Here I was again, under a pre-dawn, still nighttime sky. All of my worldly foundations had crumbled. Now, I sat under a vision of an endless universe filled with stars, galaxies and Mystery; a vision of the Eternal flying high above this mortal ground… and this time I sang. My IV pole on wheels became the Tree of Life; the plastic tubing dripping medicines into me became the rope tethering me to the Tree. I circled the IV pole Tree of Life, inverted, upside down, 52 sacred circlings, defying pain and fear, safely held by the Invisible, connecting me to the Infinite.

I had become un volador - one who dances in the Abyss…and sings:

In the house made of dawn,
In the story made of dawn,
On the trail of dawn…
Beauty is before me.
Beauty is behind me.
Above and below me
Hovers the beautiful.
And I am surrounded by it.
I am immersed in it.
In my youth I am aware of it,
And in the sunset of my life
I shall walk quietly
The beautiful trail.


(poem by n. scott momaday)

Autumn Equinox: a triptych - part l

Monday morning the sun's path will cross the equator as he moves southward. Autumn equinox - the first day of fall. The West is the direction of sunset, autumn and reflection; transition and death. It calls us to look within, gather the harvest, prepare for the winter. It was three years ago, in the night of the first day of autumn that the earth opened up to me. I found myself far below this "worldly life", struggling to keep a foothold. I wrote this immediately after receiving the final news in the hospital that my life would never be the same.

There are many events in a life that are crossroads moments - when life spins on a dime, never to be the same... We all, at one time or another, are swallowed by the earth - falling down the rabbit-hole.

This was written in a heavy morphine haze - I believe written by me, to me - an instruction manual in survival in less than 125 words. I offer it for others who find themselves walking a labyrinth.


The Labyrinth

Trust the process;
the process of twists and turns,
left, right, forward, back…
twisting, turning,
seemingly backwards, upside-down, inside-out,
yet always forward, always forward...
Tiahui. Tiahui.
Forward in courage -
with open heart, open mind,
open Spirit, open eye.
I find my way to the center.
I claim the core, the Heart of hearts.
Remembering the old ones; the young ones;
the Ancient Ones; the new ones yet to be...
Remembering the fabric
from which I’ve come.
Alchemy in the process,
changing me from rough gray lead
to shining burnished silver
ornamented with stones of turquoise.
Re-minding me Home.

Trust the process.
The process of twists and turns,
Seemingly backwards, upside-down, inside-out,
Yet always forward.
Always forward.
Tiahui.
Tiahui.

Silenced No More

Odd, how life in dreams can be. Anything is possible. One night, in a dream, I was “visited” by a black, lesbian poet. By “visited” I mean I was a black, lesbian poet – feeling all of the outsiderness of being a black, lesbian poet in mainstream america. Being inhabited by “another” is a deep way to connect, to feel; and what that dream brought to me was all the feeling of the depth of the experience of being an outsider.

Coincidentally (?), a couple of weeks later in my waking life, Audre Lord, a black, lesbian poet found me. She was a new discovery to me through a book that practically jumped off of the public library bookshelves and into my hands called 'The Cancer Journals'. She wrote this book back in 1980 born out of her personal experiences, and although outwardly her background and experiences were far different from my own, inwardly, I found we had more in common than different -- the shared commonness of having 'fallen down the rabbit-hole'.

Cancer - the great equalizer. The truly equal opportunity employer that doesn't show preferential treatment as it sweeps through the population, touching almost half of us at one time or another. Half of us. Think about it. A daunting statistic most people don't know until they themselves are touched. Once fallen, we find ourselves in a very dark place, but upon looking more closely, as our eyes adjust to the darkness we find footsteps, paths made by those who have gone before.

I found Audre Lorde's very clear footsteps down there. With her words like a machete, she cleared a path for me to follow - reminding me: we're not alone. We're never alone. Just follow the footsteps.

