Song of a Man Who Has Come Through

I wanted to share this poem by fellow New Mexico dweller, although many years ago, D.H. Lawrence. He touches on spirit in some of his writings in ways that bite to the core. This is the greatest one I have read. Read it slow, each line taking a few deep breaths, sinking in to where it carries you.

It’s good.

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Song of a Man Who Has Come Through
D.H. Lawrence

Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me!

A fine wind is blowing the new direction of Time.

If only I let it bear me, carry me, if only it carry me!

If only I am sensitive, subtle, oh, delicate, a winged gift!

If only, most lovely of all, I yield myself and am borrowed

By the fine, fine wind that takes its course through the chaos of the world

Like a fine, an exquisite chisel, a wedge-blade inserted;

If only I am keen and hard like the sheer tip of a wedge

Driven by invisible blows,

The rock will split, we shall come at the wonder, we shall find the Hesperides.

Oh, for the wonder that bubbles into my soul,

I would be a good fountain, a good well-head,

Would blur no whisper, spoil no expression.

What is the knocking?

What is the knocking at the door in the night?

It is somebody wants to do us harm.

No, no, it is the three strange angels.

Admit them, admit them

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The painting is “The Silent Voice” by Gerald Edward Moira and it’s one of my very favorites of all the art I have ever seen. It is mysterious, yet it is not at all.

From Here to There

There are things I have found in The Mountains of the East that are the richest balm on the places within that dream of water.

In The Mountains of the West, the desert will give you a thorough drying. It takes your knots and untangles them, the holes and cracks fill in with windblown dirt. It evaporates the muddy pools that have been sitting stagnant, perhaps harboring poison bits and larvae that mean to seep into your heart. You are beaten with elements, drenched in an annual rain that is never quite enough. The skin is burnt by the sun and torn by cactus spines. Birds of death circle overhead and wake you from sweet dreams upon morning. Walks in the deep forest are met with some of the most fearsome predators we can know, and it is here we are reminded we have become weaker than mice. Your own home tends toward a desire to be taken by the earth around you and it is a struggle to keep it warm or cool. Muscles form with work and cutting wood, sweat is the wettest thing our water body knows. If you live near snakes, they often like to find refuge under your foundation and feast on the darling rabbits with whom you share breakfast, and then fight you when you attempt to say This is my home, not yours. Spirits roam heavy in the lands that were taken from them when they were corporeal, or sometimes they simply do not want to leave because despite the hard and sharp ways of living, the land spins a potent enchantment.

This is the place I love. I have persevered through all of these things, and I did it during a time when my heart was sad, atrophied by a near lifetime of ignoring or fearing what it said, absorbing the extraordinary pain of those I have held most dear, enduring shared dreams' destruction by fires that almost burned us alive—things we all experience in our time here, but that prevalence does not diminish the effects. This weakness of our most emotional organ is an illness as toxic as cancer, yet the remedies are not found in vials or hospitals. The grief of separation from our true selves can only be resolved with attention to how we became this way and action toward its repair. It took three years (almost to the day, what a marvel), three rotations through space around our sun, three circles, of quiet work to rebuild my spirit in ways that it cannot be torn down—and it has regenerated! This is the magic of the body and soul, and we can always become the magician of our own creation, if we will it.

I give infinite gratitude to the place that held me while I healed, the mountain range whom I loved as a mother, the little round handmade house that sheltered me from the elements, the authentic souls I have communed with here and between worlds, the flowers that returned each year, the snows that blanketed the nights I lay by the fire's side, the dirt that always supported me, the rains that came when they were needed, the wild horses that came to my door and let me pet them and feed them carrots, the skies that make me feel like I do in dream when I am a bird, the plants who nourish the deepest and most forgotten places, the bitter alpine high elevation winter that reminds me I am alive. This is the place I love, and I will always return here.

Now, though, the green and ancient mountains call to soften, renew, and grow things I have not yet imagined.

Restless Yet Resolute

When I made the decision to travel to Iceland, I did so for no reason other than I must go there. I did not know much about the culture, places to see, or streets I should roam, nor did I have any suitable answer to my primary question: Why must I go? It was a funny thing, the word Iceland always arising first in my mind when I would be asked 'Where do you want to travel?' Before it became a trendy destination, I would be met with incredulous looks. 'Why Iceland?' 'Why not Paris or Thailand or Italy or—any place other than Iceland?' 'Isn't it cold and empty?' These were questions I could not answer with anything other than a shake of my head and It calls.

