earth | Dear Miracle

May 16, 2019
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On the Ferocity of Love

It is, on this rainy gray day, I meditate on gratitude. In this bleak opaqueness, it is easy to notice only that, especially after too many long seasons of unchanging gray. It is easy to feel drained of hope for anything better to come.

Yet in a simple meditative state, how wonder-filled the breadth and wholeness of life as it shows up in all its many colors…a gentle reminder back towards my own fierce life force.

Gratitude appearing as a sliver of light on the horizon–my senses tell me as I watch its arrival. It’s Love calling home, coming to find me. Not that I was ever for a second lost to it. Support arriving–beyond circumstance and suffering, of which there is plenty.

My senses inform me, tell me of it in creatively innate ways. In touch of hot and cold, skin and touch, a stroke of kindness or endearment.

I breathe in aromas of love cooking in the oven or the familiar aura of another, the smell or warning of danger, of jasmine in spring.

I witness love in the eyes of a friend, blossoming pink Dogwoods flowers or brilliant white, ship like clouds sailing upon a blue sea sky. I see where love is not felt. I say a prayer or extend a hand.

And on it goes.

Our natural senses are a gateway to the Universe when open.

And nothing good in being alive is so small as to not be noticed and full of wonder at.

We stand here at the apex of everything that has arrived in life before us so as to support us… from the Void or God or Source of all wonder to the Big Bang to stars and their trails through the universe(s) to Mother Gaia, earthquakes, fire, shifting lands. From one cell beings and the creative evolution of our bodies through eons or a single lifetime.

We are here to expand and breathe, feel pain and grow into Love, live and die and change into something else or more.

I hear, sense, touch, see, feel, and I’m alive; and in this moment or moments to come, all is well with my soul, and I’m alive past pain or suffering or complaint or whatever life throws my way.

I am not here to rejoice in the suffering of another, but to support because I have been supported.

Love is creative in its unfathomable myriad of expression, and often arrives in surprise or gift. It will show you how and the way.

Crack open the gate of resistence.. Raise your expectation just a smidge. Find life in the moment in the sidewalk flower growing from its fissures and breaks. Notice things for five minutes.

You and I are here to make a difference, to stand for kindness and the ferocity of Love in the darkest of time or place where love has not been felt or seen…

even within ourselves.

~Love, Me

March 20, 2019
by DearMiracle Leave a comment

Having You Here

Sigh…don’t go.

It’s been so nice having you here,

my little pink birthday girls.

Lots of photo shoots, just you and my camera

and the light

while you posed so sweetly for me

again and again every day you’ve been here.

You’re a little tired now—

I can see that.

And life is so brief for all of us and so awash with grace and grief both,

that I dont blame you for exhausting yourself

giving away all that grace.

Flowers in the window should have more function than a window seal,

but I lack a garden here up high…

except for the one you’ve planted in my heart.

Thank you.

🥀

S. Wolfington

March 19, 2019
by DearMiracle 1 Comment

Communiques from the Flower People

I want to know if you have those days, weeks or months where you retreat in order to retrieve your energy or an answer?

When things or circumstances don’t seem fully manageable?

When renewal is only possible through rest of the mind, soul and body just to gain a bit of strength for the journey ahead?

Yes, I’d like to know.

🌳

Me?

Well, thank you for asking.

I like to talk to the tree people, listen to the flower folks—

they like to talk back.

I like to get real close to their mouths and be still—they talk in whispers, you know.

A camera, too, helps me to translate when the light is just right.

They get into my heart and do all their best work there.

                         🥀

I apologize,

I may not say much to you because I’m too busy listening.

Talk can be cheap on these days—

when all I can think about is how I’d rather open my heart,

fling my arms toward the sky and be ready for any bright word that might come my way.

🌱

S. Wolfington

August 14, 2018
by DearMiracle 2 Comments

Being Human

“Wholeness does not mean perfection. It means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life.”

– Parker J. Palmer –

Being human…is not easy.

It’s messy, and its

imperfection is a virtue of living in this body.

It means we are here for the human experience

in every imaginable facet, in all its

anguish and glory. Yet not necessarily

all at once, although it can feel like it sometimes.

Quit trying to airbrush your imperfections away.

