Busy week... feels like I'm rushing to keep up but for what/whose race? Right Now I'm going to put on Liz Story, light a candle, and write for an hour. Tomorrow I'm going to get in a good hour of riding.

And then, the Hokey Pokey. :)

color for a gray day

the view from the front porch... autumn in near-full blaze.

"I wake up in the morning with a dream in my eyes."
Allen Ginsberg


I woke up this morning with a dream in mine. It was a long and intricate dream that began with pages of my novel in galley form and me being somewhat astounded at the profoundness of my words on the page that way. Switched to a labyrinthine journey with my horse, Keil Bay, by my side, the regular path blocked, detours and new directions to take, (horse folks will appreciate the detail that at one detour I noted a gigantic stack of Adequan boxes, filled with vials of the expensive glucosamine fluid - the fluid of ease of motion, forward motion, relief...)

Ended with me and Keil Bay in a room, facing several doors: one that led to a wall, another that was blocked but passable with some work, one that was locked, and the one we had come through, marked "exit."

Remarkable to me was the feeling of peace and stillness that ended the dream. It was okay to wait, to be, to Not Act, which, by the way, is often hard for me to do. Being without action. :)

Feel free to share.

quiet in heart, and in eye clear

the wise eye of zen-master Keil Bay, with quiet-hearted Salina in the background.. a horseback ride in our back field, picking wild grapes from vines hung low, the persimmon tree down the lane, geese honking overhead, and this poem, which came to reside on my little altar last autumn when we moved here, and has this year come true:





The Wild Geese

Horseback on Sunday morning,
harvest over, we taste persimmon
and wild grape, sharp sweet
of summer's end. In time's maze
over fall fields, we name names
that went west from here, names
that rest on graves. We open
a persimmon seed to find the tree
that stands in promise,
pale, in the seed's marrow.
Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear,
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. What we need is here.

Wendell Berry

Time for the annual William Stafford (that lives on the inside of my laptop all year but is particularly apropos in this season):

Assurance

You will never be alone, you hear so deep
a sound when autumn comes. Yellow
pulls across the hills and thrums,
or the silence after lightning before it says
its names - and then the clouds' wide-mouthed
apologies. You were aimed from birth:
you will never be alone. Rain
will come, a gutter filled, an Amazon,
long aisles - you never heard so deep a sound,
moss on rocks, and years. You turn your head
that's what the silence meant: you're not alone
The whole wide world pours down.

William Stafford