Today vs 355 Days Ago

Today I watched an emergency vehicle roar

followed by a chorus of five more

the hymn they sang was not for me

but I found myself unable to breathe

I started to panic, filled with fear

as if they were suddenly going to stop here

I wear her shirts and her ashes

as if those would conjure her

breathe, ironically, life back to her

to us

to the moment in time where we were

all of we, together, being happily.

It was a feeling of holy

a feeling of communion

as we broke bread together

The laughter we shared

reciting our ancient tales

filled us faster than food

She just at fifty, me at 49

We’d spent a love-time of life

but never enough time

The chaplain at the hospital said,

on the day Bean really died,

Maybe you were the face of God

she had to see before she could

finally be at peace.”

It was the most comforting words

because I often think of them.

I often think of Bean’s face in that same way,

the face I needed see before she went home

These Are My People: Marge Swenson

aliciameninga

This is not Marge Swenson. This is my friend Alicia. I love this picture.

abstractmichigan

This is an abstract interpretation of the original picture, minus my friend Alicia. It was taken with my phone, so I apologize for the quality.

There she is with her cheeks shining diamond smiles

Her eyes laughing blue sparkles of periwinkle

She ripples with giggles that bubble fountain-like

Barely restrained by her excitement to honor her calling

I unquestioningly obey her request for open arms

I pull her close to me in spirit love and protection

Warmth and true affection.

“How are you today, my beautiful friend?”

She pushes me away but doesn’t release me

She looks up into my eyes declaring, “I love you, so much.”

We share mutual admiration, forever, for a moment.

I jest with her of how much I love to learn at her knee

To greet, to host, to welcome, to embrace our community.

She laughs at me as if I were the village idiot

I’m inept compared to her. She’s a Mistress of Greeters

I, her apostle.

When the torch is handed onward, I pray I can continue

To honor her beautiful spirit with jovial conviviality

That she displays with the grace of whispering breezes

The dance the spring time brings that blesses each blossom with life

In tandem with the warm embrace of the sun.

MargeSwenson

This is Marge Swenson. She’s one of my favorite people, hands down. She’s just lovely.

Hymn: My Mourning Praise

Although I get lost, lose my compass, and fall down

the skies they open up and rain tears all around

the unchallenged thoughts of sadness and despair

Fill my thoughts and eyes, around me like the air

When I can’t find purchase on the ground beneath my feet

and the easiest thing I can do is hang my head in defeat

The light at the end of the tunnel seems so far away

and the pain I feel inside leaves me in unworthy sway

I will turn to you for blessings, eternity unbound

I will bow my head in reverence your love for me abounds

I will hear your spirit remind me that someone really cares

I will heed your wisdom, my heart will be repaired

I will sing the song of unity, hands destitute of conceit

I will share my abundant comforting, my miseries retreat

I will flow with my divinity releasing my malaise

I will give to you the honor of my mourning praise

I See You

Kaleidoscope_13I see you. You are not invisible to me. When I look at you, you wear no clothes. You wear no physical form. There is a ball around your body that lights up when you’re around people you like and dims when you’re not fond of them. The ball has colors and patterns that are spectacularly blended to me. I see you.

You’re a kaleidoscope of vivid colors that ebb and flow depending on how you move the liquid essence that you float in unwittingly. Where there is pain, I see the darkness. Where there is love, I see the light. Where you reside is usually a central color that tells me everything I need to know about you. I am a voyeur of sorts but not the creepy kind. I will not jump from your closet unexpectedly one night. I will meet you on the terms you’ve established. Because I can feel your intent.

I’m sorry if you feel I’ve invaded your privacy. I don’t know how to turn it off. I don’t really don’t want to because it’s served me so well. It’s proven invaluable to me to seek others of the light. It’s proven invaluable to me when I know I can’t trust a person because they are too consumed by material things to know they’re spiritual beings. It’s guided me effectively to incredible experiences through people with knowledge so deeply profound that I sometimes weep with gratefulness while others cause me deep caution.

It’s a feeling of authentic appreciation of identity that can only bloom with the watering of confidence when I see people that fit into their spirits; That “get it”. When I see someone working actively to grow into their spirits, I can forgive almost anything they do because I witness the evolution of color as if a perfect painting were in the works and I get to watch the brushstrokes fall on the canvas. It’s glorious to see. My gift allows me the privilege without effort.