It was frightening, nearly emptying my bank account on the simple accommodation of a van, plane tickets and such, for a far flung northern land I knew nothing about—but I did it. I knew it was time to see why I must go.

My time there was met with potent healing. I am still, nearly a year later, and I expect this to extend indefinitely, unraveling what I felt, learned, and remembered. The dreams I had awake and while sleeping next to waterfalls and volcanoes are seated at a table next to my soul, fixed and clear. It was a time without time wherein I fused with the land and the stories it held. I could not determine what was me and what was the island's own history—my memories or its ghosts—and I did not care. I did not desire definition. I was a sprig of moss trampled beneath a sheep's hoof and I was the eternal enormity of the sky. My sense of self and my own stories melted into the warm waters where I sat, mixing and collecting down the mountainsides churning into gigantic rivers until they were expelled into the seas. It was the most psychedelic and intoxicating experience I've had, yet I was high on nothing except glacier water I gathered and native blueberries. The earth will get you that way. It was here at the top of the world where I no longer felt alone. Stars have always been my beloved, but now the light of the midnight sun kept them hidden and I saw to loving the ground where I stood. This realization of love being all around me instead of beyond my reach, even when it is 'mere' dirt, will never dissolve. It has given strength to my spine and power to my will, a primeval bond that cannot be destroyed. Many gifts were given and I have stories yet to tell about the summer where I spent my thirty-fourth turn around the sun, in my greatest love affair with that island of the north.

I write this to say: that feeling of I must go has returned, this time to a very different place, the deep mountains of western North Carolina. Sunlight has a particular way it dapples through the thick canopy of trees in the south. Everything within sight is myriad shades of green, illuminated and alive. This is what I have seen for the last twenty-some years when I close my eyes and in dreams. I want to return to the summer that bore me and has haunted me since I left. I don't know why I am called but I have cultivated a habit of heeding this sort of demand without question, for it is always met with wonder.

I leave this home I have in the wild desert for an indeterminate time, until what needs to be done is done. I imagine I will while my days away writing, at a desk in a very old house and sitting on its grand porches. I will walk with my dog along streams and rivers, following them until the brush grows too thick and water falls, listening to the ancient stories of Appalachia. I will certainly look upon the endless farm lands and hope I am circling ever closer to settling my life on one, hands in dirt, growing, learning, loving.

I will send (post) to you pictures and words.

Tabula Rasa

Things I have
held
heard
used
read
believed
seen
touched
trusted
loved—
you
bones
smoke
tarot
poems
scripture
channels
stone
teachers
dreams
journeys
in stillness
the dancing flame
what we write
about the moon
worship
a dervish—
I reject
I do not want them
not now—
Instead
I sit
walk
meditate
breathe
purge
empty
to navigate—
The wind it takes
The sun it burns
The cold it stuns
The water it washes
away
everything
until I rise
I stand
Lifted by Nothing and yet—
Me
You
Love
Lifting
Everything
swell
soar
crash
sink
receed
Again
it is Here—
where
We go beyond.

 

Spirit Spring

On Hearing

I went on a walk today in a place I have been only once before. That time I didn't venture far, but I liked the feeling it gave me. There are several canyons coming off a mountain range in an area that looks pretty flat and barren. To most eyes it would appear 'wide open, yes, but kind of plain... and... brown'. Ah, but as I tell people when they have this sort of reaction: It's a trick! This is where wonder often waits, as I have learned here over and over again.

So today, I decided I would spend the day in these canyons and see what I came across. It's very lightly visited which is second best to never-visited as far as wild walks go. It's very easy to leave the trail behind and walk as you may around the land. It isn't crawling with predators or plentiful loud talkers (give me mountain lions or give me death). It is the best way to 'hike', to me, for this is when Spirit is heard best.

Photo by Kya

Raven as Guide

I decided I would begin by climbing to one of the peaks, most of them cliffs along the mesa overlooking the many thousands of pristine acres below. I wanted one that wouldn't send me plummeting down its rocks, but would give me a good lay of the land to plan my whereabouts.