I was gifted when I first had that dream that alerted me. I was further gifted when I recognized her arrival into my life and her words lit my path; when she so honestly shared her fears with me, not always being brave and courageous, but human; human in the rawness of her vulnerability - our shared vulnerability.

I hope and work to listen to her call, to rise above the fears that want to swallow me, that want to swallow all of us into powerlessness and silence, whatever the circumstances of what might feel like our own very dark rabbit-hole.


In 'The Cancer Journals' she writes:

“I was going to die, if not sooner then later, whether or not I had ever spoken myself. My silence had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.”

"Sometimes fear stalks me like another malignancy, sapping energy and power and attention from my work. A cold becomes sinister; a cough, lung cancer; a bruise, leukemia. Those fears are most powerful when they are not given voice, and close upon their heels comes the fury that I cannot shake them. I am learning to live beyond fear by living through it, and in the process learning to turn fury at my own limitations into some more creative energy. I realize that if I wait until I am no longer afraid to act, write, speak, be, I'll be sending messages on a ouija board, cryptic complaints from the other side. When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less important whether or not I am unafraid."

and…

“May these words serve as encouragement for others to speak and to act out of our experiences with cancer and other threats of death, for silence has never brought us anything of worth.”

She wrote these brave words in 1979-80, when there weren’t the open conversations and supports that exist in the world today, and if this old dawg, el poquito, can find solace and inspiration in a breast cancer/mastectomy survivor's testimony, then probably most others can, too. Some of our strengths lie in our diversity of experiences outside of our own, where we find we are a lot more the same than different.

Thank you, Audre. I am no longer silent.

Restoration

Do you know which way I went?
I remember seeing me the other day
talking with the homeless woman
about her missing child -
the auto accident -
and the curse...
and noticing how she
folded and unfolded
the origami change purse
she held nervously in her hands...
telling me her story,
that was my story too,
about the tragedies that had
broken her,
and broken her again
into a pile of human shards
scattered across the land...
unrecognizable from the fine
strong vessels
we once were
before.

Yesterday I was high in the mountains
crossing a dangerous pass -
Dead Man's Pass...
It was too long a journey.
I was so tired...
Last I recall I was looking out the window of the train,
looking out upon the savanna --
The light and heat were beating down upon us
and the gazelles were running swiftly away
fleeing from the hard-breathing animal
that snaked it's way through the plains.
Did you see me come by here yesterday?
Do you know which way I went?

Later I remember seeing me
methodically shoveling the dirt.
How do you move a mountain?
One shovelful at a time...
Restoring hope can take time that way -
like moving a mountain
with a shovel.
It can be done.
I've seen it happen
many times.
But renewal does not birth easily.
Did you catch a glimpse of me?
Do you know which way I went?

Breathe

It's September. Labor Day weekend has passed. The kids are back in school. The pace picks up - despite nature's pace winding down. In one week the date will be 9-11. The classic images, the ones burned in our collective retina will begin this week - you know, planes crashing, exploding buildings, people fleeing down the streets in terror. Terror - the broad paintbrush of the past 7 years. You don't need me to drive these images of fear and national symbols of trauma deeper.

What I offer instead is a remedy - an antidote, written the week following 9-11-01. I offer it today at the beginning of this week where "they" will remind us repeatedly how unsafe we are. How insecure and vulnerable we all are in a world gone mad. True perhaps, but there's more to the story. There's always more to the story....

"I was to meet with a friend this morning, a midwife who never made it to our appointed time to meet. I assume she was probably busy at a birth with a mom and new arrival. It's good to remember that in times such as these, with the appearance of darkness overwhelming us, that Life keeps moving forward; babies are being born today - new hope, new breath, new life. We certainly have been wading through the other side of it all recently.

I picture you in my mind and heart, well and at peace and will hold that picture as we continue to wade deeply through our human muck. We truly are a strange species - capable of inflicting the darkest horrors and birthing the most tender beauty. Remember friend, we are not alone. I am here fanning tender embers of hopefulness and peace with my breath, as are others. The same breath that flowed through all our ancestors before, flows through and around each of us now and blesses the newly arrived who draw their first breath today.