—they keep you real and learning.

They have the ability to heal your soul and ground your body.

Forgive yourself. Embrace what hurts—be infinitely kind to it

while you wait for healing.

As often as possible, be in the feral world of nature where nothing

pretends to be anything other than what it is—broken or beautiful.

Unfurl your life, bent wings and everything.

Learn to inhabit yourself—dig your toes into the soil now

and then as a reminder you are part of it.

You are already gorgeous with your shriveled petals, your funny ways,

your insecurities, and your

crazy ideas that just might save the world.

S. Wolfington

June 27, 2017
by DearMiracle 4 Comments

Dying Seasons

Something I wrote a few years back. This life all around me faithful to provide carefully positioned sentinels that stand at the gate against any misery that would seek to make a permanent address inside me–a reminder of where my true north lies, a pointer home saying “This way to your heart”.

Driving down the street the other day,

I detected that fall had had her way—

and under freshly shorn trees were luminous

yellow-gold pools where sunshine had accumulated

—a riotous cornucopia of puddled sunshine in

brief reprieve between darkening days,

like some kind of joy

suddenly rising up to greet me in the dying leaves.

It left me happy for days.

My life has it dying seasons, as well.

Yet the art of dying often leaves me wanting,

absent without poise or polish.

futile attempts made at scooping up decay

of that which needs to die, staring, bare

limbed, at loss, shivering in the wind.

If there is joy-filled reprieve, I often fail to notice it.

This letting go business—I’m not as graceful

as the golden dying leaves.

But what I’m counting on is that spring

always comes and old attitudes, beliefs and judgments

about how life is supposed to be

serve as perfect compost for my re-creation.

S. Wolfington

April 8, 2017
by DearMiracle 5 Comments

Before You Can Fly

Just as the caterpillar thought the world was ending, it became a butterfly.

Before becoming a butterfly–you have to let life bury you inside its chrysalis.

You have to turn into mushy goo. You have to lose all resemblance to your former self.

You have to get uncomfortable. You have to let go of old ways. You have to learn a whole new way of being yourself.

Not everyone is willing.

Yet the secret is that the earth needs caterpillars as much as butterflies! And caterpillars aspiring towards butterflyhood…

…and all the things you might not think it needs for reasons you probably can’t begin to imagine.

The earth looks vastly different from the ground than the air. And we need the ground and air both the same.

So if you’ve made it to butterfly stage, keep talking anyway. You survived this far when you didn’t think you were going to make it.

Keep talking love to the world. Say how it is from up there, from the trees and bright blue of the day. Some will get it, some won’t. Either way, it’s okay.

You never know who might be listening.

-S. Wolfington

May 16, 2016
by DearMiracle 6 Comments

If You Can Wait

It’s enough, a place to begin

to wait for a single drop or bead of rain

to fall on the hole you’ve climbed in.

A single drop that waters the single word

that strikes the chord that plays just right,

that grows into a bud, a tiny shoot, a spark of hope.

If you can wait long enough.

A day will do, then becomes two and three,

a week, a month, a year of unexpected alteration,

offerings falling from ominous clouds

straight into your heart.

And what went down, now goes up—

it’s the natural law of things.

The blackness of pain, as you will learn,

drop by drop from day to day,

will serve to increase your capacity for joy,

stretch your boundaries,

which can often hurt as you know,

then break the cords that hold too tight

your beautiful and sacred life,

if you can wait

just a day or more.

If you give yourself permission to fall,

say it’s okay to be held while you go down,

go easy on yourself,

there will be stronger arms than yours right now

to catch you while you fall.

And then

there will be that day,

though I can’t say exactly when,

you will rise and rise from your black loamy bed

born in sorrow and blood

and know you were glad you stayed

and waited for rain.

April 13, 2016
by DearMiracle Leave a comment

A Broken Hallelujah

For all the things that make up a life,

that run a universe or that collide in hearts or stars,

in the unbearable witness of great human suffering,

or in the joy of unexpected offering,

the mercy that comes from a stranger or friend,

on this the whole world spins.

In birth and death, when something dies to allow something in,

in all the living stretched between,

in gratitude or grief

that in a moment can metamorphose from one to the other

and back again,

in a heap of tears falling to the ground,

in the bitter-sweetness of most everything,

in the simple pleasure of being here

a broken hallelujah all.