When I got to the top, I put my arms out like a bird and closed my eyes, feeling the winds over me. I pretended to fly to some beautiful place and I could feel something special was near—a gentle 'Yes, this is what you will find', felt in my bones. Turning slow in a circle, 360 degrees were visible and sitting a mile or so away, there was a big arroyo that wandered as far as I could see.

I had another feeling: 'Walk that one'.

'That big one over there?' I asked back in breath.

A raven appeared in the distance and made my favorite sound in their otherworldly language. He flew along the arroyo, my feathered answer.

Photo by Christi

What Is Unseen

When I got down to it, the dry river bed and its rock banks were grand. The further I walked, the sanded path widened and the walls grew taller, until I was in a canyon. Here, at the entry, I felt as if I was a pilgrim walking into a temple, compelled to reverence. Straight red rock walls hundreds of feet high formed a sort of gate, like people built into mountains during antiquity—likenesses of pharaohs, sphinxes, and gods.

I was now in land with no human footprints, no bike tire tracks, no orange peels, sunglass lenses, underpants, or other wares that tend to fall off of hikers puzzlingly unmissed.

'Keep going' was what I felt repeatedly, and it felt Good, so I did.

I was captivated by the land growing and forming before me. What I began to hear with my ears was from Other: sage rustling where animals were not, small rocks rolling down from high right next to me, traces of whistles, pieces of a distant woman's laugh, a blown whisper next to my ear when wind wasn't there. I would see a figure—human, coyote, bird—in my peripheral vision but if I turned to look it was a rock, a twisted juniper, or nothing except blue sky. These things need no explanation for me, they make me feel less alone in this world.

When Rock Yields Water

All of this mesa and canyon land is very very dry. Aside from one arroyo during monsoons, water has not run through the beds in thousands (or perhaps even millions) of years. Trees have shriveled up and cactus spreads. Rock reigns here.

As I walked, I noticed less prickly things as growing grass appeared under my feet. The sand became darker, and animal prints became crisp in the richer dirt. I realized water was somewhere nearby and the thrill of discovering the unexpected and near-impossible ran through me. The sweet smell of cottonwoods hit my nose, those great gurglers of creeks and springs, and now I was certain. 'There is a spring', Spirit said and then I heard water trickling. I saw not just mud like the typical (although rare) spring here, but a clear flowing stream—gold and life, the desert's enlightenment.

Oh how the land changed, with this abundance of water. The sand undulated, powder soft and so fine that when I held it I could not see the grains. I put my nose to the ground and even the earth smelled of cottonwood. Grasses, dry from winter, I could see would lay over this place as green as the summer cottonwood leaves above. Flowering plants lined the small banks, empty branches now that would bloom anew in spring. How good every earthen texture here would feel on bare skin. I could do nothing else but stand there and let the tears well in my eyes, the unexpected beauty too overwhelming to hold in.

A Hawk's Medicine

I was gifted with a vision here, but that is mine to keep.

I came upon a young lady hawk eating a catch, still warm, for lunch. I was only feet from her, we were under the same tree. She didn't see me first, so I was able to watch her. Razor beak and ancient unknowable eyes pulled out the gentle rabbit's entrails, the perfect sweet fur I love so flying everywhere. The inside of the head was the final treasured treat. It was furious and primal, painful and illuminating.

Kya caught wind, ran to investigate, and the hawk took off. The loudness of her wings in flight was startling. I felt their wind when she was ten feet away. She followed us as we walked away, curious and hopping along branches close to me, watching and tilting her head. It felt as if she forgot about her meal and found us more interesting instead. A powerful bird, and a most beautiful blessing even with death.

Receiving and Offering

The stream flows down and pools into a spot big enough to sit in up to the neck, perfect for a rock to be placed there for sitting. In the entire length I traced, the water is crystal clear, and at the pool a tiny waterfall glints in the sun and keeps the soul flowing, always.

The cottonwoods are young, not as tall as older ones, but thick at the trunk and plenty enough for shade in the heat of midsummer. It is a place that is sacred, and I knew by the whispers and whistles that I am not the only one that shares in visiting. Other than animals and kindred wild folk, I tend to prefer my companions on hikes and dips to be unseen, so that is all okay with me.

During my walk back, I ruminated on what I will give in reciprocity for the gifts I received today. I walked in thanks, reverence, and knowing.