BREATHE...

Share in that first breath of the newly born - breathe in the life, the precious life. Here, Now, Breathe..."

more street art - urban stonehenge & inukshuk

Sidewalk Art

anonymous street artist

Sestina to Yes

There was a time when all
I knew were the habits of living,
motions looking for connection
beyond the mechanical, lost,
churning of the hour
hungering for the feeling of "yes!"

If I'd only known yes
was the secret, it all
would have unfolded in an hour
or so of fruitful living,
washing away the confusion of lost
and wasteful motion without connection -

grounding me into the radiant connection
of hands, heart and Spirit singing "yes!"
I am no longer lost
in the frenzy of it all.
With the job of living
I fill each and every hour

and try to remember that this hour,
this one moment of connection,
is a rare gift of living
present in the moment of yes,
not in the dream where all
is a game to be won or be lost.

There is no winning without those who have lost-
no eternity without the finite hour.
Still, the pulse, the rhythm - the heartbeat of all,
calls the soul longing for holy connection
with all that is made of heartfelt yes
and joy and loving and living...

I do not know the secret of living
or how to accept all that is lost,
but I know it begins with the Spirit of yes
and removing the shackles of the grinding hour.
And found in loving, spirited connection
that binds us one to All.

When my living be done and in it's final hour,
When the last has been lost - even the threadbare connection,
I hope to sing yes as I surrender, let go and relinquish it all.

><><><><><><><><><><<<><><><><><><><><

*Sestinas go back to 13th century troubadours - 6 stanzas ending with the same 6 words repeated in a specific pattern that forms a spiral, driving the words and theme deeper and deeper. The 7th stanza of 3 lines uses all 6 words. They were performed as a contest between troubadours - kind of an obsessive-compulsive meets hip-hop poetry slam. And for my purposes an exercise in cognitive restoration post-chemo.

**No - also a powerful word medicine when used wisely.

The Greater Mystery

It is in the realm of mystery where such things as love and healing reside. Anyone who has ever experienced either can tell you it is so, but yet words escape in attempting to describe the experience. Still we know they are real.

Incurable is a very odd word used to medically describe my circumstances. Such a final ring to it – incurable: a hot, stuffy room in summer with all the doors closed and windows latched with no air to breathe… a room I don’t care to spend much time in. It does serve me though by making me consider, reflect and take a deeper look at "healing" and what it means to me. When cure is not considered an option, then all the other possible options need to be explored. A window gets cracked open – and just that much is all I need to bring the tiniest bit of fresh air into the stifling, hot room.

Healing is something I wake up and affirm daily, regardless of how crappy or bleak things may look or seem. Healing, like hope, is an action verb. It needs constant tending. It’s my patch of earth that needs tilling, planting, watering and constant weeding. Healing says, "don't judge a book by it's cover." Healing says, "dig deeper… and now more." Healing says, "today is what matters, NOW… this moment." Healing says, “I need to love and also to be loved,” exposing us to our vulnerability. Healing says, "let's go fishing, listen to the birds, feel the wind, write poetry and dance…"

Healing, as an action verb, not a wish bestowed, is an exploration that includes not only the obvious like nutrition or exercise, but also an often challenging navigation of the subtleties -- being able to live smack dab in the middle of the tension between opposites, such as: courage and fear; hope and despair; love and hate; joy and sorrow… It is a very human experience…one a sane person would never volunteer for, but one that completes the human experience. Cure is the golden ring we all think we would like to capture. It’s the best…it’s the golden ring. But none of us is getting out of this place alive; there isn’t a cure to earthly, mortal life. With that in mind, finding our way and our humanity, in this world of opposites and contradictions; finding another’s humanity despite their contradictions, because they are human also: this is healing. At least a tiny corner of it that’s been revealed to me thus far.