In clarity or confusion, this one thing I know,

that without brokenness,

there could never be a true hallelujah at all.

February 18, 2015
by DearMiracle 1 Comment

The Way of Angels

I am a river sluicing past canyon walls,

splashing at the bends before

settling down again.

Little whitecaps belie the deep undertow

of quiet and knowing repose

rushing through my belly below.

And following a predestined path set before

over a million years and more,

I do not hammer or drive into the stone

at my side—it is with instinctive ease

that I bend and twist and glide.

I have no need to resist what lies ahead

as I wash on by.

Let the howling winds chip away the stone,

let the rain drive a wider channel—

I am going the way of angels.

July 20, 2014
by DearMiracle Leave a comment

Enough

There is space for everything.

Indeed.

For this unmade bed, for dishes in the sink,

for the need to sit here and gather dust

against unfinished chores.

Space enough for not knowing or why

after you’ve counted it out, things transform.

There is space enough, in abundance, in spades,

in dark and light and intense pain, in doubling-over laughter,

or the beggar on the corner, in the taking of a life

or the birthing of a child, in unending grief.

In the giving of compassion, in the restoration of

what wounds or is wounded, between any equation,

there is space enough.

Inside the life of everything,

on this lesser planet spinning on a wheel of stars,

in the unfathomable blackness of matter or hearts,

in galaxies that collide to craft a larger whole or

exploding supernovas in the shape of a womb,

there’s space for dying so that something might be born.

Messy, glorious life—it’s enough.

The whole of everything—a luscious trailing vine, keeps on

into blackened holes, over walls, snaking along

impenitent ground, finding its way in the order of things,

becoming and dying all at once.

No matter what in any mind, it’s enough.

March 27, 2014
by DearMiracle 9 Comments

Letting the Genie Out of the Bottle

While having a soak in the tub this morning listening to a podcast with Desmond Tutu and Krista Tippet on her program, On Being, on NPR Radio–I listened in as Desmond Tutu wondered in sadness at the many angry, vocal Christians, who side-by-side with their fear mongering brothers-in-arms, seem presently possessed by a kind of mad ideology these days. He observed that having strayed so far from their original call to love “even the least of these”, they now appear to be singularly focused on the sexual orientation of others while at the same time painting “the least of these” with the brush of “not quite human”.

To be fair, however, I will add there is a silent majority of caring and compassionate individuals who do practice their faith in accordance with the original tenets of their faith. I am not talking about them.

The world is changing quickly. This we know. It is natural to resist change, to step outside the safety of our comfort zones. This is also known. Yet I cannot help but believe these same angry individuals act and believe as they do out of a deep fear of “the other”, those whom they perceive as different from themselves. Obviously, someone has to be at fault for the troubled world they see reflected back at them. Someone has to take the blame for the mess they think they are in. The fact is, the genie is out of the bottle, and they are working feverishly to stuff her back into that bottle. Their once secure landscape has changed, and they want it back.

Happily though, for many, the genie will never crawl back into her bottle. She has awoken from a long sleep and isn’t about to let anyone put her back in her place. She is finding her voice after being silenced for so long, and has she got a story to tell! The planet over, the genie is out. The time of secret holding and power mongering is being outed. Life everywhere is outing itself on streets and in homes in every nation, resisting the old ways of power gobbling systems that ultimately kill and keep people in shackles. People are talking to one another the world over, telling their stories, rising up, bringing in something new–a new way of showing up in the world, taking their power and dignity back along with their ability to think and decide for themselves what their lives should look like.

No one knows yet exactly what it will look like. We are making it up as we go. For sure, everything is made up in this life by someone or a committee of someones.

So while one system is being born, another is dying at the same time. It is most true that in order for something to live, something else has to die. This is the way of life, the natural order of how it is–but I’ll save that for another blog entry. Presently, chaos is at the helm while the adherents of fear in last stand attempt to stamp out anything they don’t yet understand.

