Wandering Footsteps

What hope shall we gather, what dreams shall we sow?
Where the wind calls our wandering footsteps we go.
                                     ~ Sarojini Naidu, from Wandering Singers

Gathering hope. An incredible thought in today's culture. What the news provides is a continual barrage of negativity ~ murder, rape, discontent, war. There's no resolution ~
it's all about battle, being in opposition. That's what catches our ear, our eye; what brings in the money.

Hope is what keeps our hearts alive. Looking forward to something. Like children looking forward to Chanukkah or Christmas or Kwanzaa or summer vacation. We sow those dreams in the hearts and minds of the young for a reason ~ it keeps hope alive, it keeps the culture and world moving in a positive direction.

Where does the wind call your wandering footsteps? What is the next forward, positive direction for you to move in? What hope is gathering like wool within you? What dreams are you sowing in the Spring soil of your soul?

Let your wandering footsteps lead you to Spring, to renewal, fecundity, the future. Step outside and around the negativity of the world and sow dreams of peace, joy and love. Find your deepest truth.

Spring Equinox thought.....

Thought for the Spring Equinox:
A tree doesn't wonder or plan where it should grow the next leaf or when to put out the next fruit. No, its entire life is just an unfolding. You be the tree of life that is just unfolding.....

Each Spring Equinox, I look closely to see which trees are in bloom, which trees have buds of green leaves, which trees have new green shoots. Yet I rarely consider that I am blossoming as the days lengthen as well. The cyclical nature of the year deeply touches each living thing, including me. I don't show it the same way a tree does so I discount or ignore that as the sap courses through the tree to bring it new life, so my blood courses through me. Spring renews me. How do you feel about it?

Pope Francis

Today, the white smoke signaled the election of a new pope, a new leader for the Catholic Church. There was much speculation about who it would be and what name he would take.

Pope Francis of Buenos Aires, formerly Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, emerged from the conclave as the first pope from outside Europe in modern times, the first Jesuit, the first from Latin America, and the first named Francis, in recollection of St. Francis of Assisi, who dedicated his life to helping the poor.  http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/03/14/pope-faiths-react/1986529/ 

There remains much discussion ~

• the Women's Ordination movement, hopeful because of the name he chose
• the Argentine government, investigating a charge against him
• the Jesuit order, excited about one of its own being elected
• the people he leaves behind in Argentina where he famously gave up the 'mansion' and chauffeured car to move into an apartment and use public transportation
• those who have been affected ~ and disaffected ~ by the Church's response to the abuse outcries
• the influence of Benedict XVI

My prayer: May God the Father and the Son, Jesus Christ, bless and influence this man to be a willing agent of change in the Roman Catholic Church today. Amen.

Gun Laws

I've been listening to Rachel Maddow's show for today. She really does her research and it floors me every time. In 1958, Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy sponsored a bill in the Senate "to exclude from importation or reimportation into the United States arm or ammunition originally manufactured for military purposes." The ban would have included the very weapon that Lee Harvey Oswald purchased using a coupon clipped out of the American Rifleman magazine, the official magazine of the NRA. Wow. Just wow.

The NRA is so powerful ~ and was then also ~ that it took the killing of both Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. to start the path to registering guns.

How many deaths will it take 'til we know
that too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind.
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Still, they fight registration, assault weapon bans or any limitations put on what they consider their 2nd Amendment rights. When will we ever learn?

Dark Moon

How are you on this night of the Dark Moon? What are you feeling? What stirs your soul tonight? Watch your dreams this night! Listen to them. Write them down. Let them brew within you.

Since a very young age, perhaps 4 or 5, I have loved the Moon. Her phases taught me much about the phases and changes of life. Things are bright, clear and visible at one time; dark and shadowy at another; and every degree of light and shadow between. Personally, I always liked the dark and shadowy times ~ easier to hide within them.

Why was I hiding? I rarely pondered that; it simply felt right and natural. Now, focusing on the aspect of hiding, I recognize that I wasn't truly hiding, I was waiting in the dark, like the Dark Moon, for my time to wax to fullness. I am content for it to take its time arriving because I know it will happen at the specified time and place.

Specified by whom? you may well ask. By the Ineffable One, the All That Is, the One Who Was Before and Is Now. That One has kept me and tested me in the times of the Dark Moon, and keeps me still. I am sooo grateful.

I am not one of 'those people' who wait and wait for a voice to tell them what to do or for things somehow to be shown clearly. What I mean is that I believe my life is Divinely guided. I still have choice and can make decisions as to what I'm going to do and where I'm going to go and how I'm going to get there. In all that, I also believe very deeply in my own intuition, insight and wisdom.
                  

Request Answered

Here's a wonderful poem by Hindi poet, Ravindra Kumar Karnani:

The child whispered, "God, speak to me."
And a meadowlark sang
But the child did not hear.
So the child yelled, "God, speak to me."
And the thunder rolled across the sky
But the child did not listen.
The child looked around and said,
"God, let me see You." and a star shone brightly
But the child did not notice.
And the child shouted,
"God show me a miracle!"
And a life was born but the child did not know.
So the child cried out in despair,
"Touch me, God, and let me know You are here?"
Whereupon God reached down
And touched the child.
But the child brushed the butterfly away
And walked away unknowingly.

How many times in life have we made requests of God ~ do this, show me that, give me something ~ expecting the answer wrapped in the ribbon of our choosing, never noticing the wonder of the wrapping God chose? Like the 'child' in this poem, we can't see beyond our own expectations. Time, reflection, practice teach us to look closer, to recognize that our request has been answered in the best of all possible ways.

Stones from Crayons

Stone Woman

Standing Stones

Stone Nation

Solid as a Rock

Amazing the words
   that show up
   and flow
   and stream forth
   unbidden
   unbridled
When what I find pulling me
   most in nature is
   Stone
I hear the stories
   the tales of the
   Stone Nation
   our oldest relations
   Do I remember?
   Do you remember?
They are the formation
   of Earth Herself
They are her first children
   stories
   they carry the stories
Do you know how still
   you have to sit to hear the stones
   tell their stories?
Sweat lodge
   Grandmother and
   Grandfather stones
   sacrificing their lives
   for the People.
To be so honored
   to tend the sacred fire
   to sit in the lodge
   deepens connection
   to the Earth
For the stones
   for their stories
   for the blessings
   I am grateful