When facing a life-threatening illness, it forces you to start digging deeper. What is offered? Is this a blind, dead-end alley or just a narrowing curve that I can’t see beyond? What goals are easily within my reach? And what ones that would appear far-fetched or beyond my reach are worth pursuing anyway? “Nothing ventured, nothing gained…” Remarkable recoveries do occur and not just occasionally. According to scientists, 95% of the universe is comprised of what they call dark matter, an unknown, a mystery… The visible universe makes up the other five per cent – that which we see and know. That leaves a lot of room for Mystery… and for healing…

Mystery… ninety-five percent. Think about it.

recurring dreams, mending heart & tizitl

It's high noon.  In the dream it's always high noon.  And I am inside of a school, a home - different settings with the sudden need to go outside.  I open the door to step out and instead of the light of "high noon" there is nothing but pitch black.  Inky, thick, darkness. What???  And I think to myself,  "this is not going to be an ordinary day..."

It's high noon folks.  And there's a lot of darkness out there.  You can feel it - it's palpable: the fear, the worry, the concern.  If you don't feel it, it must be because you're too busy shopping.  But then you're probably not here reading the ramblings of el poquito.  So for you quaking in our collective boots, I offer this silly little blog.

"Maybe I should take a break from it all and try to mend my heart."

Hmmm... mystery words that arrive in a dream worth considering.  Stepping back from terror always begins with that - stepping back...."maybe I should take a break from it all..." 

Interesting advice when one is stuck in darkness at noon like a fly to flypaper...

That is the story, again and again.  How do we step back against the onslaught of life's wounds and injuries, when it jostles us about, as it, lives us?   Yes, sometimes life lives us - despite our tantrums, our pleadings and supplications and our positive thinking.  It still lives us, over and over again.  And that part can be frightening.  The surrender necessary, is over most of our heads  We are a people of get and have, a culture of not enough, living under a banner of victors and winners.   But how do you break the darkness that reaches across the sky at high noon when you can't bend the universe to your will?  There are some forces that are just too big.  

I take to heart, concentration camp survivor Dr. Victor Frankl and his advice that the key that unlocks the prison door is in our response to the horror we find ourselves living in.  It's in the response.  One more time - the ticket is in the response.  My response will determine my next destination, and my chance out of this darkness.   Much can be lost or stolen, but the one thing that we can determine never to lose is that small, still place within us where our dignity and hope live with our ability to determine our next response.  This is the only worthwhile ticket. The others are only fantasy 5-day cruises. Tempting, but they only offer 5 days.  I'm holding out.

It's not in the willful attempt to create my reality where I will find relief or sustenance or joy. It's in my response to the life living me.

Step back - and try to mend the heart.

Which brings me here.  To this.  To you in this "Blogs 'r Us" world.  The past almost three years has been a rugged journey for me.  For many I have disappeared, especially in this past year when my physical limiting conditions caused me to "step back".  It's been a year of retreat, rediscovery and reconstruction.  A big restoration project - not as before, but with some of the old parts torn down with some new wings and additions added.  So you, dear reader, I invite you to this place with el poquito to "tizitl blogspot".  Tizitl is nahuatl, an indigenous language of Mexico and the southwest.  Tizitl means healer.  I want to carve out one more piece into the darkness surrounding, a place to touch upon healing - for myself and for all of us.  A healing garden, hence flower and song - an old tradition of Mexico: flor y canto.

I leave you with this:

the word holy

and whole

and heal

all have the same root - 

and if one is the same as the other 

or cousins at least

then the holy

is the wholly

from the sacred

to the profane.

Tiahui (forward in courage - your next nahuatl vocabulary word)  

tiahui, always forward, always forward....

