Praying to a God they can’t recall, and nonetheless Love
“In every single lifetime, I will be surrounded by women, with scarves covering their crowns, heads bowed towards their hearts, praying to a God they can’t recall, and nonetheless Love.”
📍Shavasana,
Calle de Serrano,
Madrid.
Recite the alphabet backwards, in the outdoor area inside of your mind.
…z, y, x, w abcdefghijklmnopqrst v, u, t…u…v, u, t, s….q…r, q…
The teacher looks like a mannequin,
as she turns to face the window to demonstrate,
she looks like she might dive over…
and you want to watch her face the window
and watch the light face her
more than you want to watch whatever made up contraption of an asana she will show you now.
“Just stand in front of the window and show us how the light touches things,”
you think to yourself…
…that would be yogic,
that would be enlightening.
Lighten up, you say,
to the cynic that is sharing the bench with you in the garden in your head.
A fear topples over next to you.
It hits the hardwood floor like bricks, the yoga kind.
A fear that weasled its way in, many times.
Seal the crevices with tape, insulate,
quick! before…
…from where, oh where, is it getting in?
And at what time, in what moment, did it catch you by surprise,
like something new, that you’ve seen a hundred, thousand,
bajillion times.
Light travels faster than sound,
fear travels faster than light,
but light sustains life,
and fear, in time,
like bricks,
[the yoga kind]
falls.
…’tis the season.
Ask for vision and it will be given.
Ask for vision and it will be given.
Ask for vision and it will be given.
Looking in the mind for the vision.
While a saint is waving outside of the window, again—
—look at the trees,
watching you.
Protecting your crown,
from the vast eternity of possibility,
that is this,
Cielo de Madrid
, that never seems to be anything but blue.
A sky so big it takes longer for night to fall here,
and the night doesn't last as long as it needs to for Owls like these.
how are we supposed to work?
without the dark.
You wonder.
The dream goes like this:
There is a procession of women.
You recognize all of them,
from one life or another.
They are all making their way towards water,
eventually.
They pause.
The wise ones—
your mother, your moon mother, and your mother from a different summer—
are huddled in the center
playing the elements like music
—ritual.
You watch,
as you often do.
Eyes turn to springs,
too much motion for the amount of water that can alchemize out of the molecules that know to form and make your two eyes—
so you do what you do—
in the dream,
pulling out the notebook from waking life,
write:
“In every single lifetime,
I will be surrounded by women,
with scarves covering their crowns,
heads bowed towards their hearts,
praying to a God they can’t recall,
and nonetheless Love.”
Schisandra,
Calendula,
Shilajit,
Camellia,
Coffee,
and Pan con Tomate,
sitting in ceremony in my intestines,
creating the conditions…
…for the new year to flourish.
Be still, my gut.
Hark, the feathers fall,
even on this concrete that stinks of pee,
the medicine woman does her work,
wherever she is to be.
Ceremony of one,
we are gathered here today,
to watch you pave the way,
for the ancestor you will become.
The clouds part
to another layer of mist,
revealing a glare so blinding,
that it gives you insight enough to
close your eyes
and feel your feet graze against the wool of your socks,
toeing the primal and innocent need to—
keep warm.
Grab for opposite elbows,
pull the frame of your arms over the center of your skull,
to open the windows of your lungs.
You hear your teachers voice,
reminding you to exhale longer than you inhale.
The out breath,
warm and well-versed in the necessary art of letting go—
Autaummmmmmmmmm
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
mmmmmmmmmmmmm
mmmm the soft tissue
of your humming organs.
Roots, Trunk, Crown,
speaking in four-directional tones,
through the halls of the entirety
of your body.
Rest chin to chest,
in Rem you saw it:
Remember the gift that
the baby’s breath,
the braided bread,
and the morning air gave you.
Remember you.
Remember me.
Forget the story.
Remember thee.
Really touching and beautiful