Yet forces bigger than all of us–Life itself, is reworking itself into a higher order, and chaos is absolutely necessary at the same time while something else is arising, while the old system dies–and it will die. Here’s the thing–they might win some skirmishes, but eventually they will lose the war. A critical mass has been formed, and there is no stopping it now. And maybe, just maybe some of these same frightened individuals will discover love for the first time in the process with the realization you can’t authentically fix anything with hate, even if you believe God gave you license.

No matter how it looks, in the beginning, middle and end, love always has her way.

February 17, 2014
by DearMiracle 1 Comment

Talking to the Rocks in My Head

Some years back, I attended a “Shamanism 101” weekend workshop. Among several things I learned was how to read a rock. Crazy, huh? That’s what I thought, too. Not having tried it since, I was curious to find out if it’s just the rocks talking in my head or if it’s for real, and so I have decided to have another go at sharpening my rock reading skills. From my garden, I’ve selected a quite ordinary, nondescript looking rock. (It’s the one in the center of the picture with the burnt-out eye sockets.) Sitting it on the table, I begin to examine its rugged exterior. Going so far as to get my magnifying glass out, squinty-eyed, I peer studiously at this triangular shaped rock. Hmm…what is this? Shapes start to form upon the rock. Am I seeing things? Have I officially lost it entirely? I laugh at what my family would think if they could see me now.

It’s as if there is a kind of alchemical force at work in this rock as it begins to shape shift right in front of me. Here buried into its craggy, triangular shaped face is a burnt out looking eye—could this be a kind of scorched All Seeing Eye from too much light pouring through? Now aligning in a place next to the first eye is another eye forming. Between there’s a hump nose, and below an inverted V shaped mouth. I can see there’s no easily winning over the affections of this rock as it seemingly studies me in return. Could there be some semblance of personality in this little craggy curmudgeon?

Ah, now redeeming itself, I see “two” cat heads with whiskers, no less, on the one side of its head; a tree on the top side; a kind of earth on the underside. Feminine wisdom, it says to me; there’s the masculine, too, yin and yang balancing in the number two. Could it be there is a need for more balance in my life? This unassuming and down-to-earth rock certainly has quite a bit to say.

Feeling silly, but after a bit, I think I’m forming a relationship with this rock—this rock that is born of great struggle from the Mother Earth herself. Disconcertingly, I also begin to feel as if I’m being scrutinized by the All Seeing Eye looking back at me. I look again—it’s been a long journey from where it began. There are gouges and scrapes dug deep in its skin; there is the complementary feminine and masculine energy and the tree of life as it reaches toward its divinity. There are roots and rocks, death and rebirth, and flecks of crystal like tiny stars that hint brightly of heaven buried inside.

Fitting so neatly in the palm of my hand, this crazy little rock must have a great many stories to tell. It’s weighty and in a moment, grounds me, ties me to the earth, then floats me to the stars. What has it seen? What does it know in its density? In geologic time, how old might it be? Born from erupting, spewing volcanoes from earth below, their red hot magma in long rivers cooling into wide corridors of land, shaped and shifted by ferocious winds, massive floods and so many cataclysmic things over millions of years? Full of gouges and scrapes, it’s been a long journey here to my hand.

In some crazy metaphorical sense, I see it kind of like my life. What wisdom or healing would surface while I in stillness sit? At what point would the primal soup of remembering my own divinity come forth? Gazing in gratitude at the miracle of my own midnight stars, might I find my heart giving up secrets of its own? Traveling past soil and skin, what discovery would I make about myself that is surprising or beautiful?

What privilege this life, this body and soul born of earth and stars, rooted deep in rock, infinite ray of light traveling far to be here now; this holy moment looking deep into this rock, looking into me, both so full of mystery, revealing the truth of my heart. Mystical and mysterious, question and answer, a cosmos of unfathomable nebulae of many colors, the DNA of the universe imprinted upon every particle that we are. A body formed, spit out from volcanoes, storm tossed on to many shores, the sun’s light encased in our cells. In time, I’m as old as this rock. Outside of time, I’ve no beginning or end. Amazing, this being-ness without end and what rock can teach you…when you listen.

February 1, 2014
by DearMiracle 2 Comments

Dream On

She needed dream time. Life had felt like a whip at her back. Death had left its calling card—again and again, more than she cared to recall; and she was tired now, thought she might lie down though there was still a great deal more to do, even with the business of death being cleaned up.

