Years from now someone we don’t yet know or a godchild grown will ask about the man with the huge and burly heart, will ask about the spirit that would not die, about the child that never arrived, and we will look at each other and try to say things no language can embrace. It might be a summer night and maybe, if the listener tries hard enough, the breeze more than our words will move them for an instant to consider us in our passing, never knowing how the dance of seed, for all our cries, goes on and on.

It takes six million pollen grains to seed one peony, so tremendous the effort to live and so improbable the chance to blossom. Yet we are all such a field of possibilities; except each human grain has a spirit, a mind, a heart, a thicket of hope tight within its chest. This is what makes life such a remarkable trial, oppressive when our efforts don’t take and miraculous when our heart comes alive; each of us never knowing till it happens whether we will seed or not. And yet, every day we are both.

A Sacred Meditation

A SACRED MEDITATION

B. Nur Cheyenne (1946–1991)

Being a guest,

I walk quietly

into all the rooms

you have prepared.

Full of unknowing

I tell my own story

of dragging the pain

shackled to fear.

Being a guest,

you offer me cleansing.

Washing gently, I lift away

layers of scales covering my eyes.

Silently opening,

the door before us offers

an entry into the Never-Seen.

Gently rocking

you suggest I awaken

from sleepless nights

into the moment of now.

Trusting you mostly,

grasping my flashlight

I peer into black velvet caves

that open to streams

which flow into oceans of skies

that cradle the stars

who radiate light forever.

Being a guest

my heart is expanding

my eyes are more-seeing

than when I force my way in.

Fear is still present

sitting beside me.

I ask it to wait before speaking

(it has nothing to say).

In this expansion

Life is more present.

It opens before me, a widening road.

Ever-branching, many choices,

its riches surround me.

Jewels shimmer within me.

I am a gem.

Being a guest,

Death is an Innkeeper.

The no-vacancy sign

lies unused in the shed.

Watching the lights in the Inn,

they beckon to travelers

when they are ready.

Being a gem,

I build my own dwelling

across the field.

Walking my choices,

Living my Heart,

I garden my flowers

and water my plants.

Being a gem,

Abundance is flowing.

I’m sharing tomatoes

with the Innkeeper’s cook.

Being a being

I am grateful

for God within you,

within me, within those

bringing me blessings.

Lifting my eyes, I keep

expanding my vision

till all of my breath

is all there is.

Questions to Walk With

QUESTIONS TO WALK WITH