Come join me at el poquito's table... we have much to share.

taxi confessions

I had to laugh at myself in the back seat of a short cab ride home, not enough leg power at the moment to ride the bus and walk the short ways, so payin' the big taxi bucks.  The curious driver wants to know about the crutches and me and my work, and when I say I've had to retire and he asks why, I tell him I got sick a little while back.  Enough, right?  No.  "What did you have?"  "Cancer."  He then proceeds to tell me if it were him how he wouldn't pursue treatment.  I caution him saying, "never say never...  I used to feel that way.  I always told my poor wife if I were ever terminal, just set me up a nice bed on the porch - weather permitting, let me hang out, listen to the birds and watch the light change throughout the day...."  He agrees.  My home is only a few blocks away and I'm feeling like the "mystery rider of the day" - you know, the one with "a message" in the movie  and I need to give it to him fast.

Yep, somehow in the back of someone's taxi that I've not been in for 3 minutes I'm going to become a cliché and I'm going to share with him my own very personal why of "never say never."

It was the middle of the night, I was in severe pain.  I didn't need an expert to tell me that without help I would die soon.  4 am, trying to leave for the emergency room, but I can't get to the car. I lie down on the earth because that's all I can do.  The earth absorbs my pain, makes it a little more tolerable, tolerable enough that I'm comfortable dying here.  I could just lie here, let the earth take me.  After all it's going to happen to all of us some day, right?  Tonight's my night.  I'll curl up into the earth's arms and wait....  I'm looking up at a clear starry sky on the first night of autumn.  It's cosmic and so am I. After all I want to die "in a good way."  I lay there looking up at the stars when suddenly I see clearly a vision of my wife's face - not her actual face that was busy pacing the yard trying to figure out once again what to do with this man she's chosen to share a life with.  Her face hovers inches above mine, lingers a few seconds, vanishes and is replaced by my son's face.  His face recedes to the background and my other son's face appears.... then it all dissolves into starry sky.  I know what I am supposed to do.  I know it in my bones.  I have to face my fear.  Not of dying, but of going through the hospital doors and not coming out anytime soon.

I tell the cab driver, "For me the scary thing wasn't dying," this had his attention now,"It was going through those hospital doors and surrendering, but I knew I had to.  I knew it was about a lot more than just me.  I couldn't just go off and die and leave them just yet.  I was still needed.  So for me the brave thing was to haul my ass up off the ground and go to the hospital and surrender.

Sometimes surrender is the only way through....

As he dropped me off he told me that he himself had 13 kids!  

I gave him a really good tip, which surprised him.   "With 13 kids, you need it buddy!"  I closed the car door thinking to myself, never say never...

Drop the old tired dogma.  Be open to surprises (some of them are good surprises) - like highly toxic medications that may help one survive to have a little more time to love, to be loved and to be the mystery man in the movie with the message....

                      ><><><><<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><

Flor y Canto - a sestina by el poquito

What I leave you is a flower

and a well-loved song.

This will be your inheritance

to pass on to the next generation

of vital, young ones that have

patiently waited to receive. 

In all that I receive, 

it is the aroma of the flower

in the dream that I have, 

in the birth of the song, 

being sung to the next generation

of all that is rich and worthy of inheritance.

All the riches of inheritance, 

all the gifts you receive, 

are the music - the generation

of poetry in flower, 

of love into song

and all that I have

because all that I have

to give you for inheritance

is the poetry of a song

that was given to me to receive -

the blossom of a flower

from an ancient generation.

And to your generation...

all the dreams that I have, 

all the colors that flower, 

all the beauty of inheritance

and wealth to receive

I give you as a song

to be heard in your heart, a song

to be passed to the next generation

awaiting to receive

all that we have

to give as inheritance:

the song and the flower.

Rising up in song, I give you all that I have:

the melody, the generation of loving inheritance...

the light we receive like a garden in flower...

your one wild and precious life

The Summer Day - Mary Oliver

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean - 

the one who has flung herself out of the grass, 

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, 

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down - 

who is gazing around with her enormous eyes. 

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. 

I don't know exactly what a prayer is. 

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, 

how to kneel down in the grass, 

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, 

which is what I have been doing all day. 

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? 

Tell me, what is it you plan to do 

with your one wild and precious life?