She wasn’t sure if she should wade out into the water where everything was—a sea of possibility, laughter, work and friends. Was she ready to take her dreams and leave the shore of reasons why not? No, she was not, but who is? Sleep called her out quite a bit, and she didn’t know if that was just an excuse to stop or if she merely needed catching up, but giving into dreaming seemed good.

And honestly, who can sleep forever when dreams are burning holes in your head?

Dreams were in order then—a reordering of her days, a visioning, a new place to begin. There was something so right in this, so elemental when you break it down by task: Sleep well, eat whole foods, and walk a lot. Be good to herself, draw it out, breathe, draw it back in, connect with the ground, and write it all down. Say yes when one means yes; and know that saying “no” is not a dangling thread or frayed edge.

Dream on then. There’s time enough for it all in what would come; it was exactly perfect in its imperfection, she thought, while wading in.

January 20, 2014
by DearMiracle 3 Comments

Pura Vida!

Slicing open a lemon this morning, squeezing out all its sour essence, like I do every other morning, I felt myself suddenly overcome with gratitude. This simple small act of slipping the sharpened knife past the dimpled yellow skin of this brightly colored, tart flavored little fruit—feeling the sun’s warmth streaming through the window on my back, I give thanks. I give thanks for the earth, the sun and the rain that nourished the tree that it grew upon—from small bud to flower to this lovely little fruit that sits on my counter now in front of me, that has shown up to support and sustain my health and wellbeing. Grateful, I offer up a blessing of thank you again as I down the juice in a glass of sparkling filtered water.

It came to me how I too often forget to say thank you for so many simple things and how, conversely, I find myself grumbling and grousing over my long lists of overwhelm, things I need to accomplish. Life is so simple when we allow it to be so. I am working on remembering in all things that life can be so beautifully and elegantly simple, that I don’t have to complicate it in every minute by stressing out over what I don’t have or what remains to be done. I want to be done with the complaining of it all. Instead I want to celebrate my life, this gift given to me every single day I wake up. These little acts of self-care and gratitude say I value my life, bring me unexpected joy in the most difficult of circumstances and keep me resilient and moving forward.

I am reminded of the term “Pura Vida”. When visiting Costa Rica, a country that I hope to travel to one day very soon, I have heard many remark upon their return how the custom is to say at every opportunity, “Pura Vida!” No matter what is happening, “Pura Vida!” When exiting a cab, when paying for groceries or when sipping coffee or chatting with friends, people will call out “Pura Vida!” Rain leaking through the roof? Pura Vida! Flat tire? Pura Vida! Not enough money or food? Pura Vida!

In Costa Rica, Pura vida is less a motto and more a way of life. It is an expression of happiness and moving on no matter the flat tire or the spilled milk. It is good to remember that monotonous complaining is a waste of time and there are many among us who are far less fortunate. If we are here and healthy, and there are many ways to be healthy, then we can also remember that life is good and that we are exactly where we need to be no matter what it looks like from the outside.

March 8, 2013
by DearMiracle 8 Comments

Woman Who Waits

Last night, I was held captive,

a kitchen slave tied to the galley amidst

formal rooms upon rooms between floors

upon floors,

half dead among pots and pans

cooking for some nameless man who

ignored me in his big house.

For years I disappeared—search party had given up

until a young girl found me, took me by the hand

and led me out.

Last night I was a rich lady putting on airs

at Neiman Marcus, hair

covered in swathes of

white fabric that showed my pedigree,

customary for well-to-do ladies like myself—

that is, in dreams.

That is, until I looked in the mirror and saw

the disheveled smeared made up face, the aging lines,

panicked I would be seen and

scouring floor to floor for makeup counters that would save me.

This was my dream.

Messages from the underworld of my soul—

pay attention, please!

Not washer woman, not rich woman,

but woman in first light’s chill scrambling

up slick footed moss covered knolls

to revel in maiden recital of dew coated starlings and sparrows.

Woman rapt with awe in amazement’s cloak—

slack jawed, eye struck watching

as sun climbs by slivers

just past mountain’s top.