There are also people who are not exactly dark and not exactly light. They are in a flux between worlds. The material world grabs their ankles and wrists tugging them away from their destiny. Their spirit self does a watoosie trying to find footing, trying to fill in the blanks. There are some that stand in this disarray and cry out that they don’t know who they are or that they don’t know what they’re doing. Nobody knows for sure what we’re doing. We just come up with a plan and see how it pans out. If we’re lucky, we have guides to show us the way out. I am one of those guides but I don’t know everything.

It is increasingly difficult when I feel as if I am carrying/dragging them towards the light. They start off saying, “Oh yes! I really want to do something different and I really like your ideas. Let’s go on this journey together.” I comply and we have long talks deep into the night. The kind that feels like it is the most important conversation I’ll ever have. For that moment in time that glimpse into the moonlight or the daylight it truly is. The intensity can’t be matched because it is so relevant. It is crucially real. But they fall back asleep and forget that we’d every spoken the conversation. With some, that shine so brightly but fear themselves, I keep trying to wake them up because I believe they need to be; because they said they wanted to be.

I don’t say anything to people who are dark. I don’t squeal with delight when I see them. Their wounds run far too deep for me to do anything other than shine a light at the end of their tunnel and coax them from sleep if they’re ready. There have been times when words came out of my mouth that weren’t mine but were intended for a particular person. Just like that, it’s as if a small miracle, sometimes large, happens but it isn’t mine. That’s when my light can reach into that dark place and help bring them home to the light where they belong. Those are the people that shoot past me like a rocket grinning from ear to ear on the tides of self-discovery and I cherish each one that finds that place. I do not gift them because it’s already theirs as it is yours. I may just nudge the light a tad to the right so they can see they’re really okay.

But I can’t carry them. I can’t wake them up. I can’t do that. I can’t pick someone up and force them to embrace their colors. It is ALWAYS the individual choices that color their spirits. It is ALWAYS their responsibility. I learned this and other rules of engagement when watching the masterpieces I encounter.

I can’t tell people what color they will become but I can tell them what color I see. The colors don’t have traits as much as they have emotions attached to them. When I see the colors and I really like them, I have to wait. I can’t immediately bond with them because rarely, but it does happen, they are wearing someone else’s colors. Like maybe they had a bad interaction with someone so it clouds their spirit or they’ve just received great news and are wearing that instead of their normal vestments. It’s the wolf in sheep’s clothing that causes me to ease my steps.

The physical being, the way you wish people to see you comes second. When I see someone that matches their physical self with their spirit self, it’s a feeling of home. It’s a feeling of such personal integrity, I think, “YOU! You’re there!” Sometimes it surprises me so much to find an authentic person that I actually say that out loud. There are many people who come close to matching but, it’s like they choose the wrong pair of socks or the wrong shade of happy. It’s just enough off for me to recognize that they’re missing parts of themselves or aren’t aware they are. It is my experience that it’s typically the latter.

The physical being does matter. I don’t wish you to have the wrong impression. I do see it, but not until I’ve peered through the spirit. When I tell someone that they are beautiful, I see them as I’ve described to you. I wish I could paint each person so they could see their beauty too. As if, if I could create them on canvas, they might appreciate their own divinity that seems apparent to me. But instead I’ll follow the advice of my kind Uncle Les who said, “Mare, whatever you do, keep doing it. The world needs more of it.” So it is written, so it is done.

I really dig

I really dig that when I open up my blog reader

I find people-y readers lurking about, liking this or that.

I really dig that when I peer back through the shop window

the readers grunt, groan, lust, hug, love and hate like I do.

I really dig that when I peer through the looking glass

I don’t find my readers slumped sleeping in side-chairs.

I really dig that they poke fingers to keys while:

drinking coffee

popping pills

drinking bourbon

honoring artists

dancing with desires for origami people on paper they will print.

I really dig that the people I don’t know by face

stare back at me as we travel, passing on our reader’s train.

I really dig when we arrive at the same destination of personal truth.

Because that’s when the shit gets real.

These Are My People: Matthew McBee

My son and I line up at the counter
Draining blood from the coffee maker
Refilling our need for bonding
At our morning communion ritual
Not offered by a priest but by Folgers.
We settle at the dining table
Scrolling through my Facebook feed
For videos to spark heat into our spirits
Blaze them up with conversations
That can’t be repeated in public.
I don’t like the days when
It is just me standing in line
Waiting for the “good days”
Where the shame or guilt of bad decisions
Don’t hang like piñatas waiting
Waiting for us to strike the first blow
Raining the inner conflicts into our laps
Tarnished with expectations of perfection
Waiting for us to strike the first blow
Against one another with words
As bitter as the coffee we cream in avoidance
Of the redeeming absolution we could
But don’t usually offer to one another.