Sweet morning alone

Small change. Ten cents. A nickel. Perhaps a quarter. This I can doll out piece by piece. But my own? How very different. Or not. This entry, for instance. It is just small change. I have sat down with one goal in mind: write this post without changing a word. No backspace (except to correct for spelling). No highlight and delete. You're getting this unedited. My final offering for 2011.

It's a paradox, no? Or should that be yes? To write about change without changing a word. Maybe a koan? Maybe a (stopping now to take a sip of coffee) meditation. Yes. A meditation. In words. Time. Space. I wonder at the change that surrounds me. We all want it, but often don't know exactly what it means. I want change. I want to change. Somedays the biggest change I can manage is a change of clothes. Other days, I am lost in the dream of stripping myself free of this cloak that has become my outer edifice, my inner anchor. But some days I drown from the weight of me. That is the glory of the New Year. We can (another sip of coffee) imagine ourselves in new light. In new clothes. In a new spirit that frees us from the past, from all that would make us heavy and dull.

But I don't want to change so much as evolve, transform. I look at these layers, these sedimentary layers of experience, memory, action (what I want to say is these sedimentary layers of remembrance in mind, body and spirit) and I am as whole today as I have ever been. Is desiring more for ourselves the curse of our lives, or a blessing? If, as we all know, we have all we need, we are all we are, we hold the answers always in our heart, then what is this life if not a constant journey down a river toward the sea? (coffee and a gaze at Rizzo on the back stoop. the wind is strong today and she smells the air now wants inside.)

Writing pains me because I take so long to find the words and am often stunned to realize I have only a fraction of what I need. I want to take our language into my head and heart and memorize meaning so I can recall it at a whim. Instead, I change, delete, pine for and settle on letters arranged into reflections of desire. in the end, all I have is the choice to take my time, to align myself with intention, to reflect, ponder and infuse my being with the thing, the desire, the flash of what it is my small hand reaches for in space and longing. I long for words. I long for change.

This new year comes upon me with a strength of blessing I have not felt in years. (damn, this coffee is good). The practice I have embraced, while small for now, is to settle myself each morning and be still with my breath. I feel my spine release, my hands grow warm, my eyes cast for a gentle spot and I begin the dance of intention, one breath at a time. This is new. This is change. It is welcome and celebrated. It is mine. It is a mystery. I wish i could devote more time to its -- I mean to say, I wish I could nurture it more fully by devoting more time, but my days are fields of growing flowers and weeds. I must constantly pluck and pluck and prune and water what grows around me. I feel this changing. My awareness. It seeks new clothes. And damn if we aren't shopping right now.

I bless my roommate for not being home this morning. I have the house to myself and it's so lovely I can barely stand it. I am writing without editing and this I can barely stand, too. It's freeing. Perhaps this should be my goal for every post. My challenge, my change. I over think and I get trapped. But I don't want traps. Or cages. Or rules. Or the same old same old. I am mad with desire to bring life close to my heart, to engage my body in all that is wild and free, to taste the breath of joy upon my lips and give back. Give. Serve. Be whole in the way I want. With the people I love. With the friends I don't yet know. With the vision I know I can find inside all this clutter, lost pieces of papers, string, tea bags, photos, dog hair and maple syrup.

Bluebird. Wren. Kingfisher. Merganser. Stilt. Godwit. (Help me Fred, that is a bird, right?) Raven. Tufted titmouse. Quetzal. These winged creatures have a place in all this. I know. I feel it and marvel at it and pray that I may have half the, nay a fraction, of the grace and knowledge to know where I feed, where I live, when to migrate, and how to fly through the night destined for a land wired in my brain, in my very cells, in the atmosphere that guides me back home where I have always lived. With change at my side, like a sweet dog that licks my hand as a reminder that she is here. She is pure. She is not going anywhere.

May we all find new grace in the next turn around the sun.

Much love.