A woman witness to riotous revelry heralding

birth of first light—all of nature lifting its head to sing in

intemperate praise!

Not this—slave, drudge or drone of days, I am free!

Not this—above or below, but equal to the breadth and width of my days.

I am this—woman who waits,

if there is a way,

to translate on to page such thinly skinned sacred splendor,

my soul eager, breath-held in rapture as I wait.

Toes dug in mud, stars and soul tangled together, I wait.

Exultant life in sun and starlings and first morning’s light

coursing through my veins,

its blood

bleeding on to page.

January 20, 2013
by DearMiracle 5 Comments

The Ten Thousand Things Appearing–It’s Just Life!

Apparently, I am having an interesting life between lives lately. The time between sleep and not fully awake has taken on a life of its own.

Stuff I need to know, I suppose, shows up, talks to me. It’s like I’m in school again sitting at my desk, taking notes, listening. White sheets of paper waft down from some other realm with questions on them. Is this a test? Am I imagining? I hear distinct words in my ear. I see things I wasn’t trying to see. And it takes me by surprise when I was just trying to get in a few more winks before stumbling out of my bed. In those moments, I suddenly get it—it’s an aha or eureka moment where truths become more tangible for me rather than just reading written words on a page.

Maybe these little visitations are showing up in the early hours because I am too thick or opaque in my waking hours while fifty other things muddle through my head; or where there is the risk of poor message recall in my dreams while I play telephone trying to decipher. These understandings, visions and voices are never predictable, but surprising when they do show up.

This morning I was in the classroom again. Today’s lesson presented itself before me as I understood the truth of real self, who and what it represents, and who I am in my most intrinsic being-ness. The ocean appeared, as it were, on the chalkboard, vast, watery and unfathomably deep, and I understood it as metaphor of that which I am where stillness is, where nothing is disturbed–I Am That, while above waves are crashing and black storms cracking. There were a tsunamis rolling across the horizon towards land and life as it was known would be no more. I was not this. I understood in this that the waves, the storm, the spaces in-between—the lulling calm intersecting the waves, and the tsunamis were my life—but they were not me even when I believed they were. I was the one underneath it all watching, observant, aware, quiet. Yet there was complete permission in the experience of the storms and waves. I saw it was okay, the emotional life of my life, its pain, its joys, its numbing, frozen places, the spaces in-between, the everything that was happening. It’s just my life, that I don’t have to fight it all, for whom I am beneath the storm remains undisturbed, holds space for it all. It doesn’t mean I’m less or more than based upon what is happening on topside of my days.

Then another thing arose on the horizon of my listening and seeing, the words, “Your thoughts activate the earth.” I realized deeper I am not my thoughts either, but they hold sway over my world as to what appears or shows up in it. My thoughts like waves that come and go, certain habituated thoughts that create patterns and grooves in my life, in the lives of those around me.

I suspect we are more powerful than we know. That our collective thought patterns when amassed over time and space hold sway as to planetary events, weather patterns, global and earth changes. Maybe the tsunamis that we create with our minds or the literal or metaphoric events that befall our lives are necessary in order to clear the deck for bigger changes to come as a kind of answer to our struggle with letting go of our outmoded, no longer useful patterns in thinking. Otherwise, our lives become stagnated and even stinking.

Our lives like waves that rise up, then fall, rise up again and the cycle goes on, all the happy and sad, the tragic, the comedy, the spaces between our birth and dying. Yet we are not the ten thousand things appearing. It’s just our life showing up.

Now the question is how to use this sacred and powerful life that’s been gifted us for the betterment of ourselves, our neighbors and the world? How do we activate our life on this earth and become a force for good by allowing the undisturbed self we really are to influence the life we are living?

January 18, 2013
by DearMiracle 3 Comments

Dear Miracle

This week, having been a little unsettling, I accept myself in whatever state I am in–doubt, sadness, joy, pain, bliss, I’ve run the gamut. There is room for everything. I am perfectly imperfect. I’m going with that.

This week, I accept that words have eluded me as I have struggled with my imperfect attempts to be brilliant here. After much effort of starting, stopping, stilting, nothing until stop–I’ve felt like a too hard eraser that stubs across and rips at the page. I offer this instead, a poem in honor of this sacred life and being–