Poetry In The Woods
For everything, there is a season. A brief moment that is dedicated to a specific essence and place in your life.
Contemplative alertness will unveil the properties of this particular season. It will reveal the depth to which a place and time has relevance to not only this moment but to those moments that are waiting just past the horizon for you.
This past weekend, I had the privilege to step fully out of my scattered, highly-scheduled, responsibility of the early-autumn back-to-school scuffle and into the stillness of the woods of the Pacific Northwest.
A pilgrimage of respite.
This. After many solid months of intense teaching. Leaving everything on the field to the point of being bed-ridden for days due to my inability to surrender to my own exhaustion.
With this work-bleached soul, I travelled alongside a true companion into the woods to rekindle the fire that was threatening to flicker. To be witness to one another as we asked ourselves the beautiful questions. And making space to listen for the answers.
And of course there were invisible helpers in every corner. Someday I will tell you the stories.
A sign built as an honorary decree, reminding me just how long ago this invitation had been sent. And why.
A butterfly garden where I had literally stood. Each boot on a wing in the wet darkness. Laughing later, that I had allowed myself, for just one moment, to believe that dreams may not come true.
The unanticipated comprehension of an entire era by the taste on my tongue.
The willingness of the Puget water to receive my written goodbyes to the beliefs that had once served me well. And our shared secret promise to cross over to everything that is waiting for me.
A letter from my mother. Delivered in the only way that it would ever be opened.
The unexpected recognition from an old friend. And being called not only by my own name but by the name of my work in this world. A kiss on the cheek more intimate than kindness. A soft impression left behind by the one opening the door to my next life. Pointing the way, quietly telling me to go this way. And that they will all be waiting on the other side.
The paging of the three angels I know by name. Brennan. Patrick. Cameron. Who met me at Gate 7 to escort me home.
A marker to the closing of a season and to the opening of this next frontier. So that I could come back to this place in the woods. And call it by name.
The place where I deliberately chose to be the good ancestor to my future.